In this AU, a ceasefire between the Autobots and the Decepticons has led to an era of peace among the Cybertronians. During this time, an opportunistic group of 'Cons learn about humans... and start selling them on Cybertron as exotic pets, assuring their customers that the humans are non-sentient animals. Among those captured are Sam Witwicky, his girlfriend Mikaela, and their friend Miles. Meanwhile, the 'Bot scout Bumblebee's roommate Beachcomber has encouraged the mech to purchase a pet...
Written by hydraling110, this is an AU fic from the Michael Bay The Transformers films where the Decepticons began attacking Earth before the Autobots knew that the humans were sentient. The fic is dead, having not been updated since March 2012. It can be read right here
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Tropes:
- Adoptive Name Change: Because they're taken in as pets, all four of the human characters get renamed by their Autobot caretakers: Sam is "Signal", Mikaela is "Complement" (seeing as how she's Sam's girlfriend), Miles is "Quirk", and Annabelle is "Softspark".
- Adopting the Abused: Ironhide for "Softspark", and Prowl for Quirk/Miles.
- Affectionate Nickname: Until they learn their actual names, Sam, Mikaela, and Miles refer to the 'Bots with nicknames:
- Bumblebee is "Yellow"
- Beachcomber is "Softie" (as the humans realize fairly quickly that he's just "a big softie").
- Ironhide is "Black"
- Prowl is "Black-And-White" (B-N-W for short)
- Ratchet is “The Doctor”
- Wheeljack gets the nickname "Flashy" (due to the lights on the sides of his helm)
- Optimus Prime is simply called "Huge"
- Afraid of Needles: Miles' secret phobia.
- Invoked and averted with Sam and Mikaela, both of whom get microchipped after being purchased. While it's hardly a pleasant experience, neither of them are traumatized by it.
- Alien Abduction: The catalyst for the story's plot is the Decepticons kidnapping humans from Earth and selling them as pets.
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Averted: "Softspark" tends to sing to herself when she's bored. Ironhide and Ratchet have no idea what she's doing and worry that it's some sort of health problem. She, in turn, wonders if they simply don't enjoy her singing.
- Bad Cybertronians Abuse Humans: Many of the Autobots are shown to be kind to the humans under their care (even those like Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Perceptor, who want to study them, are fairly gentle with them). The Decepticons, however, are shown to not care too much for the comfort or well-being of any human that ends up with them. The entire reason for the fic is because a group of Decepticons lied about humans being sentient and started selling them as pets, despite knowing that they were basically enslaving another race purely for their entertainment note
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Once the Autobots learn that humans are, indeed, sentient, they all feel immense guilt for how they've treated them like animals. Sam, however, never feels any animosity towards 'Bee, seeing as how he treated humans well and gave them respect.
- Big Damn Reunion: Sam and Mikaela with Miles when Prowl brings him to 'Bee's apartment. After several months not knowing what had happened to their best friend, the trio are relieved to see each other again.
- Cheerful Child: Once she gets over her initial trauma of being kidnapped by giant robots, Annabelle is this trope. Sam and Mikaela theorize that this is because she's young enough to not fully grasp the situation.
- Contrived Coincidence: When Captain Will Lennox learns of the human pet trade on Cybertron from Sam and Mikaela after they are brought back to Earth, he initially doesn't believe them when they claim that they've met his daughter back on Cybertron as he feels that the coincidence of such a twist is too great. Even after he's assured that they do know Annabelle, he wonders if this scenario was set up to make him reluctant to fight the invading robots by using his daughter as a potential bargaining chip.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The experience Miles goes through during his Trauma Conga Line (and behavior after he's rescued) is clearly meant to be a nod to mistreated pets in real life.
- Embarrassing Cover Up: To meet secretly with Ratchet and several 'Bots, Optimus tells anyone who's curious that he has a doctor appointment with Ratchet. Downplayed in that a Cybertronian getting repairs is fairly normal and not considered embarrassing, but it's mundane enough that no one will ask questions.
- Fantastic Drug: The Decepticons who capture humans often hurt them when abducting them. They treat their injuries (so they won't lose their value) with a pink-white paste they apply to their skin. Said paste heals their injuries and knocks them out for an extended period of time. During their investigation of the Decepticons' activities on Earth, it's pointed out that this drug is powerful enough to potentially be lethal to humans if they're given too much.
- For Science!: Perceptor is curious about humans and wants to do tests to see if they're sentient (thankfully not invasive ones, as he likes humans too much for that), and thus becomes practically giddy when Prime gives him the okay to do so.
- For Want Of A Nail: Because Megatron, Starscream and a few other high-ranking Decepticons disappeared/were imprisoned for war crimes, Cybertron has been at peace for centuries.
- Gentle Giant: Pretty much every Autobot that interacts with humans is this, with Prime, Bumblebee, Beachcomber, Ratchet, and Ironhide getting acknowledged as such by the humans themselves. Heavily averted, however, with the Decepticons (though that's hardly shocking).
- Good Samaritan: After Sam and Mikaela are kidnapped and ditched by Bumblebee's (former) roommates, they're left to fend for themselves on a Cybertronian street. Luckily, a funny-looking mech (Wheeljack) finds them and takes them to the Ark, where Ratchet scans their microchips and contacts Bumblebee.
