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omggg! Love this! I need to draw more top gun x transformers like asap

Caring, Keeping and Collecting Transformers - A Guide 1/?

Maverick is unknowingly surrounded by Transformers. He knows something is up though. Just not quite what it is exactly.

Bradley and Jake, having never met, are embarking on their own journeys and will have to learn to deal with the fact that they've both been adopted by Transformers.

Despite having years more experience, Maverick is no help at all.

PROLOGUE 1978

He’s sitting at the table, dragging a spoon through his oatmeal when Nick staggers into the room, scrubbing at his face with one hand and stopping his pants from falling down with the other. His chest is covered in little red bite marks and not so little scratch marks and he raises an eyebrow.

“Good night?”

“Wild. Absolute hellcat. Amazing in bed. But man, I really need to cut back on drinking, you know what I thought I saw last night?”

“What?”

“You know that new hoover I bought? I swear I saw it change into an insect, like a butterfly, but then I blinked and it was back as a hoover.”

Pete laughs, points to the hoover standing completely inanimate in the corner of the room.

“You mean that one?”

“Yeah… the bag was unfolded into these big wings…”

“Man, your mind must be a weird and wonderful place and –” he’s about to say he should lay off other stuff as well when he catches movement in the doorway and there’s an attractive woman standing there wearing nothing but one of Nick’s shirts and what he assumes are her own underwear. “Good morning. I can’t believe Nick hasn’t offered you coffee yet. Or introduced us. My name’s Pete, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Carole, nice to meet you too.”

Nick’s spluttering about not having time to do introductions, how he was just about to bring her breakfast in bed, but Pete just laughs and decides to make himself scarce for the rest of the morning.

… … …

PART ONE – the coming together

Pete runs his hands over the body work of the Kawsaki Ninja. It’s body is in solid shape, but it’s been customized in some way, the internal bits not like the standard engine, but he can figure it out. He’s good with engines.

“You’re beautiful… shall we go for a ride?”

“Oh, we can’t get her to start up…” the mechanic says, walking over and wiping his hands on a rag before shoving it into his back pocket.

Pete turns the key and the engine immediately thrums into life and he grins.

“Must have the magic touch.”

… … …

A week later, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees his bike standing upright, like some kind of robot but when he turns to look properly it’s just his bike and he shakes his head and he convinces himself that he needs to get a proper night sleep. Maybe stay where the sounds of Goose and Carole having sex don't wake him up in the middle of the night.

… … …

The wedding and Bradley being born are highlights for Pete in the early eighties. Carole and he get on really well and he’s so happy, feeling the reflection of joy from his little adopted family. Happy for years so when he loses Goose the sharp and sudden contrast is crushing. The darkness, the guilt, the missing piece… it drags him down. He tries, he really does, knows that the people around him are worried but he can’t bring himself to care.

He is certain, that the crash, when it happens, should have killed him. He’d been drinking again, not caring about anything much, but instead of dying his bike seems to wrap itself around him like a protective casing and rolls down the hillside. He can hear the scrape of gravel and snapping of branches; he fully expects to never wake up from the injuries he is surely sustaining. A voice close to his ear mutters this is a stupid fucking way to try and die and he lets out a wet laugh. People saw him go over the side, stopped to help and he’s taken to a hospital where he is cleared from anything other than some grazes and bruises. He’s told he’s very lucky, that he must have a guardian angel and he knows that some people are thinking about Goose, but he’s starting to think about his bike.

When he gets out, his bike is in his garage waiting for him. No one mentioned getting it for him. It’s only been twenty-four hours and his bike is in pristine condition, not even a layer of dust. Like he didn’t even take it out. There is definitely no evidence of the same fall that he experienced, no scratches or scrapes in the body-paint and he runs his hands over the body reverently, not understanding what or how, but knowing that there is something definitely special about it. And for some unexplainable reason it’s chosen him to be with.

It’s a turning point, he stops drinking so much, squares his shoulders and takes a deep metaphorical breath and begins living his life again. Carole and Bradley are still there. Flying is still there. Weirdly and a little confusingly Iceman is still there, along with Slider, orbiting him like they maybe expect him to explode, touching base regularly but never getting too close.

