Disclaimer: I don't own them.
This story was heavily inspired by antepathy's "Chance" and "Desert" (both are listed in my favorites).
Warnings: spoilers for Dark of the Moon
"Oh..." First Aid's voice had gone very soft, his optics bright as they scanned over the hatchlings. "Oh my goodness."
The hatchlings paused uncertainly at the sight of the unfamiliar mech, a few emitting nervous query calls to Barricade, falling silent when he did not respond. The ones that had been crawling towards him increased their speed with panicked determination, digging talons into his leg armor when they reached him and clinging tightly, trying to pull themselves up as far as they could. The rest squirmed back into a heap, burrowing into their nest of straw and empty cans and bits of rusted farm equipment until only peering red optics were visible. Barricade looked down at the hatchlings attempting to scale his leg with a sigh as they squeaked in distress. Pitiful bits of chirping metal. Not exactly stunning examples of the future of the Decepticon army, but that was Megatron's fault, for yet another crazy grand failed scheme, and Starscream's, for getting himself deactivated and leaving him in charge of the whole fraggin' next generation.
The medic hadn't attempted to go any closer, standing in place with his hands clasped tightly in front of him, his scanners visible as they knifed through the dusty atmosphere inside the barn, blue, blue-green, and then pale yellow, alternating between Barricade's legs and the huddled pile.
"Fourteen. All fourteen of them," First Aid murmured. "We found the remains of seventy-one pods on the Nemesis, and fifty-seven dead hatchling frames. We've been searching Namibia for two years; Starscream must have moved them. Oh, Barricade. I have misjudged you utterly and completely." He turned luminous optics in Barricade's direction, and something about the slight movement of his arms and the lean of his frame made Barricade tense as if he were about to be attacked, prevented from backing away by the clinging hatchlings. The sudden surge of dread through his circuits surprised him; what did he think the blasted medic was going to do? Hug him, for Primus' sake? He dismissed the idea as ridiculous, but then was not so sure as First Aid swayed a little towards him and then back again, his pedes settling into place with an audible thump. The hatchlings in the huddle pile began to buzz and whimper in real fear. First Aid blinked a few times, the movements of his optic shutters just visible behind the visor, and then folded his arms carefully together with a sigh of his vents and turned his gaze back to the hatchlings, much to Barricade's relief.
"It's ok, bitlets, little ones. It's ok," the medic said softly, crouching down until his knees rested against the dirt floor of the barn. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Bweeoop?" One of the hatchlings from the pile made a high-pitched query call, echoed in quick succession by the ones clinging to Barricade.
First Aid laughed, a low burbling sound of gentle delight (Barricade wondered again what was missing in this mech's processors, to laugh like that, as if he were a hatchling or new-spark himself) and buzzed back at them softly.
"It would be best if you held them, while I take a closer look," First Aid directed. "They obviously trust you, and I don't want to frighten them further." Small talons tapped nervously against Barricade's leg armor, and he looked down at five bright pairs of optics as they alternated from staring up at him to peeking around his legs at the white-armored interloper. Hold them. Slag. He hadn't really thought about how this was actually going to work, though he was pretty sure his hostage giving the orders hadn't ever been part of the plan.
"OOOoo?" One of the hatchlings, one of the stronger ones, had managed to clamber up to dig his talons painfully into the back of his left knee articulation. Barricade leaned his torso slightly to meet that questioning gaze.
"No," he answered the hatchling with a snort. "He's not a cow." The hatchlings in the nest pile chirred softly in relief at the sound of his voice, a few poking their heads back out of the straw.
"Cow?" First Aid's voice held a note of startled amusement.
"They…like to go see the cows." Barricade scowled and crossed his arms defensively, daring the medic to make anything of it. Slag. Digging himself deeper and deeper. At least the kittens were staying out of sight, for now.
