AN: Flatline's PoV! The line I have him say in the first part about what he thinks of humans is almost a direct quote from something he says in one of the comics, btw.

"Hello," a voice roused Flatline from his recharge, and when he scanned his surroundings he became aware of an organic creature standing just a few feet in front of his grille. A human, which he would normally ignore, but for some reason Ravage and Barricade had labeled this one as theirs. "You must be Flatline! I'm Miles, it's nice to meet you."

Flatline had landed on Earth a year after Mission City, and had come to dislike the inhabitants over his nine years there. Like most of his fellow Decepticons, he had decided to lie low and pretend to be various human vehicles to blend in and not be questioned. His latest form was that of a hearse, and it amused him how uneasy some humans became just from his presence because of it.

Not long ago, Ravage had contacted him and he had followed her directions to this place. He'd had just long enough to examine her and begin a treatment plan of how to properly repair her when he'd been sent off and told to wait until he got the word to come back. She'd made a specific request of him that would be incredibly hard to achieve with what was available to him, and he'd tired himself out trying to figure out how to give her what she wanted.

When he was told to come back, he was ordered to park in the backyard so the neighboring humans would stop 'freaking out', according to Barricade. Just why Ravage and Barricade had made this place their base of operations was yet to be seen, but Flatline knew better than to question it.

Flatline wasn't thrilled to be at Miles' house, but one did not refuse Ravage's call. She was a mech that had much at her disposal, be it information or an indomitable will to make things go how she wanted, and Flatline did not wish to end up on her bad side. Even if that meant he had to play nice with this human in front of him.

And speaking of the human in front of him, he was just standing there. Waiting. Flatline considered the best way to get rid of him.

"I believe I should let you know now that I have no intention of becoming friends with you," Flatline informed him succinctly.

"Oh," Miles seemed a little taken aback, but it was only for a moment. He smiled, "That's fine, ma—mech. Just don't let Ravage hear that. From what I've gathered, you're gonna be staying here for a bit, and I don't want her to send you off just because we don't like each other." Then Miles appeared to think about what he said, "Oh, actually, she's probably more likely to take it out on you, huh? Yeah, definitely better not to say anything, so your stay here isn't terrible. She was a little cruel to Barricade when he first came."

Flatline found himself nonplussed now. Miles doled information out easily and seemed ignorant of the fact that he probably shouldn't do so. He had hoped to ward the human off, but Miles seemed accepting of the fact that he was uninterested in his companionship. Even worse, he was giving him a warning that Ravage would take offense to it, which was almost kind of him.

"It's not you," Flatline felt the need to say. He didn't actually want to hurt Miles' feelings, after all, and the human was right in saying that Ravage wouldn't like it if he couldn't play nice with the organic. "I don't like humans in general."

Miles tilted his head a bit, "Can I ask why? M'not gonna try and convince you otherwise, but if it's something like we're weirdly squishy and you don't like how we feel then I'll make sure to avoid touching you."

Flatline almost laughed at that. Almost. He refused to let himself, though. Miles might have been one of the better humans, at least as far as Ravage and Barricade were concerned, but Flatline had yet to see that himself.

"Humans are intrinsically violent creatures," Flatline said. "Perhaps it's due to your short lifespans, but I can't say for sure as I've not had ample time to study your kind. You have little regard for the place you live and one day you'll kill it just as easily as you kill each other."

"Right," Miles nodded to himself, "Polite niceties it is, got it."

And then he left, Flatline watching after him and feeling a bit confused. He would have expected Miles to argue with his view on him and the others of his kind, or to even get as violent as he believed them all to be. Miles did none of those things. Perhaps he was an aberration of some sort.

True to his word, Miles didn't bother Flatline very much. Flatline made it easier by keeping to himself as much as possible, something Ravage seemed to like but Barricade was irritated by. In the end, it didn't matter. Once he was done fixing Ravage, Flatline knew he would be sent on his way.

Ravage's leg was an easy fix. He had some spare parts from a fallen comrade that could easily be repurposed for it, and it would take less than an hour to make her as good as new in that regard. The hard part would be her request: she wanted a vocal synthesizer.

Not only was Ravage a cold construct, but she was also a beast mech. Whoever had built her had most likely seen it as a waste of materials to provide her with a voice of her own. She could communicate through comms like any mech, but where many fine tuned their comms to sound like the voices they chose for themselves, Ravage was left with the default comm module.

It wasn't that hard to make a vocal synthesizer, even if he had to use human materials to do so. The hardest part would be figuring out how to wire it into Ravage's existing hardware without causing any issues or removing anything she had. Then he would just have to hope that her processor was able to create the necessary pathways on its own to use it, because if it wasn't then he would be looking at something far more difficult to deal with if she pressed the issue.

