Red Alert didn't really notice it any more. That the fingers on his left servo couldn't flatten. That the palm wasn't all that flexible. It was just how he was. How he'd always been. Oh, but the medics had been ever so interested in it. They'd asked him what happened, how he got burned, if Firestorm'd done it on purpose. He'd just been a mechling at the time, he didn't know how to respond.
So, the medics assumed things. They made sad clicking sound and jotted down notes. Firestorm never got the chance to explain. No one asked him.
The house sat in the middle of a conservative lawn, among similarly proportioned buildings. The medal plants were cared for but not excessively so. A lower middle class home in a lower middle class neighborhood.
A grey femme stood in the kitchen, her hip cocked out to the side as she languidly stirred additives into a pot of energon. The radio next to her played a little too loudly and the smolder from the cygarette between her lips tinted the air green. On the counter, not fair from the hot stove top, sad a little sparkling.
The femme, Nightbird, didn't pay the child much attention as she began to vigorously whip the fluids together. She bounced slightly to the beat of the song, stopping intermittently to gulp some oddly tinted energon from a cube. The more she drank, the easier her hips swung.
The little white and red sparkling stare at her. His blue optics were those of child yet too young to fully see, one who explored the world with hands and mouth. Slowly, he reached out for the brightly glowing cube. Tiny, stubby, fingers almost touched the clear crystal before a much larger servo grabbed his forearm and yanked him back. The sparkling squeaked in shock and pain as his arm jerked in its socket.
"No." The acromatic femme stated, pushing the child up against the wall. "Don't touch."
For a few moments, the sparkling sat, confused, as the fuzzy world around him changed so quickly. With a sniffle, he leaned forward onto his servos and knees, crawling toward the blob that made up his carrier. He didn't like being this far away.
Nightbird grumbled when the sparkling crawled back to his spot next to the recipe she was using. For such a little thing, he could be quite the servo-full at times. She puffed away on her cygarette, watching dispassionately as her creation kept making his slow way forward, toward the stove. Only one of the burners was on, though the burner closest to her had just barely been turned off a few moments ago.
He could feel the warmth. The sparkling, in his half blind way, trekked toward the heating coils, his chubby servos sliding over the counter.
Narrowing her optics, Nightbird glared at the child. She could guess at what he was about to do. Before the delicate servo could grab at the heated rings, she let a hiss slip from around the cygarette.
"Don't touch."
The young spark's servo paused, and he turned his head to look at where the sound came from. A moment later, the servo started inching forward again.
"No." Nightbird said angrily. "That's hot. Don't touch." She pulled the child's arm back.
He squeaked in dismay. As soon as the grip on his vanished, the white and red sparkling reached again.
"You little glitch." The words were spat out as Nightbird grabbed her creation just below the elbow joint. He chirped in alarm. "The stove is fragging hot." She jerked him closer to the burner, until he began to squirm from the heat. "But if you want to learn it the hard way," she glared down at the little being that'd parasited off her for almost a whole year. "Be my guest." She slammed the little hand down down on the coils.
The sparkling screamed.
Thrashing, he tried pulling away from the searing pain, servo spasming. But the vice like grip on him held firm. Burning. He could smell melting alloys, could feel as his fingers couldn't pull off of the burning coil.
More shrill screams rang out. Nightbird glared down at the spasming child. His little legs kicked uselessly, free arm trying to pull her much larger servo off of him. Without a word, the young, grey, femme yanked her creation way from the stove, off the counter, and dropped him-though not from too high up-onto the floor. Little bits of his servo were left melted to the stove.
Nightbird went back to her music.
The front door slammed open.
She was mindless of the wailing sparkling near her peds.
The clang of peds running down the hall.
She turned the music up a little higher.
"By the pier of Noyn!" A red and yellow mech stood in the archway to the kitchen/dining room. "Nightbird! What happened?!"
The grey femme stopped the music as the winged mech rushed forward. He scooped the trembling creation up, cradling him to chassis.
"What did you do to him?" Shocked optics locked onto the badly burned servo.
"You're the one who went through three years of law school." Nightbird leaned against the counter. "So, Firestorm, you tell me." She puffed at the cygarette.
