TITLE: Could Be. Might Be. A Possibility.
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money
Author’s Voice of Warning (aka Author’s Note):
English is not my first language; it’s German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved

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This could be called a futurefic. Possibly. Maybe just a speculation. And it's what happens when the brain cell weirds out on me. You all probably know those ideas that get stuck with you for a while, never get written because there's no real plot, just this one scene that won't let you go, and finally you drop it because you have ab-so-lute-ly no clue how to explain it. You keep it around in the back of your head, play around, then dump it once more. I have tons of those. For all kinds of fandoms.

With the TF Movie 'verse it's one of the few, few times I let it out and actually managed to string enough sentences together to a) make it a ficlet and b) have a moderate attempt of plot to be found here or there.

This is still set in my Imperfection 'verse, but for the first time I play with someone else, with an idea I haven't seen anywhere else so far.

Don't hit me...

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It had been an accident. Clear and simple. Maybe Ratchet shouldn’t have taken out the Allspark shard to study it. Maybe Ironhide shouldn’t have walked into the lab. Maybe Major Lennox should have gone with his team to Las Vegas to have some fun.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Looking into the mirror Lennox drew a finger down his chest and watched the skin ripple like it was nothing but a holographic image. It felt human, but it was… different. Tiny fissures around his finger grew, then contracted, flowing together into smooth skin once more. If he concentrated hard enough he could even make them change… shape, color, texture… whatever.

He was human. And then again not. He was alive, but part of him had also died.

His palm rested against his stomach. There were no scars, no sign that a huge piece of alien metal had torn into him – and disappeared.

It had spread out like dye in water, merging with him, becoming him.

Will raised the hand from his stomach and watched intricate patterns whisper over his skin.
Like living tattoos, he mused. They were all over his body, most prominently on his back, running down his spine, his arms and his legs. Whorls and curves and wriggly lines and ancient runes.

Part of him wondered how human cells could absorb alien metal without dying. Another was just too happy to be alive at the moment to care.

Dr. Keyron and Ratchet were working feverishly on his case, always poking and prodding, drawing samples. It was throughout one examination that Will had discovered that he could bend needles, keeping them from penetrating his skin, and blocking medical scans.

Cool.

Ratchet had been stumped and Keyron had just turned to make more notes.

He was a freakin’ experiment.

Lennox was on indefinite medical leave from his unit. Epps had taken over seamlessly. He was still at the base, but no longer as the commander of the human unit of the Autobot base.

It left him with a lot of time.

Mostly to think.

Again his hand strayed to the smooth expanse of skin on his stomach. Nothing there. He didn’t feel any different. He hadn’t felt all too bad after waking, finding people and mechs staring at him as if they expected him to do something strange. According to Ironhide there had been the explosion, Lennox falling to the ground, specks of blood on his uniform, and they had watched the ugly entry wound heal immediately.

So was he the Allspark now?

Ratchet didn’t think so. He didn’t emit any kind of energy signatures.

“It’s like it trans-scanned humans and… merged with you, Major,” Ratchet had tried to explain. “Genetically you are as different from any human, even Sam, as you can ever be. Your DNA has… become something else.”

“What?”

“We have no idea.”

“We know next to nothing about the Allspark,” Keyron had spoken up. “Maybe this is how it travelled the universe? Maybe it adapted its form, the one we know, the cube, to suit the mechanoids of Cybertron. It has been on Earth for thousands of years and it never did anything, until Sam. After it influenced Sam, maybe that started a process.”

“And I was next?”

“Maybe.”

Lennox didn’t like the idea, but what was done was done. The Allspark shard was inside him and he was… no longer human.

“You’re taking this well.”

Lennox looked up from his contemplation of his rather cold coffee mug and smiled at Sam. The young man looked quizzically at him. Like Lennox he was no longer who he had been before the Autobots had changed their lives.

“There’s nothing I can change about it. Call it military breeding. It just is what it is.”

“Ironhide’s worried. They all are.”

“I know.”

“I heard Banachek wants to keep you in command.”

