Family Matters
Chapter Two
Lennox heard the dance long before he crossed the Base to the clear expanse at the foot of the bluff – a semi-circle rise that scooped most of the connected buildings and hangers. Arriving with Epps at ten past seven, he noted that if it weren't for the absence of weapons fire, it would sound like any real fight. Metal clanged, screamed and groaned as the mechs went at each other, but there was also rumbling laughter, cheers and a lot of goading. Almost all the Base's bots were gathered in a ring about the two wrestling inside, fighting to place their own crescent shaped device between the rib struts and onto a neural line on their opponent.
Sideswipe and Bumblebee were the current combatants, grappling and rolling on the ground in an attempt to pin one another on their backs. Sam and Mikaela watched from the enviable vantage point of Optimus's shoulder, and the soldiers weaved to stand at the mech's feet to see the action. After a few more minutes, Bumblebee made use of his smaller stature and slipped under Sideswipe's legs, whooping as he slammed the crescent in.
A shrill sound like a whistle went up from Prowl over the shouts and whistles, signalling the end of the match. He looked around those present. "Volunteers to go against Bumblebee?"
A few hands went up back with grins as they watched Sideswipe shake the victor's hand and retreat from the ring. Stood in a tight cluster opposite Optimus and Ironhide, the Seekers exchanged a look before Starscream raised his hand. Bumblebee pointed to him instantly, bouncing like a boxer as the mech took the crescent from Sideswipe and stepped into the ring.
"Twenty on Starscream," Skids and Mudflap shouted in unison.
"Thirty on Bumblebee," Optimus followed, glancing to Ratchet who was taking notes.
More bets on both mechs were called whilst the combatants exchanged small talk until Ratchet nodded that betting was closed. Prowl sounded the whistle to start.
Epps leaned in to Lennox. "You sure those two aren't just going to kill each other?"
"Against the rules," Ironhide grunted as he moved to one knee, optics bright and fixed on the fast scrap.
Optimus smiled. "Starscream and Bumblebee are quite amicable. They won't –really- hurt each other."
Lennox nodded, familiar himself with such physical games between soldiers to keep morale up during quiet periods. The match seemed a close one, both mechs evenly agile and Bumblebee's stature countered by Starscream's hyper-sensitive, almost precognitive sensor array. In the rolling spells on the ground, the Seeker seemed to be largely coming out on top amidst throws and tumbles.
Lennox had to shout up to be heard over the din. "Why'd you back Bumblebee?"
Optimus's optics flashed with amusement. "I like an underdog."
They watched the match go on for several minutes before Starscream managed to get the yellow mech into a headlock and land his crescent. Prowl sounded the victory over Optimus's quiet, good-natured sigh.
"Volunteers to go against Starscream?"
Ironhide stepped immediately into the ring, and both mechs grinned in wicked anticipation as they began to circle each other.
"Oh yeah!" Epps whooped, abandoning Lennox when Sideswipe offered his hand for a better view. "Fifty on Ironhide!"
Optimus shifted his weight from one foot to the other, readjusting his stance as he folded his arms. "You should get comfortable, Captain," he advised warmly. "This one will not be over quickly."
The general consensus hours later was that Ironhide had won, though Prowl and Ratchet had called a draw. After almost forty minutes of hand-to-hand that had even had some of the bots wincing, both mechs had ended up staggering against each other stuck in a lock and a counter luck, leaking coolant and hissing stale heat. Ironhide had had his hands fixed on the Seeker's wing struts after battering the covers back and looked set to tie them in a bow. Starscream had wrapped his long arms around the broad mech's shoulders and was squeezing at the main motor hubs of Ironhide's arms. Caught in a stalemate on the verge of causing unreasonable damage, the crescents lay forgotten a distance away on the ground.
That animosity harking back to centuries of hatred only recently laid to rest was completely absent again by the end of the dance and other matches, both mechs sitting near one another and trading insults as they steadily downed an impressive amount of high Grade.
