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tech-luver · 3 months ago

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The option “You accidentally kidnap a mech” won my 100 followers poll! Here’s a thank-you fic with that theme! Thank you to everyone for the warm welcome. ❤️

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You gunned it down the tiny backroad, enjoying the roar of the powerful engine while fumbling with the dashboard. You finally flipped the right thing, because the deafening wail of a siren accompanied the flashing blue and red of the roof-mounted lights. If you were going to jail tonight, you might as well have fun while you could.

In your defense, you hadn’t really meant to … well, no, actually, you didn’t really have a defense for stealing a cop car. You had meant to. You just really fucking hated the local cops, and were hoping this little stunt would fuck them over hard enough, that they might actually face some consequences. Probably not, but things had finally come to a head, and somebody had to do something.

You wouldn’t call yourself brave. It was just, you could never stand by and let people be mistreated. You’d always been the one to step up to the plate, take care of others, take the risk. This time, there was a very high chance you’d also be taking the fall.

It was easy to hate the local cops when there were only three of them in your tiny village, and all of them were absolute twats. You’d gone to school with them, and now that you were all adults, they’d traded in their unofficial title of bullies, for that of officially licensed, badge-carrying assholes.

Brandon, Ezekiel, and Krystal had gone to basic law enforcement training out of high school, come out of it with guns and an attitude, and promptly began terrorizing anyone they didn’t like. “Anyone they didn’t like” was an alarmingly broad category. If anything, they seemed to have come back from training with more swagger and authoritarian attitude than they’d left with.

People complained, of course. About the illegal searches. The random stops. The intimidation. But who around here had money for a lawyer? Was the governor going to step in? Your little town was a stoplight and a railroad track. You were all poor and, everyone assumed, stupid as a sack of rocks. Nobody cared.

…But they’d made the mistake tonight of harassing your best friend. Tears of fury and frustration stung your eyes, even now. It had all been made up, escalated because the cops were bored. Your friend hadn’t let them violate her rights in silence. And they’d turned it into some bullshit charge of resisting arrest. You’ll never forget the look on her face as Ezekiel shoved her into the back of his ugly-ass Dodge Charger. It was exactly the same as the other two, and where one went, the others followed. They were like a pack of starving coyotes, set loose to feast.

The ancient police chief, perpetually a few months from retirement, was no help. He was usually either asleep in his office, or asleep in his equally ancient patrol car, or asleep in the local greasy spoon. Nevertheless, you had sought him out. You’d found him snoring at his usual booth at the cafe. You’d stared at him through the window for a minute, lost in the gloom of twilight.

That was when you’d noticed the door to his old patrol cruiser was open a little.

You found it not only unlocked but with the keys in it, and decided to engage in a little vigilante justice.

The old car was practically a museum piece. The younger cops always begged Chief Blackwood to drive it. It was in shockingly pristine condition. The interior was spotless, the exterior gleamed. The tires looked like something out of a grainy 80s TV show. But the engine…it sang. That old car had to be modded to hell and back. Cruised like fog even on the bumpiest dirt roads.

Gossip was there was no way it was street legal. Though how the fuck the old man had ended up with it, nobody knew. It had been around forever, as much a staple of the town as the graffiti on the park benches and the blinking red light on the old radio tower.

When the young trio asked, Blackwood famously always refused to let them touch the car. Has a mind of its own sometimes, and you young’uns will just wreck her. Leave your damn Cheeto crumbs everywhere.

It would be useful if he’d had the same attitude about literally anything else they did.

But tonight, oh, tonight.

You couldn’t make heads or tails of most of the boxy equipment attached to the dashboard. There weren’t any laptops or dashcams, and the radio looked absolutely ancient. How in the hell the chief even got to keep this thing around was a mystery.

The siren and lights didn’t sound or look anything like a modern cop car. The seats were roomy and sinfully comfortable. The steering wheel huge but somehow incredibly responsive. The shocks must have been the best of their class, because even tackling backroads, you barely felt a bump. Every time you asked for more, for faster, the car gave it to you. And you weren’t entirely sure how, but even though you’d been driving a while, the old gas gauge needle hadn’t budged from F.

You stuffed another bite of flamin’ hot Cheetos in your mouth, letting the empty bag flutter to the seat as crumbs scattered everywhere. Maybe you should wear gloves like this any time you ate them, you reflecting, wiping the dust onto the steering wheel. No fingerprints and no getting your hands dirty.

You were going to drive the chief’s beloved car out to the middle of nowhere, bang it up a little, make it look like one or all three of the dickish cops had gone for a joyride. Then they’d crashed it, and gone slinking back home, afraid to tell their boss what they’d done. It would be found in a few days out by the lake - people boated and fished pretty regularly this time of year, so it would be spotted soon enough.

