Can't Run Away Forever

[illdriveyoushoot]

She takes the bus now, more often than not.

She'd sold her old bike, dragged her dad off for a 'new start'; pretty much vanished off the grid for a while. Mikaela had done as much as she'd been allowed to do, to get away and keep from being found.

Keep from being found by her friends, at least.

A part of her - the bitter part - is sometimes upset that they never did. That they never tried, never suspected. But then again, the way she had broken up with Sam, real and so very angry...

That same bitter part, while upset, isn't surprised she'd been so easily forgotten.

And then Chicago had happened, freedom had come with a price for everyone, and...

Well. Being left alone was more understandable, after that.

So now Mikaela takes the bus, to and from her little backwoods, podunk gas station/convenience store/one-car garage quick-e-mart, the best she can get on just a highschool degree in this economy, expunged record or not. She does register and occasional garage work, and she has a good shot at making manager in the spring. Her dad has his own place, finally, moving in with a woman with little patience and no tolerance for his crap.

She's too good for him, and Mikaela is happy for them.

But being on her own leaves her with too much time to think, and despite no lack of offers, hints, and the same old innuendos, she's had no one since Sam. She's lonely, and alone in a world where no one remembers or cares who she is or what she's given up.

In short, it sucks, and playing at 'normal' isn't at all what it's cracked up to be.

Comments

[illdriveyoushoot]

"...Optimus."

Mikaela doesn't know what to say. How could she? Their world was dead and who could really say 'I'm sorry about your planet' and have it mean much?

She climbs up to his shoulder, laying an open palm on an undamaged portion of chest plating.

"...I can't promise it will be alright. But I can promise I'll try and help it along. Somehow."

[oneshallstand]

It does have him look back down at her, audials twitching slightly as he regards her form. Another might ask, demand how someone so small could even think they could help.

Optimus, knowing better, only nods in acknowledgement/acceptance and offers the faintest of smiles.

"You already have."

[illdriveyoushoot]

"Yeah, well..."

She grins and laughs, head ducking down with the beginnings of a pleased blush.

"Gonna try to do a little more than this."

Giving his plating another pat, she (carefully) climbs back down to the site of Optimus' wound, slipping her gloves back on to start again.

Pause.

"...After you figure out where I dropped my pliers. And hand me the shop vac? That would be awesome."

[oneshallstand]

Thin smile still present, Optimus begins to lower his other hand from the ceiling- then pauses, smile fading. Her...pliers?

They're small. Smaller than her. How is he to?

And then she asks him to reach for the 'shop vac', an item with which he is only loosely familiar, and the semi-bewildered expression as he looks near him speaks for itself. The what?

[illdriveyoushoot]

No smaller than a spindly pair of glasses. She just hopes they didn't land inside his plating when she dropped them.

"...The shop vac? Vacuum?"

She stares up at him, head tilting, before she gestures down to the floor, where a yellow and black wet/dry vacuum cleaner sits nearby.

"Gotta get all the little pieces out somehow, right?"

[oneshallstand]

"Ah."

Unfortunately, there is indeed too many little pieces for Optimus to tell offhand whether or not something's added to them- he can, at least, carefully reach for the (comparatively) tiny tool. Gingerly picking it up between thumb and forefinger, he manages to get it over to Mikaela without (as far as he can tell) damaging it.

"Ratchet always preferred his own devices."

While Mikaela certainly took to his lessons with ease, there's something to be said about the capabilities of different species...

[illdriveyoushoot]

"Yeah, well, Ratchet is lucky enough to come with in-built tools."

She laughs, before taking the offered pinched pliers with a 'thanks'. Watching Optimus' massive hands pick up such a comparatively tiny thing is absolutely fascinating, always has been.

Stupid giant robots, showing up out of the blue and reminding her how much she missed this.

"Even if I never saw him with a vacuum."

Mikaela carefully turns around on Optimus' frame, clinging tight, and gets back to prying out the remaining bits. It's getting to the point where she can see the source of the leak, and the torn cabling around it.

"Should have brought up some ducttape too." She snorted, trying to recall what types of materials had been on Ratchet's 'Cybertronian friendly' list for internal patching.

[oneshallstand]

Duct tape's adhesive had a habit of gunking up the inner lines with open wounds; in minor tears, though, there were little to no ill effects.