If this was something she had wanted before coming to Earth, Flatline wouldn't pretend to know. He had never associated with her or Soundwave outside of the few times he had repaired them, and he had preferred it that way. He knew he wasn't well liked among his faction because of how he had stuck by the Medic Code of Ethics, and he had kept his helm down as much as possible to avoid coming under fire.

It was odd, though. He kept getting these little glimpses into the life that Ravage and Barricade had decided to build for themselves here, and he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with them.

"It's movie night."

Flatline looked up from the metal he had been cutting to see Barricade crouched at the entrance of Miles' garage.

"Join us," Barricade said.

It was a terrible invitation, but it wasn't an order. Flatline considered turning him down, but he had to admit that he was slightly curious. He had yet to be in Miles' house, and had never bothered to watch any human entertainment.

"Ravage won't mind?" Flatline checked.

"No," Barricade confirmed. "Even if you were ready for her right now she would put it off for tomorrow, since it's family bonding night."

Flatline decided not to ask about the family bit. He was privately starting to think that Barricade and Ravage had lost the plot, but he knew better than to say as much. He took a step back from his makeshift workbench, the back of Miles' truck, and shifted down into his alt mode before bringing out his holoform.

He followed Barricade into the house and was given the honor of picking a film. He ended up choosing one from a list of popular films called 'The Grudge'. Miles apparently didn't do well with horror stuff, and Ravage thoroughly enjoyed every terrified reaction he gave.

Flatline had to admit that it was a little cute how Miles clung to her and hid his face against the metal of her back. It was also amusing to listen to Barricade complain about the freaky way the spirit contorted itself.

After that, Barricade kept inviting Flatline inside around the same time of night for 'bonding activities'. It confused him to no end, but he rarely said no. Ravage even seemed pleased to see him the third time he showed, and actually engaged him in conversation.

Vorns in the Decepticon army had not prepared him for this. He knew some of his fellow mechs had been friends and hung out, but he had never been invited nor had he tried to be. It had seemed best to stay to himself, and now he could see he'd been missing out.

Then again, this whole thing was unprecedented. Barricade had shown him how Miles had accepted Ravage and himself, but he still wasn't sure what had endeared them all to each other. Miles may have been one of the better humans, but there was nothing special about him, and Flatline couldn't figure out how Ravage and Barricade had become friends when they had never seemed to interact much at all before Earth.

It took him longer than he wanted to admit to realize they were sleeping together at night. He hadn't been completely surprised to find out that Ravage was sharing Miles' bed, but that Barricade went out of his way to keep a holoform going throughout the night just to do the same was still a little baffling.

Nothing made sense anymore. It was almost like Ravage and Barricade had given up fighting against the Autobots and decided to just make a life for themselves with a human of all things. Flatline wasn't sure what he should think about it all.

"I think we should talk."

Flatline was so startled by Miles' sudden appearance that he nearly ripped out the wire he had just carefully attached to the still in progress vocal synthesizer. He turned around to see Miles standing in the open garage doorway, and when he did a default scan he realized that Ravage and Barricade had left the premises.

They were alone. Flatline had been so focused on his work that he had never realized that Barricade and Ravage had left, but Miles obviously had.

"About?" Flatline questioned carefully, pushing his work away from him before he could actually damage it.

"I figured out why you don't like humans," Miles said.

Flatline stared at him, "That mustn't have been very hard considering I told you why."

"Sure, you gave me some stupid reasoning." Miles came further into the garage, ignoring the offended sputter that Flatline couldn't hold back at his sheer audacity. "But it just didn't seem to track! You played friendly well enough, and you didn't refuse any of the times Barricade tried to drag you in, so I figured it couldn't have been that simple. So I thought about it some more, and I figured we could hash it out now so things wouldn't continue to be so awkward between us. I just had to wait until Rav and Barricade were gone so we could have this talk in private."

"Alright, then, organic." Flatline decided to entertain Miles, "Why do you think I dislike humans?"

"It's because we remind you of Cybertronians."

"That's not—" Flatline went to deny, but he cut himself off as the realization sunk in.

What was it he had said when he told Miles why he didn't like humans? That they were intrinsically violent creatures that had little regard for the place they lived, and the exact same could be said about Cybertronians. He had never put much thought into the why before this, but now it seemed almost glaringly obvious that every issue he had with humans was an issue he had with Cybertronians.

"You're right," Flatline acknowledged. "Allow me a minute while I reconsider my evaluation of humans without letting anything cloud my judgment."

"Just a minute?" Miles sounded amused, but Flatline ignored him while he thought.

After almost two minutes, Flatline turned his attention back to Miles. "I still believe that humans are all too eager to resort to violence, but your species as a whole is still young and learning how to exist. There are many who push for peace just as loudly as violence. I did not allow myself to give humans a fair chance, and I will do that from now on."

"Dope!"

Flatline almost took his decision back right then and there. Even after taking the time to rethink his stance on humans, he still wasn't able to decide where to rank Miles among them. The man was just far too weird.