Just a cute little one-shot. I wanted to portray Rumble as being a young mech who was forced to 'grow up' due to being born in the war. This one-shot was actually spawned when I was playing War for Cybertron today. I had gotten to the part of the level where they go to the Kaon prison in order to free Zeta Prime, and Soundwave kept deploying Rumble and Frenzy. When you're playing as a full-sized mech, they look so adorable because of the obvious size-difference. So, I blurt out (because it was only me and my brother), "He's so adorable! I wanna kill him with love!" when Rumble was deployed. And my brother replied with a deadpan, "That's something Soundwave can't fix."
You can probably now see how this was born, lol.
Too Cute
"Rumble: eject," Soundwave commanded in a monotone.
Out of the cassette-deck's chest flew a blue cassette-tape, which folded out into the form of a small mech who barely stood to halfway up Soundwave's knee. "Who's ready to tumble with Rumble?!" he taunted, bringing out his pile-drivers.
Immediately, he began to pound the ground with his signature weapons. The opposing Autobots began to wobble on their pedes as the ground beneath them rocked violently. A couple toppled off of their pedes, while one, Ironhide, managed to stumble, almost drunkenly, over to the cassette. One swift kick later and Rumble was sent flying away over the trees and out of sight, a long, pain-filled syllable following after him. It strangely sounded almost like a long, drawn out, "Owwwww!" that continued to taper off the farther away he flew.
About three miles away, the little, human-sized, Decepticon landed none-too-gently and rolled, out of control, for about a hundred more meters. When his frame stopped moving, his processor continued to spin sickeningly. It made him feel queasy to the point that he was almost force to purge his tank. It was a very uncomfortable feeling. His processor would not stop spinning though, and why did it feel like he had a virus? Why did he feel a weird tugging at the back of his mind? Darkness encroached in the corners of his vision, threatening to consume him while offering him the comforting solace of oblivion. Without much struggle, he was dragged down into the depths of the darkness, and for the first time in a while, his processor was allowed to rest as he was put into stasis.
Sometime later, he regained consciousness to the sound of hushed voices. He kept his optics closed and his visor switched off in order to hear what they were saying without them stopping because they knew he was awake. The quiet conversation continued on above him as his sensors told him that a young femme sat on his left, while a mech sat on his right. Rumble assumed that he was lying on a berth of some sort.
"What were you thinking? Were you actually thinking when you brought him back to the ship, Pixel?" the mech chastised with a whoosh of air, which told the Minicon that the mech was bordering on anger with the way the words were forced out of the mech's voicebox.
An edge as sharp as a knife appeared in the femme's voice. "I am not a little femmeling anymore, Opi!" she growled. "In fact, I was thinking when I found him out there. Don't think that I'm stupid and reckless because I come across a little Decepticon while I'm out on my daily walk and decide, since he looks pretty banged up, that I should take him back some and fix him up!"
Her ranting came to a stop when the mech, who was apparently her mech-creator, cleared his vents harshly, which made a rough noise that startled him a little bit. "Stop, ranting," the mech said in a low tone. "You know I don't like it when you rant." The mech's voice settled into an accent Rumble recognised from when he went on an Energon raid down in New Zealand. It was a common accent that could be found on Cybertron if you went far enough down south, and visited places like Uraya or Kalis.
The femme sighed. "Yeah, I remember," she said sourly.
"Good," the mech grunted. "You should also remember that we don't want any contact with any of the Cybertronians that can be found on this planet. We do not want to face the horrors of war again, especially now that your brother is now old enough to remember things."
A whimper left the femme. "I-I remember," she keened, sounding as if she was going to be sparkbroken any nanoklik. "But…but…Opi," she wept. "I…I couldn't just leave him out there!"
"I know, I know," the mech said, trying to sooth her. "You thought you were doing the right thing. Your spark is just too loving to have existed in such a war-torn universe."
Rumble crinkled his nose, finding he had just had about enough of this sappy conversation, which was obviously about the femme's choice to 'rescue' him. He opened his optics and onlined his visor. The first thing he saw once he could see was the face of a femme, obviously the one who had been sitting on his left. Her big pale pastel blue optics stared into his red visor as she forced a smile on her face and greeted him warmly. "Hi! Glad to see you're awake!"
If he could have pulled his helm away from her, he would have, but there was a berth and a berth pillow in the way. "Wha…?" was the only thing he managed to get through his voice box, and it was far from the most intelligent thing he wanted to say.
She backed up a bit and stood up, allowing him to judge that she was probably as tall as Bumblebee, maybe a little taller. She was navy blue in colour and sported doorwings, which were rare amongst the grounders outside the Praxian 'race' of Cybertronians. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly. The tone itched at him wrong. He was not used to having someone speak to him like that.
Rumble turned his helm from left to right, sweeping his gaze across the room. "W-where am I?" he asked, before mentally kicking himself. He didn't like how he sounded so insecure.
"You are on our ship," the mech said flatly, with little emotion in his voice. Rumble could clearly tell that that mech didn't desire to have him on his ship for very much longer. "My femme-creation decided it would be wise to bring you onto our ship after she found you passed out on the floor of the forest she walks through every day."
Rumble followed the golden-yellow mech's disapproving glance over to the femme, whose doorwings rose in indignation. "I couldn't help it!" she exclaimed. "He's so adorable! I wanna kill him with love!" a few seconds passed before she realized what she had said and who she had said it in front of. Her cheeks turned a rosy pink in embarrassment. "N-never mind," she stuttered hastily. "F-forget I said that."
"Kill me with love?" Rumble asked, confused.
The mech fixed him with a side glance. "My creation has a big spark. She find's you 'adorable', no doubt her danniluk-protocols onlined when she saw you lying there outside. It was something she probably couldn't resist."
"Oh," Rumble said quietly, his voice suddenly sounding very small. Suddenly, the berth seemed huge and he felt like he was going to be swallowed up in it. He clutched the dark blue blanket covering his form as he tried to push down the sparkling insecurities he had been forced to bury when he had been little, due to the fact that he was practically born into the Decepticon ranks about halfway through the war. He had never had a femme-creator before, since he and his brothers had been forged cold when Soundwave split his spark to create them. Having been created with only a mech-creator had left a gaping hole amongst the bonds he had that he used to notice from time to time, especially after extremely hard battles.
What was it like to have a danni? None of the femmes he had ever interacted with had ever made him feel this way, but it was bound to have eventually happened. At least this femme was Neutral (apparently, due to the fact that her opiluk wanted to ban interaction with the outside Cybertronian communities—the Autobots and the Decepticons).
The little mech seemed to melt in front of the Neutrals optics. He let go and reached up with grabby-hands to the only femme in the room. His bottom lip was even beginning to wobble. His Decepticon pride was going to kill him for this later, but right now, he didn't really care.
The femme looked shocked at first, but after a few moments, a warm smile appeared on her blue lips. She bent down and scooped him up into her arms, and proceeded to cradle him like a sparkling.
The femme's opi facepalmed at the scene. "Don't tell me you're going to adopt him now, are you?" he asked.
She smiled at him before she gazed down at the cassette in her arms. She liked how he seemed to be liking the cradling.
Yes, Rumble's pride was going to kill him for this later, but he was getting the attention he wanted from a femme, so, he was going to leave it be for now.