Work too settles back into a sense of normalcy, although he makes a few changes to his will to make Bradley his sole beneficiary and Carole his emergency contact. They combine households, his own deployments making it pointless to have his own place when all he wants to do with his leave is spend it with them. He comes back from one deployment to find the old hover in the garage beside his bike and he frowns, carries it back inside to Carole.

“This was in the garage…”

“I swear I threw it away. Maybe I was just meaning to throw it away…”

“Does it not work anymore?” Pete asks.

“You know, it really does, it’s just so heavy and I can’t be bothered carrying it up and down the stairs so I bought a lighter one.”

Pete just looks at it, remembers Goose’s grumbling about imagining it turning into something and his fingers tighten around the handle.

“I’ll keep it in the garage to clean up after myself.”

“Okay, I’ll believe that when I see it!” Carole teases, but Pete knows she’s teasing because he’s a neat-freak, his years in the Navy not allowing for mess to just lie around. Everything has a place and it needs to be tidied away back to that place when he’s finished with it, whether it’s on a carrier, in his plane or in his garage. He’s had to relax with regards to some of that with Bradley and the fact he’s simply a kid that leaves his things everywhere, but his own bedroom and garage remain safe spaces.

More years pass and he catches more glimpses of both his bike and the hoover in forms that are definitely not a bike and hoover. He doesn’t mention it to anyone else, doesn’t even know what he could begin to say. He does talk to them though, just quiet murmurings under his breath while he cleans them and studies the internal workings, and the fact it’s so different makes him feel justified that he’s maybe not meant to have seen these types of inner workings. So while he keeps them and talks to them, they never talk back. Never do anything more out of the ordinary and some days he forgets that they are simply not a standard motorbike and hoover.

He ends up being deployed with a squadron that has both Iceman and Slider and when he ends up in the shower with Iceman, his hand wrapped around both their cocks, some of their previous interactions suddenly make a lot more sense. He has to ignore Slider’s knowing looks for the rest of the deployment, but he also gets the heavy intense gaze of Iceman watching him whenever they’re in the same room and he’d put up with a lot to have that apparently.

When he gets back Bradley has finished his first year at school and he and Ice have struggled through a talk. About them. And their feelings. It had been horribly awkward, and he’d once had to explain to Goose about why he enjoyed anal sex, but this conversation with Tom takes the new first place in his list of awkward conversations.

He hopes they never have to have another one.

… … …

Jake is ten when his uncle first brings home the old beaten-up cockpit of some type of plane and gifts it to him as his tenth birthday present, despite his parents’ grumbles about it taking up precious space in the barn. It’s not a cockpit that he recognizes at all, not one anyone recognizes when he asks around, but he doesn’t care. He sits in it and pretends he’s flying, runs his hands over the dials and wonders what they’d look like all lit up. It’s his favorite place to sit and do his homework, to sit and listen to music and also hide away from the world when it gets to be too much.

He starts doing it up, sanding away rust and buffing the metal to a gleaming shine. When he’s around thirteen he goes out the there are a few parts sitting in a pile just outside the barn door and he takes them inside, has to drag some of them they’re so big. He doesn’t know how to weld, but he knows who to ask to teach him. He can already see how some of the parts are meant to fit together.

“Where did the spare parts come from?” Jake asks that night over dinner, and his father frowns at him.

“What parts?”

“Uh, there was just a… small pile near the barn this morning. I tidied them away,” Jake says, know as long as he keeps the space contained and up in the lofted part out of the way his father doesn’t really care what he does in there.

“Huh. I don’t know, maybe your Uncle Andy dropped them off?”

Jake doesn’t think that’s the case at all, but there’s no other explanation that he can think of. As years pass more parts turn up and he no longer asks. There’s something… weird about it. Not bad weird, but definitely odd. He’s older now, knows the inner mechanics of the ranch trucks and his pick-up. He’s visited the airfield and spoken to some of the pilots, asked questions and been interested enough for them to show him the inner workings of the engines. This is nothing like anything he’s seen before, and yet it feels and looks older. So. Weird.

… … …

His mom passes away a week before he turns fifteen. He doesn’t think he will ever be able to have a birthday in the future without remembering the grief of his mom dying. Pete and Tom are great, but they’re not his mom.

