A lone round red ball rolled down the empty hall.
The shinny ball, the red only marred by a bright white star, rolled itself to the edge to the staircase. It stayed on the edge for a click before it rolled off and bounced down the flight of stairs to land at the end, rolling to a stop, resting against the wall.
The only witness to the balls movement was a small, red, white and blue bot who walked over to stare at where the ball now rested. The little bot glared at the innocent ball before huffing, raising his two wing nubs, and started to slowly make his way down said evil stairs. Grabbing onto the edge, the bot turned around to face the step before lowing himself down to the next, landing he repeated these steps until he was finally at the end. Lowering himself one last time, the little bot trotted over to the ball and picked it up, rolling it around to check for damage.
This was how the little bot was spotted by a larger white one.
Ratchet was climbing up the flight of stairs grumbling all the way, fragging elevator was broken. He was only here as a favor for a fellow medic, Moonracer was suppose to do a check up on two new meches that were just hired by a construction company, pay them a quick visit to make sure they were healthy enough to work and make sure they had insurance, yadda, yadda, yadda. Unfortunately just as she was about to go, one of her femme friends had gone into labor, being the friend she was, she volunteered to be there for the birthing, begging Ratchet to please go in her place.
He didn't really want to go, but her looking at him like that, with those watery optics.
Yeah, so here he was climbing up ten levels of stairs, swearing at the maker, construction bots who had made the building and the two bots he had to see for living on the very top of the fragging building. Panting and holding onto the rail, be medic bot was in a bad mood, ready to get this over quick and painfully on the unsuspecting bots he growled as he made his way up the second last flight of stairs. However, Ratchet was instead greeted by two little red optics from a sparkling holding a red ball nearly twice its size.
Ratchet off lined his optics, counted to ten, and on lined them.
No, it was still there.
Scanning the small bot, Ratchet easily determined that the sparking was of seeker decent from his wing nubs and chassis shape, but what was a seeker sparkling doing here in Iacon? Making a move to get closer to the alone sparkling, Ratchet stepped back in surprise when the sparkling sent him a vicious glare and a light growl in warning, blinking in surprise Ratchet was about to speak when a loud sound interrupted him.
In a flash of purple, Ratchet found himself staring at a full grown black and purple painted seeker. The seeker sent a mild glare at the medic before quickly picking up the sparking, who favored to drop the ball and raise his little servos to the purple one heading towards him, the smaller seeker was then quickly raised up and placed in the larger seekers cockpit. Now hidden from view, the black seeker now turned his attention to the shocked medic bot.
"Who are you and what are you doing here," growled the seeker rubbing his orange glass, feeling the sparkling tap back to signal that he was alright, "you better have a good answer, or else we'll see if you can fly from being warped off the tenth level."
Ratchet blinked in shock before putting his arms out in defense, "hey, hey I'm just here on a job, I'm supposed to be here to check on two bots from the construction company."
"Hmm," the seeker gave the medic one last glare before bending to pick the forgotten toy, "you must be here for us then, they said they were gonna send a medic down to see us."
Ratchet blinked, the two bots were seekers?, why didn't Moonracer say anything? Not that he had anything against the flyers, but the heads up could have lead to a better first impression. Walking up to a seekers sparkling when it was alone was almost suicide especially if they did not know you, seeker parents were notoriously protective which lead quickly to violence.
"I'm Ratchet, first grade medic. I'm sorry I didn't know I was going to do a checkup on two seekers, much less a sparkling. I shouldn't have approached your sparkling without permission."
Skywarp blinked at the medic in surprise before nodding at him, "you don't see many ground pounders with that much sense, your alright Ratchet, just don't approach Star again when he's alone and we'll be fine. The designation is Skywarp."
Shaking hands, Ratchet was about to pull away, until Skywarp grabbed him around the wrist and dragged it to his cockpit. Ratchet froze as his servo hovered over the orange glass, he was about to say something, until the glass shifted just enough for the top half of the sparkling to pop out. The sparkling stared at Ratchet with red optics before reaching out and grabbing the medic's finger shaking it like he sire had, "I's Sarsweem."
Nodding at the little sparkling and offering a small smile Ratchet repeated his name. "It's Starscream right?" the medic watched as the sparkling crawled out off the cockpit and curled himself around his sires neck.