"Ah. Well then. If it will make them more comfortable, I suppose I can be a cow." The smile that quirked First Aid's mouthplates was directed towards the hatchlings, not Barricade, which was the only thing, Barricade told himself, saving him from a thorough slagging or some zaps from Soundwave's little gadget. The medic lowered his front half to the floor of the barn, and, confirming himself forever in Barricade's processor as abso-fraggin-lutely out of his processor, mooed several times in a fairly credible imitation of an organic bovine.
In the end, as the hatchlings on his legs refused to let go, Barricade shuffled over to the nest and sat next to it, his joints pinging and scraping painfully. He'd learned the inadvisability of forcibly detaching hatchlings the hard way. He still felt a guilty cringe for the hatchling with the two slightly bent talons, although they seemed to cause it no difficulties and it didn't seem to hold him any grudges.
He scooped out the rest of them, one at a time, shaking off as much straw and debris as he could while First Aid scooted cautiously closer. Three of them, now, were curled into tight, miserable balls, plating hot to the touch, optics dim and non-responsive. He handed the smallest to First Aid. The one that had struggled to thrive from the very beginning, always weaker than the rest, and yet always stubbornly clinging to life. Until two orns ago when all of them had suddenly begun to fail, regurgitating their fuel and overheating and huddling together in misery instead of driving him to distraction with their bleating and curious explorations, and of course the smallest had failed the fastest. Barricade should have let him die. Instead he had cursed the pitiful, nearly lifeless little frame as he tried force even a drop of energon into the tightly clenched mouthparts and then thrown himself into alt mode and driven away, away from the dying hatchlings, away from his failure. To an Autobot base with an insane medic.
"Oooo?"
"Mooo." First Aid obliged, answering the hatchling on Barricade's knee as he cradled his motionless sibling in one hand. A little daft in the processor he might be, but medical guild insignias, even at the apprentice level, were not awarded to just any 'bot with a welder. An Autobot medic. Barricade hadn't forgotten, not even for a nanoklik. No matter how sickenly soft-sparked this mech appeared on the surface, that was no guarantee he might not suddenly decide to crush the Decepticon threat, so fragile in his hands.
Barricade watched closely as First Aid examined the dim-opticed little ball of dull bronze metal, ready to trigger Soundwave's device at the slightest untoward move. The bits of straw and mud sticking to the delicate plating of the hatchling stood out in mute accusation in the light of the medic's scanners.
"The symptoms started about a month ago?" He half-expected an angry rant over his inexpert and substandard care, but First Aid's voice was non-committal as he continued to scan and run gentle fingers over the stiff little frame. Too late. Barricade felt his spark sink in its chamber. Too late for this one; he'd waited too long, but maybe the others could be saved.
Barricade nodded, schooling his faceplates to what he hoped was a threatening glower. "They were doing fine. Up until then," he said, unable to keep the defensive note out of his voice. "And then…this. They act like…like they're in pain."
"I'm sure they are, poor babies," First Aid murmured, delicately rolling the hatchling over onto its other side. "They would be, let's see here, roughly six Earth years old, correct? That would put them at around the right age…."
"The right age for what?"
"Ecdysis. Molting," First Aid explained further, at Barricade's blank look. "These are first instar hatchlings. Based on what we know of hatchling development, which admittedly is from an extremely small sample size, at roughly fifteen decaorns hatchlings enter their first transformation phase after which they will emerge as second instar. My brothers and I went through seven instars before arriving at our adult frames."
Barricade cycled his optics and First Aid gave him a little half smile as realization dawned, watching him intently for a moment before returning his attention to the hatchling. "We were spawned and hatched shortly after the launch of the Allspark. Optimus risked much; there were no guidelines, very little information to go by, only an old legend and a few offhand words from…from Sentinel"—First Aid's voice faltered for a moment and then continued—"that gave them hope it could be done. We were tended and kept alive by an entire science division, a team of nearly twenty of the best scientists and medics and engineering specialists Cybertron had to offer. Something which you, Barricade, have managed to accomplish in an area which I am fairly certain was not a part of your original programming, by yourself, in a barn on an organic planet with no resources to speak of."