… … …

Sally stretches her wings out and basks in the sun, she doesn’t transform much anymore, enjoys staying in the plane form which Maverick seems to enjoy the most. Not that she’s ever shown him her alternate form, she’s old, but she’s not lost her mind. Plus the paint and oils that Maverick uses are top of the line and she’s not felt this good in years, won’t be letting go of this lifestyle in her twilight years if she can help it. When she’s too tired to fly, or doesn’t feel like flying she simply doesn’t, which she’d first thought would cause anger, because humans do seem quick to anger. But not Maverick, instead he’d run warm hands over her nose, murmuring quietly under his breath and asking her what was wrong, then given her a complete overhaul, which she can only liken to a spa pamper day she once heard some humans refer to.

… … …

“Name’s Bronco,” the blue car introduces himself, voice gravelly and the plane doesn’t transform, but he can feel that he’s being judged.

“Original,” she says dryly. “You a friend of Bumblebee’s?”

“I know him. Wouldn’t say we’re exactly friends,” Bronco mutters, because there’s no point in lying. The old plane hums and he wonders if she’s going to say anything else.

“Let me tell you how it works here.”

She describes the humans, explains that Maverick is their human, the one that all the other humans around here seem to defer to, even when he does something that no-one else can make sense of. There is Iceman, who isn’t here very often, but occasionally turns up. Then there is Bradley, who Bronco is already familiar with. Ninja is surly, doesn’t seem to care about anyone other than protecting Maverick and only seems to tolerate Sally because she’s the only one who can protect him up in the sky.

Then there are all the others. Dozens of the fuckers. Minbots who take on the forms of everyday human appliances which he himself would find incredibly demeaning. Except for the fact that there are so many of them, and they’re not all old, but they do range wildly in actual usefulness. Sally says that many of them just turn up, and he raises one of his eyebrows at that, hears the crunching of metal at the movement but he’s yet to allow Maverick to touch his innerworkings.

Bronco doesn’t particularly like Maverick, instead likes the kid he often has with him. Bradley. He’s got more of a fun streak and Bronco likes that. He knows refusing to work for Maverick annoys Sally, but he doesn’t care. He works for Bradley and that’s more important to him, the way the kid laughs and runs a hand over his hood and dash, like Bronco is a treasure rather than a beat-up old relic. As Maverick shows him how to oil his pieces, explains how things should work, but how Bronco is special in some way he can’t explain, he finds himself warming to the older human a little. Just a little.

… … …

It’s been a while since he’s been out to the hangar and he’s impressed, the outside still looks old and like a strong wind would blow it away, but inside there’s a new coat of paint, there’s a large well-lit work bench, a line of about five bikes, the Mustang and a car. Well, an old blue Bronco. Mav’s never shown any interest in doing up cars before, and he didn’t mention buying one.

“When did the Bronco arrive?”

“Oh, are you admitting you actually organized that one?”

“No. I’m not admitting to anything. Who’s going to be driving it?”

“Well, no-one at the rate I’m going. It won’t even turn over for me. Don’t know what Bradley does, but he must wiggle the key just the right way but it turns over for him perfectly each time.”

“Are you teaching him to drive?”

“Yeah, he’s seventeen. Of course I am.”

“God, when did he get old enough to drive…”

“When we weren’t watching.”

… … …

The yelling and screaming is short lived, no-one shifting an inch, Pete refusing to say anything as to why he pulled the papers. Bradley’s feeling of betrayal apparent with every shouted word.

When he drives out to the hangar both Bradley and the Bronco are gone.

Pete hopes like hell that the Bronco is actually like his bike and the hoover, not that the hoover ever saved his life, but Ice still denies all knowledge of the Bronco, and the Bronco only ever started for Bradley, so he has to hold onto the hope that it will keep him safe.

… … …

When Bradley leaves, Bronco goes with him.

He doesn’t ever show himself to Bradley, not yet.

But he does listen as Bradley talks to him.

Asks him questions.

Like why his gas gauge never changes despite the miles they travel. Bronco knew he was a smart kid, but he still doesn’t say anything.