Firestorm leveled her with a furious glare. "How can you repeatedly treat our creation like gutter trash?!" He spat at her. "We gave him life! You can't-"
"Your creation." She corrected. "You gave him life." She threw the cygarette stub, landing a direct hit on her bondmate's nose. "If you'd let me have a say I'd have terminated it before the end of the first cycle."
Firestorm didn't even flinch when the burning stub of wires hit him. "The fact he has a frame sure hasn't stopped you from trying. First the tub, now this!" The brightly colored mech turned around, sensory wings flared flat against his shoulders.
Nightbird lurched forward, fingers grabbing onto the tip of a wing. "Where are you going?" She sounded almost panicked,
"I'm taking Red to a doctor." Firestorm stopped, wing trampolining under the fingers. "He's badly burned."
"No." Pulling hard, Nightbird hauled the winged mech be toward her. "You're not." The words hissed out.
"Maybe you can't understand this, Iaconian." He growled back. "My creation could be perma-"
Nightbird backhanded him. The young mech stumbled back, one servo raising to his split cheek plate. "No. You're. Not" She insisted. This wasn't the first time they'd had a conversation like this.
Firestorm swallowed hard, his wings sagging. Slowly, the young lawyer moved the hiccupping youngling up to his shoulder. "I'm-I'll-I'm going to put Red in bed." He walked farther into the house. Nightbird followed, cube of highgrade in servo. She threw slurs at the back of his chevroned helm as Firestorm lay the whimpering sparkling in his crib, locked the door to the small room and moved to their shared quarters.
The moment the door closed behind Nightbird, Firestorm turned on her. Engine gearing up, the Praxian slammed his Iaconian mate against the wall, the now empty cube shattering on the ground. "Why!?" He shouted, wings snapping open, he slapped the femme.
Grunting, Nightbird raised a knee between their frames, kicking the mech to the floor. "You wanted the little parasite. But I'm the one who has to look after it!" As the red and yellow mech scrambled to his knees, the grey femme landed another kick, this time on his chin.
Firestorm fell onto his back, energon leaking from his split lips. Before he could rise, Nightbird pounced on him, pinning his arms over his head. "I'm the one who had to quit her job. I'm the one who has to deal with your sick culture." She placed the tip of her ped on his throat. "Your weakness is sickening Praxian." She spit into his face
As Firestorm began to choke, his primary vent bending under the pressure, he surged up against the lighter frame. He wasn't a trained fighter. Nightbird was. He wasn't overcharged. Nightbird was. With a mighty effort, he threw the off. She was on her peds quickly, but didn't attack again. Perhaps, somewhere in her overcharged and cygarette buzzed processor, she realized what could happen if she kept going, if she kept hitting.
She turned to the door, not looking back as Firestorm sat up, rubbing his throat. "I'm going out." She stumbled through the door, heading for the setting sun outside the front door.
Coughing, Firestorm staggered to his peds. Slowly, he shuffled to the lock door that lead into his creation's room. Quietly, he pulled Red Alert from his crib. The small sparkling whimpered, even in his sleep curling protectively around his injured servo. Sinking down, Firestorm added his own layer of protection to the child, wrapping his arms tight around him.
That night, Firestorm lay trembling on the floor. Holding his little sparkling close. Wishing he'd never left Praxus.
"Um, Lert?"
Red Alert's head jerked up. He hadn't realized he'd zoned out for so long. "What were we talking about?" He asked, looking down at the green mechling he sat next to.
The prone child sighed. This was the first time he'd been able to just relax with his adopted brother in weeks and while the whole day had been amazing so far, he did wish that Red Alert didn't keep fading out of their conversations. Especially when he was the one telling the story. "I asked what happened to your servo and if I could see it." Youth made him forward, pointing at the servo-whose fingers couldn't quite straighten out-that Red Alert unconsciously hid behind his right hand.
"Oh, yeah." The mech extended his arm, letting the mechling touch the scarred plating, running his own digits along the bent one.
"I don't really know." He finally said. "Probably grabbed something hot when I was little."
Hound nodded, smiling up at the mech his carrier brought home one day and said would live with them. The green mechling didn't mention he'd overheard Coldstar and Sniffer discussing how much heat it would take to permanently damage a Cybertronian's servo, even as a sparkling.