Optimus reaches for the shop vac next, then pauses, suddenly more aware of Mikaela's presence. "Would it be easier for you if I laid down?" he asks, looking back over his shoulder.

[illdriveyoushoot]

Mikaela paused as well, before clanking her head against Optimus' side with a laugh.

"Huh. Why did't I think of that?"

The thought had never even crossed her mind. Weird. She pulled back, glancing around the garage to gauge the size of the place.

"Yeah, sure, if you don't mind? You'd probably have to keep your legs folded, but that would make it a lot easier."

[oneshallstand]

"Perhaps as I had not offered." But familarity has returned, a little; Mikaela was hardly the most common of medics but he had gotten used to her, comfortable with her, and now once again he's trying to work with her. Shifting to follow the instruction, a somewhat sore Optimus eases himself down, half-propping himself up with his forearms at his sides.

The position allows him to keep optics on the other, and, indeed, to push himself up quickly if need be.

[illdriveyoushoot]

"Gotcha."

Staying up high and riding him on the way down, Mikaela steps off to gather up supplies as he settles.

She makes a face when she dumps the collection of scrap from her bag into a nearby box - she'll have to separate Cybertronian metals from more mundane metals later. Dragging over the shop vac, Mikaela also gathers up bigger pliers, a wrench, and scrounges up some electrical tape, which was, if she was remembering correctly, supposed to be better for the inner working, since it was more easily broken down by their self repair then gunky duct tape.

"Right then."

Turning back, she has a moment to hide her snicker at his inadvertently hilarious pose - it's not his fault the place is cramped, but he looks like he's sunning himself on a beach - Mikaela gets the hose.

"Let's see if this works."

Vac turning on with a quiet roar, Mikaela only has to climb up a few steps to reach the wound, easily slipping the nozzle inside the cracks.

[oneshallstand]

Optimus almost misses her expression; he only catches the tail end of the reaction before she reaches for the hose, and wonders if he'd even seen it at all.

Mikaela certainly seems true to memory; despite his soreness, he does feel a bit better now that most of the smaller pieces have been removed. Once the others are eased away-

-urf.

He goes still, grimacing as what feels like tiny grains lash around the line as they're sucked by the hose. It's a far from pleasant feeling, but he'll endure.

[illdriveyoushoot]

Her grin widens at the sounds of scrap rattling down the hose - yes, she knew it!

"This is gonna be so much easier."

Repositioning herself a bit higher up, so she can better see where she is pointing the nozzle, she slides it down further, directly under the torn lines and shattered parts. She doesn't want to hurt him, but most of the broken bits have settled right under the blast site.

"Let me know if it's painful or anything!" she calls out over the dull roar.

[oneshallstand]

No more than expected, he wants to say, but he nods through his grimace to at least let her know she's heard him. Having lived through a war so long, he thinks he understands the difference between pain-as-result-of-helping as opposed to pain-as-result-of-helping-actually-harming; the former isn't worth bringing up.

The problem is they're pretty close to one another, and sometimes you can mistake all for one. Which, combined with his 'be quiet and take it' attitude, which Ratchet considers both a blessing and a curse...

His hands slowly clench on the ground, the mixture of pain and simple discomfort a rather unpleasant combination. Which makes it all the more surprising when Mikaela nudges the nozzle, and it briefly manages to catch one of the smaller lines, bringing it in to suck-

Optimus Prime full on jerks in surprise at that, a brief, staticky sound escaping him. That was not pain.

[illdriveyoushoot]

Mikaela yelps as Optimus' giant frame jerks under her, and she immediately pulls the hose back to it's previous spot.

"Sorry! Sorry! You okay?"

Wincing, she pats his side without active thought. She wouldn't treat a human any differently, after all.

[oneshallstand]

"It's-"

Surprising? Shocking. And then done, and Optimus exvents once before forcing himself to relax.

"-nothing. It is nothing." He shakes his helm, trying to reassure her. "I am fine, and- I apologize for alarming you."

She didn't do it on purpose, after all. He makes a long blink as he half-reaches for the metal near her vacuum- not to pull it away, mind. Only to reassure himself.

"One of the inner wires was caught, I think."

[illdriveyoushoot]

"Right... Sorry."

Levering herself up a bit higher, Mikaela peers inside the wound, looking for said possible wires or anything else that might have caused him pain like that. She didn't see much, just a lot of the smaller scrap bits lying all over mildly damaged and undamaged internals. She'd probably bumped one of the damaged bits hanging down or something...

