When We Dared The Dawn

Chapter 4

Sam grinned. "Aw, y'know I love you really, Sunny."

"Don't call me 'Sunny', y' little slagger."

Jade sighed in clear exasperation, putting her hands on her hips so that her silver bracelets clinked against each other quietly. "Come on, guys! We didn't come in here for a fight, and this is no way to act in front of our new recruit. Can't you behave like gentlemen for a change?" she added hopefully, her Bambi eyes appealing to Sunstreaker expectantly.

Sunstreaker raised an optic ridge. "'New recruit'?" he asked, before it suddenly came flooding back to him. "Oh, you mean that other Lopez kid. You'd better keep her the slag out of this room, Rivers - I don't want her messing up my mirrors."

A haughty laugh suddenly sounded from somewhere behind Sam, and the Autobot jumped, glaring distrustfully. Primus, had another one of them scuttled in without his noticing it?

Visibly cringing, Jade slapped a hand over her eyes.

"Sunstreaker," she announced wearily, "This is... Leiana Lopez."

A tiny little human female sauntered out from behind Sam at this prompt - she looked to be about the same height as Jade, which, in Sunstreaker's opinion, was just too short to be allowed. She was visibly athletic, wearing a striped tank top and a pair of shorts, with an abundance of curly, chocolate-brown hair that was restrained by a single black headband. Her skin was darker in hue than the light tans that Sam and Jade sported; it was more like that coffee beverage that Rad guzzled every morning, warm and brown.

Two intensely dark eyes looked up at him from beneath sooty eyelashes, and he started when he saw the twinkle of mischief that seemed to reside within them. He felt threatened by the look of waywardness - he was the troublemaker around here - but also slightly intrigued by it. Freckles played across her cheeks and nose, and one eyebrow arced to match his.

"Hola," the girl greeted him shortly.

Sunstreaker glared at her. "Speak to me in English, kid - I don't do multilingual."

Leiana Lopez folded her arms and dealt him a hard stare, though a smirk was starting to pull at her lips. "Really?" she asked slightly disdainfully, casting her critical eye about the room. "Well, you sure do 'multi' with everything else... like the mirrors in this room. I mean, how the fuck many mirrors does a person need?"

"That doesn't even deserve an answer."

"Sunstreaker's... a little... vain," Sam explained in a soothing voice when she looked incensed, glancing up at the warrior and looking slightly sheepish when an insulted look was sent his way. "Not that he's not totally awesome, of course..."

The adolescent snorted disbelievingly, ignoring the last part of the sentence. "'A little vain'?" she repeated sceptically. "There are more mirrors in this room than they are in a freakin' hall of 'em at a funfair." She planted her hands on her hips and looked him up and down with visible disparagement. "You really must think you're something else, huh?"

What on Cybertron was wrong with this girl?! How could she stand before the blinding glory of his paintjob for the first time and not fall to her knees before its magnificence? How was it that the kid could stand there in her dusty baseball shoes, with her hands on her hips and an expression as proud as that, when she was standing in the shadow of the most gorgeous hunk of metal in the universe? She was either blind or stupid, and he was starting to think that it was the latter.

"I am something else, squishy," he informed her condescendingly. "I'm the best soldier on the Autobot team!"

"Sure you are," Leiana said jadedly, pursing her lips.