You pulled in to the lakefront near the old concrete boat launch. Killed the engine. Popped the door with gloved, Red 40-covered hands. Left sitting on the dashboard: the fallen badge Ezekiel had dropped and not picked up when he’d wrestled your best friend into handcuffs.

Fuckers. You stood staring at the car, its black and white coloration making something primal in you flare like a bonfire. Injustice. Cruelty. This perfect paint job was a symbol of everything you’d come to hate. Something that, on the surface, was meant to help people. Twisted by the worst of humanity’s many failings.

There was a series of concrete barriers around the edge of the boat launch. Making sure cars didn’t accidentally back right into the water. You eyed them for a second, and got behind the wheel again. Those things were thick and solid. So was the car you were in. You’d have to build up some speed to really trash the front end. You look back up to the road’s end…yeah. Swerve off there, like an accident, and crunch.

You turn around, giving yourself some space. Make sure your seatbelt is tight - no way is this thing equipped with airbags, and while you’re willing to risk a little whiplash, brain damage isn’t on the docket. At least you don’t have to worry about an alibi - you’ll have people falling over themselves to swear you’d been at their house all night.

Aware you’re doing something incredibly stupid, you tighten your hands on the wheel. Kick the parking brake on. Gun the engine until the dirt and gravel flies. Release the brake. You barely have a second to brace for the crash, the headlights bouncing back brighter brighter brighter against the concrete barriers.

You don’t even feel the collision.

You hear it: a dusty crunch of concrete crumbling. Then darkness shimmering. A lurch, and then a gentle sinking.

It takes you too long to realize what just happened. It takes until the headlights are illuminating the dark lake water, the heavy engine tipping you forward. Until you feel the cold rising around your feet. Until you look around frantically in confusion and find yourself surrounded by darkness.

Oh god oh fuck.

When you react it’s with unthinking panic. You try and force the door open, but it won’t budge when you pit your strength against the water pressure. The cold is up to your hips as you manually roll the window down. It lets in more gushes of water, making you splutter, but it’s a window to freedom, to life, to not dying doing something that in retrospect was not just incredibly stupid, but suicidally reckless.

How had the god damn car gone through those barriers like they were tissue paper?

You struggle with your seat belt. You start screaming when it doesn’t open. You pound your hands on the dashboard, on the wheel, you accidentally gash your hand open on Ezekiel’s fucking badge. You fight with everything you have. It does nothing.

The car must be horribly heavy, because it’s sinking faster and faster. And you thought you’d have more time, you thought -

- you’d only wanted to make things right.

As the water comes up to your neck, the seatbelt holding you in a death grip, you gather every last bit of air in your lungs and let it go.

HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP M-

And you’re under the dark, the cold.

When something stirs around you.

You can’t see, and that makes it all worse. You can’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, but you can hear and feel it. Shifting. Metal on metal. Creaking. Then there’s an enormous jolt and you involuntarily cry out, water rushing into you.

The next moments are lost to time and cold and headlights shining in the dark. A wild, startled whoop of the lights and siren. Burning in your lungs. You’re lifted high, high, above the boat launch above the concrete barriers. You cough up lakewater and breathe in air. It was a warm night, but you feel so cold.

You’re moving. You’re carried out of the water and set down on the sandy beach. Bright lights in your face. Are you dead? You can’t stop coughing, and something huge shifts beyond the lights. Gently tips you onto your side and holds you there. Moves your limbs like a doll’s. But it doesn’t hurt. The whatever it is against your back is steady and, if not soft, at least warm.

I’ve put you in the recovery position, human. Stay there until you get your breath back. Statistics show you have an excellent chance at escaping permanent impairment, given the brief time you were underwater. But I must advise you not to be so careless.

It takes a few minutes for you to be with it again enough to grasp that the voice you’re hearing is one, too far above, two, oddly modulated unlike a human voice, and three…attached to the pair of blue lights just barely visible past the headlights.

They seem to realize they’re blinding you, because in the next moment the headlights dim to nothing. But the blue ones glow steadily - no, actually, they flicker ever so slightly.

You blink and cough and gasp, pathetic and shivering. It takes another moment for your eyes to adjust, and when they do, you’re too shocked to say a word.

There, outlined against the spangle of stars in the sky, the darkness of the lake, is a giant black and white robot.

It’s blocky and boxy. Those blue lights…you fixate on them as if they were eyes, set in a mechanical face that is still somehow so, so human-like.

Who are -? You manage to get out, before the wheezing takes over again.

I was about to ask you the same. I am Prowl, tactician and third in command of Optimus Prime’s Autobots. I am here to protect and serve. Do not be afraid. I mean your kind no harm.

His head tilts, blue lights flickering. What year is it by your reckoning? And where are we?

Oh, good. The giant robot came out of nowhere to save you, but it has some kind of robot amnesia. You’re slowly realizing, as your vision adjusts, that it has the police car’s livery painted on its side.

Or, his side…?