Lennox shrugged. He didn’t care. He would stay here, civilian or not. He had burned a lot of bridges in the past and blowing up another one, his military career, was nothing compared to what lay ahead.

“Just in case you’re wondering,” Sam said into the silence that had fallen, “you don’t feel… like the Allspark to me. Not really. I think if I can deep-link, or whatever it might be when it comes to you, I might get something. But you’re more like a hybrid system.”

Will laughed. “That really sounds weird, Sam, but thanks. It’s appreciated.”

Sam nodded. Neither had any idea what it meant for Lennox’s future, but whatever it was, it would be here, with the Autobots.

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“I’m not the fucking Allspark! Stop treating me like some idol!”

Lennox’s explosion was loud, harsh, but not really surprising. Optimus Prime knelt down, meeting the irate eyes that had taken on a rather inhuman glow. He wondered if Will knew about these new changes.

“It’s not our intention to treat you like an… idol.”

“Tell that to Ratchet! The guy wants to put me on a pedestal because I’ve had some freaky accident and have a damned alien shard inside me! I’m not one of you! I’m not the Allspark all of a sudden! I’m not some life-giving device!”

“I… we understand. I also understand your anger.”

And he did. What had happened had left them all shell-shocked. Will was still undergoing changes that spoke of the Allspark influence. Like Sam he had been touched by something not from this planet. In Sam’s case it had been accidental exposure to alien radiation. Lennox had been in the wrong spot at the wrong time. While Optimus was glad the human wasn’t dead, he still wondered if death wouldn’t have been preferable.

Will ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “Listen, I’m only too happy to help you guys figure out what happened. Hell, I want to know myself! But whatever you do, I won’t be your savior! I’m not going to… to… give birth to new mechs, okay? I’m me!”

Prime chuckled softly. “I don’t think Ratchet wanted to imply any of what you think. It’s hard for us to understand what occurred, just like it is for you. To know that a piece of the device that gave our planet life is inside you… we do believe we need to protect you.”

“I’m not helpless!”

Optimus nodded. That was a fact, too. Lennox was battle-hardened and Ironhide had seen to it that every human in the unit and Sam as well had received training that would insure continued survival in a possible Decepticon attack.

Lennox slumped a little, looking tired. He raised one hand and turned it to look at the tattoos crawling over his inner arm. Optimus watched the display, fascinated like they all were. To his optics the symbols looked like they were alive, like a living entity.

“Here I thought I’d be looking at an early retirement in maybe fifteen years. Now…”

“I’m sorry, Will. I wish it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Nothing you could have done about it, Prime. It was an accident.”

Yes, it had been. One everyone regretted.

“Keller called,” Will went on, still looking at the symbols chasing each other on his skin. “Nothing’s written in stone yet, but I know I’m gonna be retired with all honors. Banachek is still trying to make a deal, but this is a bit more than just some freaky accident that left me with a minor disability.”

“Will…”

“No, it’s okay,” Lennox interrupted the Autobot. “It’s really okay.”

But he didn’t sound like it. Optimus knew his voice made no change in the military’s decision and he understood the reasoning. Still, it was hard. He felt responsible, like he felt the weight of so many decisions he had made in the past on his shoulders.

Lennox closed his hand into a tight fist and the symbols disappeared. He met the sad, blue optics of the much larger Autobot.

“You got an open spot?” he asked lightly, smiling.

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Over the following months Ironhide was amazed by his friend’s ability to adapt to all his changes, especially his body’s. He was no longer part of the human military hierarchy and he had asked Optimus to remain here, as a civilian.

“It’s your choice, Will,” had been Prime’s answer. “I’d be glad to still have you here.”

So he had stayed, officially called a ‘military advisor’, moving into the area that was mainly for their human allies. With the help of his former unit he had turned one huge area into his living space with everything he needed. Lennox had no more command over his former men, but his ‘consults’ and ‘advise’ was nothing less than what he had done before, just without official capacity. He could no longer command, just recommend.

Throughout the year that followed the accident, the changes in Lennox were even more pronounced. Some runes stayed and didn’t disappear into what he jokingly called his ‘chameleon skin’ any more. One was on his neck. Another was on the small of his back. The last on his left, inner wrist.

