Chapter Text
I know before he does. Which I should: he, it, is a lumbering piece of metal that’s shaped like a man. I’m the result of hard-sifted genes, world class training, and the best education you can suffer without going soft.
The first time it’s when I’m working with them, doing an intelligence exchange. It’s Prowl and another one, bright red and orange and brash all over. Prowl does the actual talking and then the other postures. I realise that this is the one who rescued Prowl, last time I had him parked, and that explains the bravado. He thinks he’s got something over me, even now we’re ‘allies’.
It's not worth thinking about. I smile and turn to go, flicking the door of my car open and when I do I catch—
Something in Prowl’s face changes. There’s a hollow sort of space where his suspicion normally is. He’s looking at my hands as they hold the door. And I’ve not spent long around Cybertronians, but I know people. I know cars too. Sometimes one’s just begging for a ride.
In fairness to him, it takes another two days. I’m leaving another meeting, off the books again, again held in a rust-smelling hangar, and I’m thinking about how dad didn’t make the army to hide in the shadows. These creatures are making a fool of us with all this subterfuge.
And then I realise I’m not alone. There’s a shape, sitting, parked, in the shadows where the road curves away.
I’ve got my own ride— a motorbike, small enough that even if it was one of them I could take it—waiting for me, and I consider ignoring my stalker. But then the light catches the shape of his lights: the ones on top. Red and blue. Police lights.
And I have to fight to keep myself from smiling.
He knows when I start walking toward him. I hear the sound of his engine start, fast, then it slowly winds down, and there’s something almost… embarrassed in it. He was going to run and he decided not to.
“Prowl,” I say, knowing that he can see me without his eyes showing, that he can hear me even though he doesn’t have ears. It’s something to remember: these creatures are so far from human. “Here to pick up Optimus?”
As I say it I know that he can see the Prime driving away in the opposite direction. He knows I know, that I’m mocking him. His desperation. His… eagerness.
His voice comes out louder than he wants, awkwardly blaring at first. He adjusts it mid sentence, “I thought—I thought there might be a Decepticon presence.”
“So you’re here to observe? Didn’t peg Prime for paranoid.”
“Not for Prime. But there have been reports—strange behaviour on the roads nearby.”
It’s a lie. Or I damn well hope it’s a lie, since Prime didn’t mention it. But then— even though Prowl’s not a man, his voice flinches when he’s lying like a man’s would. So, fine.
“Nice to see you,” and I turn to go back to my bike. As I go I touch the top of his roof, and we’re both thinking about how I held the door of the car I’d driven at our last meeting. Prowl’s warm; the metal they’re made of feels almost like it’s not alien. I let him feel it.
There’s a question at the edge of all of this: what do I want from it? I’m a flesh-and-red-blooded man, I’m not interested in robots, and even if I was, even if he wasn’t by whatever measure a ‘he’, Prowl would be at the bottom of the list.
It’s power. Obviously. This creature could smash me to pieces. But I can make him an object, and that feels good.
“I could—,” I feel the metal twitch, I remove my hand and wait, “I could—take you home. If there are Decepticons in the area— well, you’re an ally. Optimus wants you protected.”
I let him sit in the awkwardness he’s created. Then, slowly, I shake my head.
“No offense, Prowl, but I don’t have a driver for a reason. Any car I’m in, I’m steering. And I know you guys don’t like that.”
There it is. How low is he willing to go for this? How far can I push him before his self-respect pushes back?
Turns out, much further.
“You can drive,” he says, too quickly, showing his entire gigantic hand, and then he tries to salvage his ego, “If you need to.”
I decide to let him keep this little layer of pretence for now.
So I open his door. Slowly. I sit down, his chair’s comfortable for a cop car—not that he’s really that. Leather. I hear him make a noise as I settle, and then I reach for the keys.
“Ah,” and his engine starts, almost apologetically, “No keys.”
“Hmm,” I don’t like that. A car ought to be locked, till it’s in use. If this situation were to happen again—but that’s unlikely.
“That other one, Breakdown,” I say, voice low as I take him out of park, “he wasn’t so… obvious. But I’m guessing you like looking like you’re police. Looking like you’ve got some power here. Must be nice, since the Prime keeps you all so… tightly leashed.”
Prowl makes a noise and I can tell that he’s about to talk, but luckily enough we’re turning onto the main road. I spin his steering wheel harder than I need to, let the tyres grind on the tarmac. I think I feel him wince.
“You handle better than him. Easy. Precise.” and I smile to myself. “Good on tight corners.”
I speed him up. The feeling of the acceleration through the pedal’s like a heartbeat. Faster, faster. I see the speed climb to 80, 90, past it. Good thing about being a cop car is that there’s nobody to give me a ticket, but when we turn our next corner I realise that’s not really true. Prowl’s voice is clipped, nervous.
“We’re approaching a residential area. It’s not—”
I answer by pushing the pedal down hard, forcing the metal to click. He fights it, but just for a second. Then we’re sailing on.
“You haven’t let anyone do this before,” I say, not asking. “But you know what, Prowl? You’re made for it. But Prowl—cars don’t talk.”
He doesn’t answer. He’s learning.
So as a treat, I take us home the long way, driving through the sunset and into the night, all dust and rocks getting under his hood. Grit in his wheels. Sometimes I hear something, but it’s never words. Grunts. A pained hiss.
By the time I finally pull us in beside my house, he’s dirty. Scratched up down one side where I ‘accidentally’ cut too close to a wall. There’s even a chip in his windscreen. I’d gone faster than I’d had to on some gravel.
And Prowl had just taken it all.
As I get out, I let my hand linger on his roof. I slam his door and lean down to the window. I smile.
“That wasn’t bad,” I say, drumming my fingers on the handle, “for me. But you—I think you liked it.”
“It was—it—,” but he can’t find the words. He’s just a car.
“I need to get to the Pentagon tomorrow. Half two,” and that’s all I’ll give him. He understands, I can tell from the way his tyres grind the pavement. But… no, I won’t make him beg, not yet.
I straighten up and he pulls away without finishing his sentence. I notice that despite the dark night, he’s forgotten to turn on his lights.
He should be more careful.