This story was written based on events after revenge of the fallen and after the events in the book Transformers: The Veiled Treat. By Alan Dean Foster.

I do not own transformers, but write them anyhow.

I have been reworking my writing style and I hope that this is MUCH better than my past attempts. I would like to thank the author Borath for the inspiration to be more discriptive, and author Alan Dean Foster for sparking my head to get into something serious.

Catching a Nova

Chapter 1: Sweets

Lennox walked along the scaffold with a towel in his hair and a toothbrush hanging from his jaw. He reached up and scrubbed at his teeth some more as he walked away from the locker rooms. His steps deliberate, every one. Eyes glanced; this way and that to make a note of where soldiers were.

He pulled the towel down around his neck and stepped out of the hanger slowly. Kami was walking away from Ironhide holding a large crate and she had soldiers running at her from all sides. "Hey! HEY! One at a time!" She yelled at them motioning a hand "The big guy will back me up." She said pointing to Ironhide.

A smirk crossed his lips and he removed the toothbrush and spit the minty mess from his mouth to the cement ground. Running the towel along his lips he looked out shaking his head. He watched as kami handed out small boxes to each of the soldiers calling each by name.

"A gift?" A deep booming voice broke his observations. Lennox turned on his heels.

"She ordered a large amount of girl scout cookies…from her neice or something…kid wanted to win a prize, so she took orders on base…two hundred boxes worth..." Lennox said "the cookies are a sweet…" he shrugged "humans can't resist them…Hope she's got my Thin mints." He mused. Optimus merely nodded.

"Ironhide is fond of her."

"I can't stand her sometimes, insufferable, insubordinate, some other word that starts with IN that I can't seem to think of at the moment." Lennox chewed.

"It's late." Optimus puts a hand up on the railing near Lennox tapping a finger on the rail. "Get some sleep." Lennox could only nod in response and take Optimus' concern to heart. He mused about what was going on down on the tarmac; watching Kami fend off the soldiers who lined up near her crate. Ironhide was standing over her now pointing at the line yelling at those who chose to cut and butt that their honor was being tarnished, they would all get "the candy" if they were patient.

Lennox shook his head one more time and lifted his headphones to his ears. He needed to drown out the day to day stress being a major involved and the only way he knew to do it was with blaring music. He turned and made down the ramp to stow his towel and toothbrush so he could just to relax. Hoping that soon he would be able to sleep as well.

Ironhide looked down quietly as the last of the soldiers grabbed their boxes leaving Kami with only two. "will that be sufficient for your nourishment?" Ironhide had asked her.

"They are candy Ironhide…they aren't very good for you." She lifted the two small boxes and then set them aside and then turned to move the crate. "This one is for Lennox…his Thin Mints."

"Of course not! I do not require your nourishment sources." Ironhide reached down taking the crate from her hands and moved it himself, leaving her to pick up her small boxes of precious cookies.

"When I say 'aren't very good for you' I didn't mean 'YOU' Ironhide…what I mean to say is 'they aren't very good for humans.'" She smiled to him. Ironhide grunted in understanding. "Aren't you due for some nourishment yourself? I know you all have a huge store." Her undertone mimicking his tone pretty closely.

"Energon?" he blinked looking down "yes we will all need to have some in the coming days, like I told your sergeant Epps, we do not need to ingest nourishment at the rate you do." He stopped allowing her adequate time to catch up to him. His strides had been long and sometimes he forgot the humans were not as quick as he was.

"What does it taste like?" Kami looked up to the weapon specialist with wide eyes and a genuine curiosity.

"I accidently ingested a battery once…it sort of" a grimace covered his faceplates. "tastes like battery acid." He said "only the battery tasted like rancid energon." He concluded quietly.

"Energon can go bad?" she questioned "I would like very much to examine a sample."

"That request will have to go to prime." Ironhide set the crate along the side of the hanger and motioned her inside with him. "Kaminari?" Ironhide's voice was quiet and he knelt down closer to the ground.

"Yes Ironhide?" She asked looking back at the large robot. She turned steps moving closer to the mech. Her head was calculating a lot of things at the moment. His hand came forward and one of his fingers reached out and ran a line down her arm.