First Aid was smiling at him again with a sort of fond pride in his expression, and Barricade shifted uneasily. Not having a good response to that, Barricade opted to ignore it for the moment, as well as the revelation about the Autobots and their activities after the launch of the Allspark, and focus on the most important part. "So you're saying this molting thing, this is…normal? What they're doing? They're not sick?" Not dying, he hadn't fragged them up completely…hope sent a sharp ache through his spark.
"It's a very good sign." First Aid nodded emphatically. "I know it doesn't look fun, and trust me, it's not, but this is all a normal part of the process. It means they've received enough nourishment to begin to develop out, and don't think I don't know how you've been feeding them." First Aid gave Barricade a severe look that seemed to promise some sort of reckoning, later. "There are a few deficiencies that worry me - but still, on the whole, they're in remarkable shape. However, even though I've been a hatchling, I've never treated one. I'd feel a lot better if you'd let me call in Ratchet—"
"No." Barricade's voice was flat.
"But…"
"I am not turning them over to Autobots," he spat, putting all the venom, the scorn he could into the word, remembering battle brothers ruthlessly hunted down and deactivated, remembering that brief glimpse of Cybertron, destroyed forever for the sake of this inferior, organic-infested planet. "You think I don't know what their fate would be?"
"Barricade…" the medic's voice was unsteady; he had the satisfaction of seeing that exasperating composure rattled at last. "I understand why you might think that, but…things have changed."
"My original terms still stand. You fix them. You make sure they live. Or you die." The hatchlings in his lap beeped fretfully, worried at his tone.
First Aid's expression was distinctly unhappy, but he nodded finally. "All right. For now," he added, with a return of that maddening certainty that he was running the show instead of Barricade. "It wouldn't be the best idea to relocate them at this stage anyway. Their sparks are all stable; I think I can synthesize everything they'll need, and I can certainly make them more comfortable. Luckily I had the modifications installed before I arrived, though I'd about given up hope of putting them to use any time soon."
By modifications, apparently First Aid meant two nozzles attached to coiled hoses, roughly similar in size and shape to the fuel pumps humans used to refuel their vehicles, hidden beneath panels along his sides. Splitting the lower portion of each arm into two sections, he deftly managed to cradle two of the weaker but still functional hatchlings and hold the nozzles to their mouth components simultaneously. They squeaked uncertainly, craning their necks to make sure Barricade was still there, and then grimaced, mandibles working in disgust as First Aid squirted a small amount of fluorescent green fluid into their mouths.
"I know it doesn't exactly taste marvelous," First Aid told them, in the same high-pitched annoying voice he had used to talk to the human offspring, stroking them a little reassuringly and mopping up any spillage by unfolding a seemingly endless supply of small, useful appendages. "But that will dissolve all the gunk that's been accumulating in your systems, and then you'll be able to process this much better." Barricade recognized the deep, glowing blue of medical grade energon, and the hatchlings gulped it down eagerly, grasping at the nozzles with their talons.
"Just a little bit, take it slow. Your tanks are getting ready to shut down for awhile, but this should help." First Aid watched them in satisfaction and then giggled suddenly. (Barricade was struck again by how impossibly young the sound was, but now it made more sense.) "I really am the cow, aren't I."
One of the hatchlings, beginning to drift into a fitful doze where it gripped Barricade's chest armor, perked up suddenly. "Ooo."
"Mooo, exactly," First Aid told it, laughing.
Barricade snorted, but he had to admit, the nozzles were a definite improvement over slicing open his own energon lines over and over until they collapsed. He refused to return First Aid's smile, when the medic met his glance, staring back impassively. The medic was a prisoner, slaggit. Not some sort of… bonded partner helping raise his family of hatchlings, like some stupid human television show.
"What are their designations?"
Barricade shrugged. "Don't know. They haven't exactly told me."