Sat in chairs around two coolers of beer and Coke, the humans watched the bots loudly recount the matches, argue about bets and speculate on the fights they'd wished they'd seen. Optimus against Ironhide was a curiously popular request, as well as a rematch between Skywarp and Arcee. That fight had been particularly colourful, with Skywarp quickly growing disinterested in taking it seriously and playfully engaging the femme in jovial acrobatics as opposed to real fighting. Arcee won in a fit of digitized laughter standing on the Seeker's wings as if he were a bulky surfboard.
At Optimus's encouragement, Bluestreak had finally staggered to his feet and announced the news of his coming sparkling with Luna, earning a round of cheers and congratulations for both bots and a fresh supply of High Grade. Bluestreak was quickly tanked into recharge and lay slumped into his bemused sparkmate's lap.
Lennox had never seen such a celebration between them before – hadn't seen all the Autobots this relaxed. Even Starscream was laughing at something Ratchet was telling him. The Twins had left to skid doughnuts and figure eights in the dry grass over the bluff; Skywarp had passed out unceremoniously against Thundercracker's side, much to the older Seeker's chagrin; and Optimus and Ironhide sat close to the humans, smiling and trading subtle touches.
Inspired by Bluestreak's earlier announcement and a lot of High Grade, Ironhide beckoned Lennox over and deftly set the human on his bent knee. "Hey Will," he greeted with a broad grin. "I'm gonna get me a sparkling like Bluestreak's got coming."
"Congrats," Lennox toasted the clearly drunken mech, raising his own bottle. "Does Optimus know?"
"Yes," the Prime rumbled lightly, looking away from Starscream to regard the human with bright optics. "The specifics are under negotiation." A gentle elbow into Ironhide's side. "There's no reason you couldn't carry it, after all."
"Says you," Ironhide groused into his raised cube before taking a swallow.
"Aw, come on, 'Hide. Optimus's already done it once. It'd only be fair," Lennox needled, glancing to Optimus whom was giving his sparkmate's profile an arch look.
Ironhide's engines grumbled in a deep reverberation. "Just don't much like the idea of my body being compromised and out of control like that."
A hard shunt of air in a 'tuh' from Optimus as he spoke around his own cube. "How do you think I felt?"
The dark mech shook his head irritably and looked to Ratchet. "Hey doc," he shouted, snapping the medic's attention from Starscream with a raised brow. "Can't you find a way to just grow a sparkling in a box and save the hassle?"
Ratchet muttered something under his breath before folding his hands and bestowing a particularly condescending look. "Do we need to have the talk again, Ironhide? Well, when two bots love each other very much-"
Ironhide threw an empty cube at his head. Ratchet ducked.
"- and they want to make a little bot, then someone's got to get plugged. It doesn't make you any less of a mech to be the one to do so."
Lennox pressed a fist to his mouth to suppress his laughter as he watched Optimus looking to Ironhide, clearly very interested to hear what his partner had to say to that.
The oblivious mech waved the remark off. "I know that, Ratch'. Slag, it just don't sit well with me. I'd be happier protecting someone carrying than have a little bot kicking me in the cooling vents and making me purge all hours."
"All discomfort aside," Optimus broke in softly, though the richness of his voice naturally brought about quiet. "Sparkbearing is a very gratifying experience. To be able to make life after the loss of the All Spark is a gift from Primus and one that is readily treasured."
"So you're keen to get straight back to the examinations, purging, kicking, pacing, overclocking and the particular pleasantries of birth?" Ratchet asked lightly, smirking though there was an edge of genuine inquiry in his fuzzy optics.
Optimus shifted a little, touching the back of his neck with one optic narrowed. "Now I didn't say –that-."