His abilities to change his skin coloration grew, turned into one of even changing his makeup. It was a slow process of learning, of trial and error, but the former Army Ranger was nothing if not tenacious.

“I look like the silver surfer with hair,” Lennox muttered and regarded his reflection.

Ironhide chuckled at the result of endless training. The silvery skin had the ability to deflect bullets, so it was a rather practical change. Will concentrated and suddenly the colors shifted, mimicked Ironhide’s color scheme and his eyes turned a bright blue.

“Cool,” the former Army Ranger commented.

Ironhide watched him appreciatively.

“Now let’s try this…” Will murmured.

The weapons specialist stepped back in almost shocked surprise when the human form stretched and reassembled itself, Lennox creating what could only be called a basic protoform. Black, four toes, four fingers, the red fluid-metal interfaces glowing softly within. Dark connective tissue flexed, sky blue optics blinking, then raised to meet Ironhide’s darker blue ones.

“Will?” Ironhide asked, voice unsteady.

Cybertron’s Pits… he had expected a lot, but never this. Not at all something like this!

“I didn’t know it would work,” came the awed whisper. “I just thought… and it happened… and wow…”

He wasn’t tall. At least not as tall as Ironhide. Maybe Bumblebee’s size. But for such a small life form to become so big… Ironhide wondered what else the Allspark enabled Lennox to do.

“Yes,” the mech finally said. “Wow…. Can you… trans-scan?”

Because protoforms were the most basic form of a Cybertronian. Supremely resistant to damage, but still never seen for very long. They always chose a camouflage.

“I doubt it. I mean, this is still me. I just… uhm… mimic.”

Ironhide reached out and touched the smaller human… mech… hybrid… whatever, feeling the strange texture of the skin. It wasn’t real protoform metal. It still felt strangely organic. Runes flitted over the touched place and disappeared like a ghost back into the skin.

Will’s optics fixed on him and brightened briefly, then Ironhide let his hand fall away again. He gazed at his fingers, remnants of the weird tattoos still chasing themselves. It felt… not bad. And unlike anything he had ever touched. Good, too. Like he wanted to do it again. He doubted Lennox would consent to being petted like a drone.

“I think this means a whole new training,” Lennox commented softly, jerking him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah.”

“And having Ratchet poke and prod me.”

Ironhide chuckled. “That’s a given.”

“Figured as much.”

And only time would tell what else would change. Ironhide was as much aware of it as was Will. The human hybrid changed his form yet again, once more looking like the man he had met all those years back. From the outside he wasn’t different, but inside, right down to his DNA, he had been altered so completely, Ironhide couldn’t really wrap his mind around it.

“Feel like a ride?” Lennox interrupted his musings. “Because I do.”

“Where to?”

“You choose. I just want to get some air.”

Ironhide shrugged. He heard the unspoken plea to just be somewhere else, away from the base. Lennox did a lot of hard thinking when he was on his own and it had become a pattern for them over the years to seek out lonely spots and just… sit there.

The Autobot transformed and opened a door. Lennox climbed in and leaned back, immediately comfortable. This hadn’t changed at all. Will Lennox was a comfortable person to be around with, a fellow soldier and warrior, and Ironhide had found he had developed an attachment to the human, not unlike Bumblebee had with Sam.

Whatever else was changing, he didn’t care. Will was his friend. His changes didn’t change that and never would. While Ironhide hadn’t been assigned as his guardian or protector, the role had evolved over the time they knew each other. Neither spoke about it. It was never brought up, but both were very much aware of their relationship.

And whatever happened, Ironhide knew he would be there.


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This had been planned as a one-shot. Between posting this on the LJ and now on FFNet, the ficlet has spawned more bunnies. While this story spans a lot of time, the others will be concentrating on what happened to Will Lennox, his life, his military career, how his abilities developed. I’ll add them on as chapters to this.

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*shakes head* Man...and I can't even blame it on cold medication ;) The only inspiration that's been haunting me for weeks is the Saturn ad here in Germany, with the Allspark-cube-like thingy and the pseudo mech skin. I am inspired by the strangest things...