"It's nothing." He cast it off and stood stepping over her to make his way inside ahead of her. Kaminari blushed slightly, and shook her head and made for her lab; she had a lot of work to do.

Epps was seated feet up on a card table. He had headphones on and was trying to look at sports scores in the paper. Heavy foot falls made him sit up and turn. "Ironhide…" he pulled the headphones from his ears. "What are you doing big guy?"

"I am going to …" he shook his head waving a hand "rest." He finished and ducked out of sight down into the back of the hanger where their common area was. Epps could only shrug and put his feet back up on the table and return the headphones to his ears.

Optimus was seated on the ground back against the hanger wall; his forearms resting across his knees. "These buildings are too short." Ironhide spat as he bent to get into the main room and then found a spot near Optimus to sit.

"Agreed." Optimus turned his head "The others should be returning soon."

"It's disconcerting that we are here and they are on the mission." Ironhide admitted crossing his legs and putting his hands on his knees. Honestly he had almost fought with Optimus about going. Ironhide wasn't one to sit idle. Optimus waved a hand at him.

"This is a simple pick up Ironhide, it doesn't take brute force to do a pick up." Optimus chided.

"It's Skids and Mudflap." Ironhide was curt.

"Arcee is with them they will be fine." Optimus leaned back against the wall.

Ironhide wished he could be as casual as prime sometimes. His optics shuttered a moment then fluttered back to life. Kami, he could smell her. She came into the hanger from the opposite side, she had moved around to her lab. She carried a few canisters in her hand and made for Ratchet's work area. She started dividing up the samples back into their containers and grabbed a few more. She was ever the scientist.

Ironhide was fond of her, and very protective. He had seen the capacity of her courage in their battle with Tread. She had allowed the decepticon to lift her up, a very risky move. However she, with the help of Ironhide, was able to deactivate the decepticon. He smiled and watched as she lifted a few more samples. He made a few contented laughs.

"You like her." Optimus put a hand on his shoulder giving a light push.

"She is a fine soldier and very intelligent for a human." Ironhide tried to derail prime's statement in one sentence, but he failed. He shifted at the push from prime and uttered a cybertronian curse.

"You know what I meant by that Ironhide." Optimus removed his hand and shuttered his optics shutting down vital systems and turning his cooling fans off. He tried to get a moment of recharge if at all possible.

"You're too much Prime."

"Shift gears Ironhide." He said in quiet response and stopped moving.

"Wish I could." He said honestly but prime hadn't heard, he'd shut off his audio receptors. Ironhide let a behemoth of a sigh out from his intake manifolds. He just wanted something to pass, if not just time, he was itching to get back out in the field.

He ran diagnostics of both his cannons while he sat next to the silent Prime. His head turned to this side and that watching a number of miscellaneous humans as they passed in and out of the hanger. Kami had grabbed up a new sample and pulled a few more into her hands.

Exasperated and overloaded she dropped one of the canisters. She knelt down in a feeble effort to lift it up but dropped two more out of her hands. Kami's hand extended to pull the canister to her. A large metal hand lifted up the small canister between two fingers before she could reach it. Ironhide handed her the can. "You're over extending yourself."

"Thank you Ironhide." She smiled up to him taking the canister from his fingers. "I thought you were with Optimus."

"He's eh…resting." Ironhide snatched up two more canisters in his large hands. "You should get some sleep…you could do with some rest as well." His blue optics turned to her.

"Like I told you and Lennox both in Australia…One learns nothing while sleeping." The scientist moved her hands. "Optimus is not a comfortable sleep." She remarks of sleeping in the cab.

"Neither am I as I hear." Lennox had rested in his back seats during their trip to Australia. Ironhide didn't like it when humans slept within him, but he couldn't do much about it most of the time. Kami stood and reached up at Ironhide. He flinched momentarily before he allowed her to touch his faceplates with her left hand.

"You're stubborn." Kami shook her head with a smile.

"And so are you." He said handing her another canister, a smile graced his faceplates. She took the canister with her already full right hand not letting her left from his faceplates and proceeded to drop the rest of the canisters which clanged to the ground. She started to laugh, and Ironhide just smiled at her.