This story takes place practically right after "Miracle".
Starscream woke with a start, looking around quickly. For a minute there he had totally forgotten where he was but after a quick look around, he remembered that he had fallen into recharge on a chair in the med. bay. He rubbed at his optics, glancing over at Knock Out after. The red mech was still recovering so he was laying in one of the med. berths in recharge.
Starscream couldn't help but smile. The thing that he was still recovering from was the delivery of a sparkling the other day. Their sparkling. A red and white Seeker femme that they named Cloudwing.
The ex-Commander frowned. If it wasn't for Optimus Prime, Cloudwing wouldn't be with them. She would have still been delivered but she wouldn't of had a spark. She would have been just an empty husk.
A shiver went down his spinal strut at that thought. He honestly didn't know what he would have done if Cloudwing wasn't alive. He would grieve of course but Knock Out and him would probably end up trying for another later in the future.
He shook his helm. He shouldn't think about that right now. What mattered now was the fact that Cloudwing was alright.
The med. bay doors suddenly opened and Starscream flinched and looked to the door quickly when he heard crying, getting to his pedes when he saw Ratchet gesturing him to come out into the hall. The old medic was trying to cradle Cloudwing in his arms but she wouldn't stop squirming and crying rather loudly.
"Here, you try to calm her down," Ratchet said, sounding rather irritated as he held out Cloudwing to the ex-Decepticon once the med. bay door closed behind the Seeker.
Starscream took her from the medic quickly, "First of all, you're holding her wrong," he said, trying not to snap at the older mech as he held the much smaller Seeker against his chest, stroking her helm with a thumb-digit. "As sparklings, Seekers prefer laying on their front and side. Not their back. This is because their wings are still developing and thus are way more sensitive than older Seekers."
As he explained this, Cloudwing was calming down but was still making whimpering and hiccuping noises.
Ratchet sighed from relief, "Finally," he said and rubbed his audios. "I thought I was going to go deaf there for a second."
Starscream couldn't help but chuckle at the medic's torment, "Seeker sparkling cries are rather audio shattering, aren't they," he looked down at Cloudwing, wiping away her tears from one of her cheeks. "It's kind of like a defense mechanism for them since Seeker sparklings are known to be weaker than any other sparklings."
"Is that why Seekers are known to be rather protective over their sparklings and other sparklings?" Ratchet asked.
The Seeker was about to ask the old medic where he heard that but he then remembered that he told him the other day. He had said it as more of a warning for the medic when he was looking after Cloudwing. He nodded his helm, "That and we're just generally protective over them. There isn't any real reason why."
Cloudwing was calm for a second but she began to whimper again.
"Oh please, don't tell me she's going to start crying again," Ratchet asked, getting ready to cover his audios.
Starscream frowned, rubbing the side of her helm, "What's wrong?" he asked her, not really expecting her to understand him yet. The answer he got though was her grabbing one of his digits and clamping her mouth on the side of it, sucking on it lightly. She whined a little louder when she wasn't getting anything.
"It seems that she's hungry now," Ratchet said, shaking his helm.
Starscream looked up at him, "Have you given her any energon yet?" he asked.
Ratchet shook his helm, "No, not yet. When she was delivered she had a pretty full tank already so she was good for awhile. She hadn't cried at all before today."
The Seeker smiled, "I guess we have Knock Out to thank for that. He did pretty good at regulating is energon rations."
Ratchet took a scanner out of his subspace, "You better get her some energon now and make sure its low-grade. I need to go and check over my newest patients," he said and began walking down the hall.
Starscream frowned, "Wait, is she fine to be out of your care now?"
Ratchet turned enough to look at him over his shoulder, "Of course, why do you think I came all this way with her," he said and turned the corner.
Cloudwing began whining and the ex-Decepticon looked down at her. He patted her helm lightly as he turned to head the other way down the hall, "Let's get you your energon now."
Starscream carefully and quickly went down the hall, taking a lift down to one of the lower floors of Autobot headquarters. Once he got off the lift, he made his way towards the break room. He stopped just before the open doors and peeked inside. He looked over at every seat, seeing that the entire room was empty.
He let out a sigh of relief before walking in. He really didn't want to encounter the others right now because he knew that the Autobots would get really excited in seeing Cloudwing for the first time and he really didn't want the attention on her right now. Even though its been a couple days already since Cloudwing was delivered, she had been in Ratchet's care the entire time and only Starscream and Knock Out were permitted to see her.
Now, since she was out of the old medic's care, anyone can see her. Starscream grit his denta as he set the energon dispenser to low-grade, setting up a special bottle for sparklings. When the others get near, he can only guess that his protective Seeker programming is going to get in the way.
Once the bottle was done being filled with the low-grade energon, he picked it up along with a special cap and made his way to a seat in one of the corners of the break room. It was his seat, well, he had claimed it as his seat so he could sit as far from the others as possible. He didn't know how Knock Out was able to get used to all the Autobots.
He sat down in the seat and turned his attention on Cloudwing, settling her on her side. She was still whining. He twisted the lid on the bottle and brought it up to the small Seeker's mouth. She looked at it curiously, having no clue what it was but grabbed it anyway and clamped her mouth on the end.
Starscream took that moment to tilt the bottle once she started to suck on it. He couldn't help but smile at her reaction when she was getting some energon this time. She started sucking on it harder, wanting more and the Seeker pulled it away from her.
"If you're going to do that, you'll choke," he scolded. All he got from her was a whine and her little servos reaching for the bottle. He rolled his optics, "Fine," he said, bringing it back to her mouth where she immediately began to suck on the bottle. Starscream shook his helm, "Greedy little thing aren't you."
He watched her drink from the bottle, watching as her tiny servos gripped the side of it. After awhile, he began to hum quietly. He soon noticed that her optics were growing heavy and her grip on the bottle was loosening.
While he continued to hum, he carefully removed the bottle from her mouth. She didn't whine or cry for the bottle, her optics just blinked slowly and rather tiredly. The ex-Commander can only guess that she was already satisfied with the amount of energon that she had gotten. He looked at the bottle, noticing that she actually didn't have that much. Probably about half.
She's definitely going to be needing more later.
As he hummed and set the bottle on the table in front of him, he saw movement at the corner of his optic and glanced up. He froze instantly, watching as a couple Autobots walked in. His servos unconsciously went over to cover Cloudwing protectively. It was Wheeljack and... Jazz? Was it? Yea, that's his name.
Starscream stroked the side of Cloudwing's helm gently as he watched them walk to the energon dispenser, chatting up a storm. Wheeljack's back was facing him so he wasn't that worried about him but Jazz on the other hand. He kept watching them, mentally praying to Primus that they wouldn't see him and that they wouldn't notice.
They both reached for their now filled cubes from the dispenser and as Jazz lifted his to his mouth to take a drink, he glance in Starscream's direction for a second.
That's all it took and Jazz had to do a double-take, his optics going from the grey Seeker to the small red form that he was trying to hide under his servos back up at the Seeker. He did that again, his cube lowering from his mouth this time as a rather excited smile went across his features.
Starscream's optics widened, warnings blaring up on his internal HUD and it didn't help much when the black and white mech patted the white wrecker's shoulder, gesturing over at the Seeker.
Once the wrecker turned and saw Starscream holding the sparkling close to his chest, he swore that the warnings became louder and more urgent in his helm.
This was definitely not good.
Decided that this is going to be a multi-chaptered story but I can only guess that it'll be somewhere between three and seven chapters long. Never actually planned how many that there will be.
Anyway, I finished drawing out some Cloudwing drawings so the link to it will be up on my profile.