Because she didn't doubt for a second that Optimus was trying to be his stubborn, stoic self, even through pain that made him jerk around like that.

"Okay. Going back in slowly, and aiming right for the scrap. Tell me to stop if you need to, okay?" Glancing up to catch his gaze for a moment, Mikaela carefully reached back in right toward the debris, hands as steady as she could manage.

[oneshallstand]

"I'm fine," Optimus said again, trying to reassure her. Maybe needlessly, but just in case she worried. He met that gaze and nodded, lowering his hand once more to settle himself and trying not to tense-

-the wire didn't catch again, and at least for the moment, he was able to avoid another...mishap. His fans, which he'd been keeping still, slowly whirred back on as he...well, didn't so much relax as ease the subtle tension.

[illdriveyoushoot]

"Uh huh-" she muttered, concentrating; only half-believing the claim at all. She really didn't want to hurt Optimus...but getting his wounds tended and cleaned out was more important than a few twinges. So she wasn't going to actively argue about the Big Bot being stubborn, even if it was bad behavior that would have had Ratchet swearing up a storm at him.

The vacuum rattles as she sucks up more debris, sliding the nozzle further back inside as she stays tense and waiting for any further reaction.

"Almost...done..."

Peering in, she's forced to angle it down to get the bits that have fallen between intact bits of Optimus' internal anatomy. ...It still makes her wince, despite knowing what she's doing really shouldn't hurt unless she jostles wounded parts.

[oneshallstand]

Ratchet knows better to expect any different. (But that wouldn't keep the medic from scolding him.)

There's a few more reactions, but only in terms of grimaces; they're better than other faces he can make. And he's clenching his jaw tightly as she pushes it in further- yes, there's discomfort, but more, the rush of air through all those parts, sucking up the loose debris?

He'll be glad when this is over.

[illdriveyoushoot]

Ratchet hasd the size and attitude to smack Prime upside the head if necessary, too. One advantage Mikaela obviously lacked.

But that particular spot only took a few more minutes. A couple of tense readjustments later, and the vacuum was mostly silent - but the sheer amount of scrap picked up by the nozzle was disconcerting. Mikaela made a face when she finally pulled out of the open wound, hitting the switch.

"Optimus... At this rate, we're going to have to clean every single one like this. That. Wasn't good." She winced, reaching down to jingle the vacuum container, which rattled noisily.

[oneshallstand]

A heavy rattle of his fans is the first answer she gets. A moment later, Optimus reaches up to rub at his face; his hand covers his shifts of expression. "...I believe that may have been the worst one," he notes, doing some quick system scans. "The others - given time and fuel - should be able to handle themselves if necessary."

It's a way out, if she's uncomfortable; Allspark knows Optimus knows better than to outright refuse further aid. But either way, he will need some fuel sooner or later, he notes with a frown. There's only so much heavy recharge can help with; new energy will have to come from somewhere.

[illdriveyoushoot]

"I hope so-" She starts, only to make a face at Optimus' suggestion.

"Whoa, what? That would take ages!"

Mikaela stares up at him for a long moment, dumbfounded, before shaking her head as she begins the climb back down to empty the vacuum. Pausing over a storage bin, she frowns back up at him, biting her lip.

"...I mean, if it's hurting you too much to clean them out this way, we can try something else? I don't just want to leave them like that."

Uncomfortable or not, given her shock and ire, getting out of helping him is the last thing she is thinking of.

[oneshallstand]

Optimus meets her gaze silently, but only speaks after she's done. He's continuing to mull over it all, torn between reason and stubbornness.

Ratchet would have likely hit him by now, he thinks, for even suggesting such a thing. He exvents, dimming his optics as he leans back again.

"I can bear it," he answers, to what is unclear. "I will not say no to your aid, but I will not ask more than you are willing to give."

[illdriveyoushoot]

Ratchet wouldn't be the only person hitting him, if they could.

"Oh my god, Optimus. Drop the stoic bullshit!"

Mikaela drops the vacuum down next to the trashcan with a crash, the metal inside rattling noisily. Hands splaying out in exasperated confusion, Mikaela glares up at the prone 'bot.

"I'm here, you're here, and I said I'm going to help you. Unless you actively want me to stop; unless this is doing more damage than it's fixing, stop trying to get me to duck out on you!"