Frequencies of The Heart (Soundwave x Reader)

Metal and Memory

Everything was wrong.

When you awoke, the first sensation you were aware of was the weight—an unfamiliar heaviness in your limbs, in your chest, in your very being. Your mind felt sluggish, disoriented, as if you were trapped in a dream that you couldn't quite shake off. You tried to move, but the effort was met with resistance, like your body wasn't responding the way it should.

Panic crept in slowly at first, and then all at once. Something wasn't right.

You forced your eyes open, expecting to see the familiar surroundings of the Nemesis—or maybe the chaos of the crash site. But instead, you were met with a dim, sterile room. Medical equipment hummed faintly in the background, and the lights were low, casting long shadows on the walls.

Where am I?

You tried to sit up, but your body—this body—felt alien, as if it wasn't yours. The limbs you attempted to move were heavier, more rigid, and your vision... it was different. Sharper. You blinked several times, trying to clear the fog in your mind, but with each passing second, the strangeness of your new reality only intensified.

The room around you was far too large. The table you were on felt more like a platform, and the weight pressing down on you was far more than your human form could ever bear.

What happened to me?

The last thing you remembered was the crash. The ship falling. The pain. And then... Soundwave. He had found you, cradled you in those final moments, his voice soft and distorted as he held you in his arms. You had been dying—you were certain of it. The damage had been too severe, the blood too much. There was no surviving that.

But somehow... you had.

You managed to move your hand—or at least, what should have been your hand—and when you brought it into your line of sight, the panic that had been simmering beneath the surface erupted into full-blown terror.

Your hand wasn't a hand at all. It was metal. Cold, sleek, and unmistakably Cybertronian.

"No," you whispered, your voice trembling. Or at least, you thought you were whispering—but the sound that came from you was a garbled, static-laden mess, not the voice you had always known. It was deeper, distorted, and not entirely your own.

You jerked upright, your movements clumsy, uncoordinated. Your limbs felt too long, too heavy, and you couldn't seem to balance yourself properly. The room seemed to sway as you struggled to stand, your vision flickering with strange overlays—data, diagnostics, things you didn't understand.

This can't be real.

You stumbled toward a reflective surface on the wall, your legs feeling strange beneath you, as if they didn't belong. And when you finally caught sight of yourself in the reflection, you froze.

The face staring back at you wasn't yours. It wasn't human.

Your optics—optics, not eyes—glowed faintly in the low light, a cold blue that was painfully familiar. The plating of your frame was sleek and compact, smaller than most Cybertronians, but unmistakably mechanical. Your form was... you recognized it. Your mind raced as the realization hit you.

Rumble.

They had rebuilt you in the body of Rumble.

You staggered back from the mirror, the full weight of what had happened crashing down on you. This wasn't your body. This wasn't your life. You had been... transformed, reconstructed into something else, something other.

I'm not human anymore.

The door to the medical bay hissed open, and you flinched, still unsteady on your feet. You turned slowly, the sound of your metal joints moving unfamiliar and jarring.