A ripple of laughter, though Lennox found himself watching the regal mech with a serious expression. It amazed him that Optimus, firstly, had been subjected to an unwanted pregnancy by his enemy, but that he now spoke of the experience warmly, as though the miracle of bearing life had made up for the nature of its instigation. He'd not given any thought to the bots having children before now. Like everyone else, he'd thought that all new Cybertronians came from contact with the All Spark – a comparatively easy thing. Making their own offspring sounded like very hard work, but, he reasoned, with their species almost gone, they had to have children the hard way to survive.
When things had returned to a comfortable burble of chatter between the drinking bots, Optimus touched Ironhide's hand. "I'm going to check on Tempest and get some recharge. Early meeting with the secretary of defence."
"You can do that from berth," Ironhide commented, briefly nudging his weight into the taller mech.
A soft chuckle. "I doubt I'll be dragging myself to my office at that hour. I'll see you later." Pushing himself up to his feet, Optimus returned Prowl's vague wave before retreating back to the Base.
Lennox noticed Ironhide's optics dim a little and his face plates pull together in thought as he took a shallow sip from his cube. Wondering if it was more than just Optimus's departure that had brought about this change in mood, he pushed a smile and broached, "Negotiations, huh?"
Ironhide paused with the cube lowered to his jaw, blinking. He arched a brow and cycled a long wave through his vents. "We'll see."
Ratchet wasn't what a human would term a 'lightweight' when it came to High Grade despite rarely drinking, so he surmised upon waking in the Medbay that he must have drank a lot. His professional domain was much closer than his quarters to the site of the previous night's festivities, and apparently a preferable distance to stagger for recharge.
Rubbing his optics with both hands against the inevitable processor ache, he froze when he realised that a third hand was still resting on his chassis. Directly over his spark still throbbing in its casing, electrified with the lingering charge of a recent interface.
Optics shuttering hard beneath his fingers, Ratchet groaned inwardly and tried to remember what had happened last night. It was something to delay ending the mounting dread in finding out who was on the berth with him. He'd watched the fireworks, he recalled. He vaguely remembered teasing Ironhide, and he knew he'd spent some time talking to Starscream. The medic paused. He's spent a lot of time talking to Starscream, in fact. It struck him that they'd ended up completely monopolising each other's company whilst drinking, relaxing mindlessly into stories of their lives before the war had made them soldiers.
They'd been on easy, even close terms since the Seeker had started spending most of his time in the lab or Medbay, getting back to his scientific roots on the side of acting as a mentoring guardian to Tempest. Starscream was a brilliantly minded and quick witted bot, his true personality flourishing over the year away from Megatron's hold. Ratchet had come so far as to think of them as friends.
With dread swirling in his tank, Ratchet finally uncovered his optics and looked at the bot half-draped against him on the berth.
Well. That was that fragged.
Instinctively he tried to shift back, rolling his optics with a sigh when the pointed fingers gripped onto his frame and held him still. His keen sensors pointed out that the other mech was only in a light recharge now. "Starscream, get off."
An irritable sound and the mech shifted a little. "It's early. Shut up and go back to recharge."
Ratchet dimly wondered if the Seeker even knew what had happened, though it was likely obvious to them both with the way his spark was happily tingling away. It hadn't been that long, he thought, then smiled grimly when he quickly realised that, yes, it had. And of all the bots in the universe to wake up with after a night of heavy drinking…
A second attempt to move away was met with the same result. Apparently Starscream quite enjoyed having a warm vent against the glass of his chest, the medic's fans cycling warm air at an even greater rate now as his systems woke up to this… situation. "If I might," he broached cautiously, desperately searching his processor for a solid memory but finding only glitches and bad code, "who initiated… this?"
Infuriatingly, Starscream shrugged before finally mumbling, "High Grade."
"Uh huh." Ratchet shot a wary glance to the door and looked back at the Seeker uncharacteristically snuggled into his body. He sincerely didn't want to be caught like this. Even though Starscream had been pretty much accepted into the Autobots, he didn't foresee such a development being taken well by someone like Hot Rod or Ironhide. Ignoring Starscream's sleepy rumble of irritation, he pulled the mech's hands off him and got off the berth, taking a few steps back and finally standing with folded arms not knowing where to look.