He’s patient enough to let you sputter out the answers in your own time, still supporting you as you slowly grab on and pull yourself to a sitting position. You’re holding on to giant fingers, you realize, and your shivering from the cold takes on an added emphasis from fear. Really you should have started being afraid a lot sooner, but the adrenaline and panic of almost dying seems to have shorted out your priority-making abilities.

You add your name to the info, since he’d been kind enough to tell you his - and, you know, had saved your life. But he seems disturbed by what you say.

What’s wrong? you manage to ask, despite your teeth starting to chatter.

I’ve been in emergency stasis lock for a very long time, if this information is accurate. He watches you, curiously you think, as you prop yourself up against his hand. I was pursuing a lead on a Decepticon’s trail, when I was attacked. I was able to flee, but I lost a great deal of energon. I had no time to call for help. The stasis lock took effect to save my life. It seems a human mechanic was able to repair much of the damage, but I had no way to break out of the lock without an Autobot medic’s codes.

He looks to you, and you feel his attention like a warmth. Protective. Until you called for help. It overrode my other protocols, and allowed me to break the lock and regain consciousness. Thank you for your assistance. I could have been trapped in that state for much longer.

That’s a-awful, you say, head spinning. You s-said, call for help. Is there someone you can call now? People missing you?

You try and stand up, only to collapse again. Prowl frowns down at you. We must see to you first. Your body temperature is below optimal. Hold still.

You’re scooped up by those hands - so deftly and carefully that it barely registers- and then there’s another confusing whirl of metal. Next thing you know, you’re back in the cop car, its engine purring smoothly and the heater cranked up.

Better? he asks. You shudder, not really wanting to be sitting in the seat where you’d almost died. But you get the feeling Prowl isn’t going to let you walk away in your condition.

Better, you affirm, and then with no warning you’re sobbing your heart out. Alarmed, Prowl demands you tell him what’s wrong. So you do. You tell him about Brandon and Ezekiel and Krystal, your best friend, your frustration and anger, and finally your stupid plan that had almost gotten you killed.

I’m sorry, you say miserably. I just - thought you were a car. You know, just, property damage. If I’d known you were alive, I never would have tried to hurt you.

You snuffle and laugh. That’s what I get for stealing a cop car, I guess. Or a robot that looks like one.

Prowl seems disturbed by your tale. I am a mech - mechanoid - not a robot. And I am a tactician, not a police officer. I took this alt mode many years ago as a means of fitting in, invisibly, with human vehicles. Its size and specs suited my needs. And, I believed, its meaning paralleled my own philosophy. But based on what you have said, perhaps it’s time I scan a new alt mode. I do not wish to be a symbol of something that your people fear or dread.

You shrug, unsure what he’s even talking about - alt mode?? - but you appreciate that he actually listened.

Now what are you going to do?

He’s silent for long enough that wonder if he’s fallen back into that stasis-thing. Eventually though, he says, I have a great deal of catching up to do. I can see your internet technology has come a long way in the past decades. But it will still take time to locate my team. They are not responding to any of my hailing codes. Likely, they believe me offlined, or…perhaps they are offline themselves. Or perhaps they have returned to Cybertron.

When you make a curious noise, Prowl adds, My home planet.

Ah. You’re an alien. That’s…cool, you say, slowly warming up to the idea. It would probably be a lot scarier if he hadn’t been caring for you like a lost and half-drowned stray kitten.

And, he seemed so earnest. The kind of person who might not be good with getting jokes, but was really smart and cared a lot about doing the right thing. He hadn’t even chewed you out for your little joyride, as if he’d considered it and decided it wasn’t worth addressing. You could almost feel him weighing the options silently.

I am. But I am - or, I was, quite familiar with human society. Though, I cannot say the same now. May I ask your assistance? he asks suddenly.

I will need to begin searching for my team, if they remain alive, and I would have a much higher chance of success if I had a human with me. Many things may have changed and will throw off my calculations until my systems adapt. In the meantime, I do not know what became of the Decepticons who injured me. If they remain alive, they pose a serious threat to your species and must be located.

Your head whirls. Aliens, mechs, bad guys. And you, somehow, with a chance to help. It means walking away from your life here, but hadn’t you always dreamed of that anyway?

But not alone.

You smile and put your seat belt on, your clothes nearly dry. Prowl will keep you safe. The belt seems to squeeze you reassuringly. Supportive rather than restricting.

I’ll go with you to help find your people. It’s the least I can do after what you did for me. But, before we go…

When the sun rises the next morning over your tiny town - your former home, now - its rays shine down on three crumpled, smoking Dodge Chargers, left smashed among the wreckage of what used to be the old brick jail. The jail’s alarm system has been totaled, video cameras fried, computer records of recent arrests completely corrupted, and the lone occupant of the jail? Nowhere to be found.

The old chief, word quickly gets around, has finally decided to retire.

#transformers x reader #very satisfying ending

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