Mechanical love

Chapter Twenty-six

It had been two and a half weeks since her date with Optimus, and to her confusion; she had seen very little of him since then.

It wasn't that they didn't speak, but she'd noticed that any conversation they seemed to have was kept brief, professional, and with a slight distance in between them.

He would avoid physical contact with her, and she'd also noticed that he only ever seemed to approach her when there were other people (or Autobots) around them.

While she was confused by his actions, if she were being honest with herself it actually made her a little angry.

She didn't understand what she'd done wrong, but she wanted to know what it was.

However she'd not been able to keep him around long enough to try and ask him; there was always something he needed to do; a mission he needed to plan for or a person he needed to inform of something. It was downright driving her crazy.

She had spent a fair amount of time dwelling on this, trying to understand. She knew that Optimus had a lot of things under his wings, a myriad of duties that required his address; but she felt so...ditched.

He'd never acted like this before, almost avoiding her in a way; and that fact in and of itself bothered her.

"You're doing it again, Squishy." Ironhide's voice cut into her thoughts with his brash, abrupt tone.

The little mechanic blinked rapidly, moistening her eyes which had dried from lack of doing so. "Wh-what? Doing what?" she asked, looking up from the forgotten notebook in her hands to catch gaze with the stocky mech., "What...did I do?"

He rumbled a laugh and shook his head, "You were staring off into space again. Any longer and you probably would've found Cybertron." He snorted mockingly at her.

This remark made Carolina laugh. "Yeah...sorry, I was just thinking about something." Suddenly she perked up and pointed at him with her pencil.

"Hey, weren't you supposed to be showing me that perfect aim of yours on those training dummies over there?"

He looked over at the firing range and gave what resembled a shrug, "I was...but your lack of attention made it boring, Squishy; so I gave up."

A grin slipped through her expression as she scratched the back of her neck with the pencil before answering, "Aw, I bet you just can't do it. You're just a senile old man who needs glasses."

In response, the massive Autobot gave what resembled a snarl and pointed the cannon of his right arm at the female, the weapon making a whirring noise in an almost threatening manner.

His face looked angry, but Carolina was well aware of this game; it had become one of their favorite banters.
He was only playing with her, waiting for her to call his bluff.

Instead of reacting, she languidly stretched her arms above her head and yawned before slapping his hand with her book.

"Now, now Grandpa; you keep snarling at me like that and your false teeth will fall out!" she laughed, "Hurry up and show me what those things can do!"

With what could only be described as the Cybertronian equivalent of a smirk, he uncurled his fist and used one finger to tap her shortly on the head.

The gesture was only quick, and to anyone else, it would have looked like he'd poked her; but she knew the meaning behind the notion.

Ironhide was gruff and abrupt; not generally comfortable with sappy shows of tenderness, so she knew what small, seemingly insulting jests meant coming from him.