"Yeah!" replied Skywarp climbing up the stairs as the medic followed him, "your good, not many people understand Star yet."
"Can I ask if he is getting enough energon? I'm not accusing you of anything, it's just he looks little small to be around three vorns old," Ratchet asked lightly knowing this was dangerous territory.
To his surprise the seeker only laughed as he walked down the hall to a doorway, "yeah, Star's a little smaller than most seekers, he's just that way, but he'll grow to be big I guess, just as tall as my shoulders or something. And he's not three vorns, he's only one and a half."
"I's one n' a haf!"
"Yes you are," cooed Skywarp while Ratchet actually stopped when he heard the sparklings right age.
"One and a half? But he can walk and talk," Ratchet took a step closer to look over the sparkling, who looked proud at the attention, "that's amazing."
"That's what everyone else thinks when they find out," walking though the door and setting a sparkling down, Skywarp motioned Ratchet to Starscream, "you're here to actually check out me and my mate, not my little Star. I'll be right back getting him, he's outside getting some of our luggage. Star, take him to the lounge and make him comfortable okay? Oh medic? If you even think about doing something shifty remember one thing. I can feel everything that Star can. And. I. Can. Warp."
With one last glare the seeker sent a smile at his creation and moved towards the window, walking out to the balcony before taking off and heading down, Ratchet realized why they were on the top level. Staring in silence at where Skywarp was, Ratchet felt a small tap on his shin, looking down he saw Starscream looking at him expectantly before walking down the short hall to the lounge. Ratchet silently followed the sparkling, sat down on the couch when the small bot motioned to it and sighed, this was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth but seeing a walking and talking one and a half vorn old sparkling was a surprise.
Watching the sparkling pick up a few things from a blanket on the floor, he was presented with energon goodies and miniature energon cubes with sippy lids. Blinking and taking a goodie and a cube, he sat silently watching as Star pushed at plate to the top of the couch, climbed to the top and sat down next to the medic digging into his own energon and sipping his energon.
That was how the two blue and black seekers had found the two when they flew back up to their room.
"You must be the medic, I am Thundercracker," both shook hands once Ratchet had set down the sippy cube.
"Ratchet. Just here to do a routine checkup and get your insurance data."
"Yes they said you were on your way, but we were told it would be a femme, Moonracer or another."
"There was a medical emergency so I had to fill in."
Thundercracker nodded while motioning that Ratchet could start. Ratchet looked at the energon goodie he had in one servo and the expecting look on the sparkling, popped it into his mouth and pulled out his medical kit.
Primus, it had been so long since he had one of those, these ones were really good.
Scanning both seekers as the sparkling watched curiously, Thundercracker was softly murmuring explanations, both were cleared with optimum health and their insurance data was updated and copied. "…Alright, done."
Skywarp sighed in relief, got up and stretched, while Thundercracker thanked the medic as he was packing up. "I have to ask, what are you both doing here in Iacon? It's not usual to see any seekers much less three living in this city."
"It's alright. Jobs were getting hard to find in Vos that hadn't had us working all clicks of the day and night, money was tight as well so when we were offered this job it seemed like a blessing from Primus," Ratchet nodded knowing how jobs for bots with sparklings were hard to find that allowed them enough hours to get credits and spend time with their creations, "it's not the best place, this apartment, but it is actually better then the place we had in Vos and it gives little Star here more opportunity in the future."
Ratchet nodded, "no I understand, there are many bots that have done the same as you."
The medic followed the blue seeker as he guided the medic to the door, "looks like it's all in order, just let me put this in and then you can start work next cycle."
Thundercracker nodded while placing a servo on the medics shoulder, Ratchet stared at the seeker and was about to say something until he felt something tapping against his shin, looking down it was Starscream holding a little blue bundle. "Tweets fur Wachut."
Smiling and thanking the sparkling he took the bundle and nodded at the seekers, Thundercracker nodded back and ushered the sparkling back in while closing the door. The medic stood there a little longer, blinked, headed towards the stairs and wondered what the slag just happened. Popping another treat in his mouth, the medic didn't feel so bad having to climb down ten stair cases again, these treats were really good.