"You mean you haven't given them names?" First Aid tilted his helm. "Our caretakers gave us hatchling designations, until we were old enough to choose our own. What do you call them, then?"
"'Come over here,' and 'shut the frag up,' mostly. They all look the same; how the Pit would I even tell them apart?" That wasn't strictly true. There were small variations in size, color, the way one would always curiously tilt its head at something new, the one that was always slowest to eat and the one that was always managed to get its head stuck in cans and fences and other not-quite-head-sized openings. The one with the slightly bent front talons. The hatchling with an inordinate fondness for chewing on his tires. Barricade could tell them apart, but he felt he needed to do something to restore his reputation, whatever tattered shreds of it remained.
"Hm, well, that won't do." First Aid held up the hatchling in his left split-appendage, now that it had finished its meal, and eyed it consideringly. "You look like a Squiggles, I'd say. And you…" he lifted up the other hatchling, "you are my little Birdy Boo, yes you are."
"What?" Barricade stared at him in horror. "You can't call them that!"
"Why Barricade, I thought you'd approve." First Aid's optics twinkled at him through the visor. "It's tradition to have a dreadfully embarrassing hatchling name, builds character, makes you a stronger 'bot. Unless you have some other suggestions?"
While Barricade continued to gape at him, he handed over the two hatchlings. Barricade refused to think of them as Squiggles and and…Birdy Boo. Refused. "Well then. Who's next?"
By the end of it First Aid had inflicted the rest of the hatchlings with names as well, although thankfully none quite so…horrific, as the first two. A few, though Barricade would deactivate before he admitted it, he actually rather liked. The littlest one, the one Barricade had been sure was dying, was dubbed Bravespark. First Aid hooked him and the other two immobile hatchlings to small energon feeds, injected them with various coolants and fluids and nanite cultures, and assured Barricade that they seemed to be progressing normally as far as he could tell (not that Barricade had asked).
"Fulcrum," First Aid said quietly as he held the last of the hatchlings. The rest had at last consented to recharge in their nest instead of on Barricade, still overheated, stirring restlessly now and then, but they did seem to be in less discomfort and none of them had purged their tanks, a welcome change. "This one is the Prime spark," he told Barricade.
"A Prime?" Of course. The one with the two bent talons. A hatchling Prime, and Barricade had gone and nearly ripped his arm off. He felt a painful twinge of nostalgia for the snarky comments Starscream would have made, had he been there. Kept the little fragger alive, though, didn't I? he said to the memory of Starscream. The memory-image failed to look impressed. "How can you tell? Never noticed anything special." Other than he was a clingy little glitch.
First Aid shrugged. "I don't know, really. His spark doesn't scan any differently, and probably won't until his final instar, but I can still…it feels different. Like his resonance frequencies are much bigger than his frame. I get the same feeling around Optimus."
Starscream had never mentioned it, or even the possibility of there being a Prime in the bunch. Perhaps he hadn't known, either. "Just the one?"
"Of the survivors here, yes. There may have been more that didn't make it, but I doubt it, as all the hatchlings we found on the Nemesis appear to have been the same age." First Aid's optic ridges were drawn into a frown of memory. "Seventy-one seems large for a single clutch, but…the Fallen was a very powerful and ancient Prime. There's only one Prime in every clutch, and every clutch a prime number, thus the name, at least according to what we've been able to decipher of the legends of the ancients. Or maybe not. It's possible we're entirely wrong."
First Aid addressed the hatchling again, looking into its small bright optics as it stared solemnly back. "You make three now, that we know of, alive in this universe. It is a thing of great hope, and an honor to meet you, small one."
Three Primes, one per clutch. Which meant that one of First Aid's fellow hatchlings had likely grown up to be a Prime, as well. A Prime who might be wondering what had happened to his brother. Perfect. Somewhere inside Barricade's processor an image of Starscream sighed and tilted his helm slightly in disappointment as he inspected one long, elegant talon. "Really, Barricade. Long term planning was never your…thing, was it."
