screwloose | [RL with Mikaela]

Dr. Stein waited just outside the compound for Mikaela to arrive, his stitched and patched labcoat blowing a bit in the hot Africa wind. He smiled as the young woman rolled up in her very fine motorcycle, his glasses glinting in the sun as he looked her over. No immediate signs of injury.

Though she was only a few years older than his students, and definitely too young for him, he couldn't help but enjoy the ride back to his own world.

They arrived just outside his own laboratory, which was a tall concrete building, which also looked to have been stitched together, much like his own body and clothing. Scraggly trees with no leaves adorned the grounds, which were surrounded by a high wrought iron fence.

The sun stared down upon them, far cooler than the place where they had just left. The sun had a face, and it was laughing good-naturedly at them, its voice deep and echoing.

"You can leave the bike inside the grounds, it'll be safe there," Stein said cheerfully as he got down and opened the front gate. "Welcome to my home, Mikaela."

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"An Autobot. One of my best friends, too," she clarified quickly. "He gave me a ride to the hospital 'cause he wouldn't let me go on my own while Blackout was there. When Bonecrusher and the Megatron from Sari's world showed up..." She shrugged. "Made sense to try and get back to him."

She took a sip of the coffee. "'M from their world, yeah. Sam--that's my boyfriend--Sam and I kind of...discovered them together? We got all mixed up with 'em and haven't been able to get away since." She didn't really sound like she regretted that.

Stein was becoming curious despite himself. "What's the difference between a Decepticon and an Autobot?" he asked. "Are they the same race, but different factions, or actually a different kind of robot? And where do the humans fit in where you come from?"

"No, they're all Cybertronians," she said. "One race. Although Ratchet's told me that some of the Decepticons have, like, different or modified programming from Autobots, so they're...kind of different. Ish."

She pursed her lips. "They came to our planet looking for something," she said. "This big cube, the Allspark. And since both Autobots and 'Cons showed up, they started fighting over it, so we kinda got caught in the middle."

Stein settled back on the couch, sipping his coffee as he listened to her explanation. "Wow, so your planet was invaded by warring robot aliens. That's too bad. I guess it's good that they're not all bad."

"Yeah, 's definitely good. I think of Megatron hadn't gotten all stuck in ice when he first showed up, I probably wouldn't be here right now." She shivered a little, wrapping her fingers and taking a long sip of the coffee, as if it had been only cold that made her shiver.

Stein patted her lightly on the shoulder. "A lot of things happen," he said philosophically. "There's no point in trying to make sense of it. Just best to take the world the way it is, and try to deal the problems that really do exist."

She smiled wanly over at him, giving herself another shake to chase away the melancholy that threatened her if she dwelled too long on that reflection. "That's some pretty good advice, doctor."

"Well, I am supposed to be an educator of children," he said, his eyes dancing behind the lenses of his glasses. "So I had to come up with a list of useful platitudes."

She couldn't help a laugh. "Got a whole list, huh?" she asked, a teasing note in her voice. "What're some of the other ones?"

"Oh, you know, 'believe in yourself', and 'eat your green vegetables', that kind of thing," Stein said with a laugh.

"Sounds like every year of elementary school," she said, grinning wryly. They'd gotten pumped full of that stuff all the time. "'Everyone's special.' 'Share and share alike.' 'Don't do to other what you don't want them to do to you.' 'Always brush your teeth.'"

"Now, now, that last one is important!" Stein said, grinning merrily. "But I do have to disagree with some of those others. I routinely do things I don't want people to do to me, after all. And some people are just plain mediocre~"

"Hey, I didn't say I believed them~" Mikaela said with a grin that exposed a lot of teeth. "Just that that's what they told us. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that most of us had realized how much bullshit some of the stuff they told us was."

She took a sip of her coffee, then glanced slyly at him out of the corner of her eye. "You know I gotta ask this, but, whatever do you do to other people that you wouldn't want them to do to you?"

Stein rather liked that smile, and he beamed wickedly in response. "Most of what a teacher tells you is bullshit," he said wisely. "I should know. But the key is identifying the important bits that'll keep you alive one day."

He raised an eyebrow at her question, then his smile widened. "Why, dissect them, of course."

That made her laugh. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure nothing my teachers taught me has come in really handy when it comes to staying alive," she said. "Except how to use a reciprocating saw, and it was Dad who taught me that, not a teacher."

"Oh, of course." Hello there, sarcasm. "That must be...interesting."

"Important life lessons come from all kinds of teachers," Stein said cheerfully. "And I should be more inclusive. I actually do teach fighting and survival, so most teachers aren't quite like me I suppose."

His grin widened a little at the sarcasm. "Oh yes, it's fascinating. The human body has so many things inside it."

"Heh. I'm pretty sure you're right, yeah~," she said. "Most of the teachers I know taught, like. Math. Boring stuff." Or so it had seemed at the time, when she'd have rather been somewhere else, doing anything else. With high school behind her, she sometimes found herself thinking that it wasn't so bad...

Granted, this was mostly when she was covered in grease and sporting busted fingers from a long day at work.

"I hope whoever you're dissecting doesn't mind it all that much," she said, lips twisting wryly.

"You aren't in school, now?" Stein asked curiously. He'd been sure she was in late high school, though he realized now that she could be college age. "What do you do, if you don't mind me asking? Besides run around with big robots."

He grinned, a little too wide. "Oh generally they don't mind at all."

[RL with Mikaela]

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