Prowl's age in human years: 1-year-old

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"Prowl?"

The small black and white sparkling lifted his gaze at the sound of the familiar voice. Sure enough, the mechanism he identified as mother was standing at the doorstep of his room, looking at him with a small smile on her lips.

"What are you doing there, little one?" she asked, walking up to him. "Don't you know it's late?"

Uh oh. Prowl had come to know only too well what his mother meant whenever she said that, and he didn't like it one bit.

"Not tired," he mildly protested, putting his brand new vocaliser in good use.

"Oh, I think using your toys as headrest qualifies as tired," she answered with a chuckle. She picked him up in her arms and placed a small peck on his cheek. "Come on. Let's go."

Prowl crossed his arms and turned his head away from his mother in a pouting manner.

She just laughed a bit. "That's not going to work either, little one."

Prowl sighed in defeat. Honestly, he hated going to sleep. He had to see things, explore, understand and apply reason to everything that was going on around him. How was he to do that from his berth, recharging?

Fortunately, he discovered a trick some time ago. One that he always put to good use whenever both his parents retired to their own berth. One that never failed him no matter how many times his mother tried to catch him in the act, or how many times his father changed the sparkling-sized berth in the belief that that was the so-called problem.

And, tonight, he was going to do it again. He bore with stoicism his mother placing him on the berth, and then he watched her carefully as she made sure the rails around him were secure. After all, the rails had to be locked in place so that Prowl wouldn't accidentally fall off his berth while recharging.

It was also a very important part of Prowl's escape trick.

So, Prowl lay perfectly still while his mother was in the room. He waited patiently for her to exit and turn off the light, and then turned up his audio receptors to listen to the footsteps fading away in the distance.

Five minutes later, he decided he could go for it. Gripping the rails tightly, he climbed over them with experienced ease and then let go. It wasn't a long way to jump, so he wasn't afraid. Nevertheless, he never liked that last part because the landing hurt his behind a little.

A small price for the fun he was going to have afterwards.

With that in mind, he headed for his toys and picked up the holopad with the animals of Cybertron in it.

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"He did it again."

Swiftstrike woke up at the sound of her bondmate's voice. Blinking in surprise, she noticed that it was quite early in the morning, and the sunlight was slowly creeping inside the room.

Jetcloud wasn't in their room, though. In fact, the light blue femme could see him standing on the doorstep of Prowl's room, leaning against the frame.

Swiftstrike sighed, for she quickly understood what the problem was. She got out of the berth and walked up to Jetcloud so she could have a look at their son too.

Just as she had expected, Prowl was curled on his side in deep recharge, both little hands clasping weakly his favourite holopad.

Jetcloud shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in mild frustration. "I love him, Swiftstrike. Primus, I love him, but I wish he cut that out. How does he do it anyway?"

"Don't, dear," she said simply, squeezing Jetcloud's hand in hers with a small smile. "You'll only get your computer crashed again."

And with that, she picked up the recharging sparkling in her arms and placed him back on the berth for some proper rest this time.