- Harmful to Minors: Thankfully averted with Ironhide and Annabelle. Upon learning that "Softspark" is sentient and realized fairly quickly that he and Chromia were a couple, Ironhide is very glad that the couple had chosen not to "interface" with the kid in the room.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ratchet and Ironhide live and work together on the Ark, but Ironhide is married (sparkmated) to Chromia.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Because he runs a few (harmless) tests on them, Sam and Mikaela start referring to Ratchet as “The Doctor”. Later, when they see Ratchet in action, they are surprised to learn that he actually is a doctor.
- Human Pet: Sam, Mikaela, Annabelle, and Miles, along with every other human taken to Cybertron. The second the Autobots learn that they're sentient, however, they immediately stop treating them like pets and give them the respect due to sentient beings.
- I Want Them Alive!: The Decepticon pet-traders want to keep their humans alive and healthy until they're purchased by a mech. However, if a Decepticon purchases a human, that human is completely at their mercy (something Miles unfortunately learned first hand).
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ratchet isn't the most polite mech, but his love for his friends (and fascination/fondness for humans) is made fairly obvious fairly quickly).
- My God, What Have I Done?: The Autobots have a collective one when they realize that the humans are sentient, and that the Cybertronians have all but enslaved a sentient race.
- Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious: The food generally given to the humans is described as this, often consisting of a dark-brown loaf meant to provide carbs, a protein loaf that allegedly tastes like overcooked eggs and broccoli, and red-orange spheres that are meant to supplement fruits and vegetables. They aren't intolerable and none of the humans get sick from them, but many of them yearn for actual food.
- Noodle Incident: Wheeljack, for reasons unknown, once brought a turbo rat onto the Ark. The reader never learns what specifically happened, but the rat somehow ended up in Ironhide's room and "scared the spark out of [him]". It's implied Ironhide was so mad that he didn't speak to Wheeljack for a while.
- Not So Stoic: Prowl is a very logical 'Bot... yet he eventually admits to himself that he has a soft spot for "Quirk", showing a rare display of emotion when a Decepticon named Leadfoot steals Quirk. His show of emotion when they bring Quirk back is enough to show Sideswipe and Ultra Magnus that Prowl really cares about humans.
- The Only One I Trust: After Miles was bought, abused, then abandoned by a Decepticon, he spends several days on the run in a Cybertronian building, crazed with fear, hunger, and thirst. Prowl is the one who catches him, takes him to see Sam and Mikaela (which helps him calm down), and eventually decides to keep him. As such, Prowl is, for a while, the only Autobot Miles feels safe with.
- Parental Substitute: After Prowl rescues a four-year-old human girl (Annabelle Lennox) from an incompetent owner, Ironhide takes her in. Sam and Mikaela, in order to explain the situation without scaring the kid, tell her that Ironhide thinks he's her father. This not only calms her down, but she begins viewing Ironhide as a surrogate parent now that she's separated from her own. The fact that he's a complete Papa Wolf when it comes to her safety only cements this trope. This doesn't change when he learns that she's sentient, as he takes his duties as her caretaker just as seriously.
- Poor Communication Kills: On her way home for shore leave, Chromia hears that Ironhide is spending time with a "femme". Furious, she goes to their house to confront him... only to learn that said "femme" is "Softspark", a four-year-old human girl. Chromia admits her mistake and is immediately smitten with her husband's new pet.
- Raised by Robots: Annabelle (renamed "Softspark"), spends a majority of her time in the fic being cared for by Ironhide and Ratchet (and Chromia, when she gets shore leave and goes to visit her sparkmate).
- Shout-Out: The humans nickname Ratchet "The Doctor", partially due to his job of repairing mechs and partially as a shout-out to Doctor Who.
- They Would Cut You Up: Thankfully averted. While Decepticon scientists may be willing to do this trope, Autobot scientists such as Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Perceptor prefer non-invasive tests to learn about humans. Bumblebee even insists on it when Ratchet first asks him for permission to study Sam and Mikaela.
- Trauma Conga Line:
- Any human captured by Decepticons for the pet trade inevitably goes through this. First they're captured, then they're given a rough medical exam by their captors, then they're drugged, separated from any loved ones they might've been captured with, and put into a holding pen until purchased by a mech. Then it's only a matter of fate whether the mech they end up with treats them well.
- Miles gets a pretty bad one. Along with being captured and going through the traumas of being processed, Miles is purchased alone (separating him from his friends for months), abused by the Decepticon who bought him, spends several days alone and on the run in a Cybertronian building before being caught by Prowl, and then (despite Prowl trying to help him/keep him calm) spends the next few days scared out of his mind until he reunites with Sam and Mikaela. Only then do things start to look up for him (and he starts to appreciate Prowl taking him in).
- Annabelle was abducted when her parents went to try and fight the Decepticon invaders, with only her babysitter, Carly, there to watch out for her. Upon arriving on Cybertron, she and Carly were separated. Annabelle was bought by a mech who didn't know how to adequately care for a young human, leading to Prowl taking her to Ratchet (where Ironhide promptly adopted her)). Even though she was safe with Ironhide, she spent a few days living in fear of him until Sam and Mikaela managed to explain the situation. Luckily for her, from the moment Ironhide becomes her guardian he becomes a Papa Wolf in every meaning of the word.
- Wham Episode: After a duo of Decepticon assassins mistake Bumblebee for their target and shoot him, Sam manages to activate 'Bee's com. This saves Bee's life, and is his first clue that his pets are, in fact, intelligent.
- Workaholic: How Miles describes Prowl.