In the absence of the heat source he'd been recharging quite pleasantly against, Starscream opened his optics and sat up on the berth, rolling his shoulders to stretch his wings a little. The buzz of overload still hummed through his lines, casting a welcomed tingle across his wings. It had been a far better night than he'd anticipated, he mused with a thin smile.
Finally looking to Ratchet and noting the closed posture and energetically averted gaze, he slid off the berth. "Don't turn this into a big deal, Ratchet. Some things aren't worth over-thinking."
Ratchet raised an incredulous brow and met the Seeker's arch look. "You're saying that I should just 'listen to my spark'?" he scoffed, not meaning that to sound as bitter as it had come out.
Starscream rested his hands on his slim hips, allowing the distance that the medic had put between them. "I'm saying that we both drank a lot of High Grade, we both enjoyed ourselves, and it's not a big deal." His mouth quirking, he glanced at the floor briefly. "I know you wouldn't want any of the Autobots to find out that this had happened. Don't worry. I won't say anything."
The medic frowned at that, arms loosening to fall to his sides. There was no cringing shame on Starscream's features like there was in his bearings, and he'd seemed at peace until he'd raised the matter of someone finding out and judging Ratchet for his choice of partner. He warily accepted that there must have been some level of attraction between them for this to have happened, though he hadn't been aware of it, because Starscream wasn't the kind of bot to seek just anyone's intimate company. The Seeker was only uncomfortable now because he sincerely believed that Ratchet was ashamed of having interfaced with him, which given how he was reacting he could understand.
Ashamed wasn't the right word, Ratchet concluded privately. Surprise, unease and a myriad of other things, but certainly not shame. He took a step forward, feeling his expression relax into a concerned frown. "Starscream, I-"
The Seeker cut him off with a curt wave, his body straightening into its usual proud stance. "It's alright Ratchet. Let's just not." A glance towards the door before he looked back with a composed expression. "I've got patrol in a bit with Thundercracker. I'll see you in the lab later."
His processor blank, Ratchet simply nodded and watched as the other mech left in mutual silence. After a few moments he pressed a hand to his optics, sighing to himself as he wondered what he was going to do with this.
A week after the dance life on the Base seemed just as it had before Lennox had left, though he thought that things were a lot busier. With the influx of landed and defected bots, the rec room and kitchen were always busy, and it was easier than before to lose a specific mech on the site despite size. Aside from the now-routine and rather short debriefings and voice conferences, Optimus had been a conspicuously absent presence about the Base. Along with Ironhide.
Lennox and Epps had privately concluded that they were doing the 'making sparklings' thing, which they remained leery to speculate on the specifics of, and left them to it. But after a week without a training exercise or an informal chat, both soldiers had decided to try their luck finding the weapons specialist and Autobot leader.
Crossing the yard after checking in with security that they hadn't left the perimeter fence, the pair caught sight of a brightly coloured mech carrying sheets of metal towards the Medbay.
Epps raised his hand. "Ratchet, is Ironhide around?"
"He's busy with Optimus," Ratchet replied with a quirked smile.
Lennox rolled his eyes. "What, still? Jeez, Ratch', it's been a week. How can they still be at it?"
The medic rolled his unencumbered shoulder in a shrug. "It's a necessary part of bringing about sparkling. They'll be finished soon, no doubt. Feel free to try your luck, though. They're in the rec room with Bumblebee and Sam, I believe."
Lennox gaped a little. "They're doing it in front of Sam?"
A huffed sound. "Sam's taken it as a spectator sport. Go ahead and see for yourself."
As Ratchet move off towards the hanger, Lennox saw a huge grin split Epps's features and held up his hands. "Oh no, no way. I do -not- want to see that. It's bad enough that the kid is."
"Hey man, Ratchet said to go ahead, and this I gotta see," the soldier replied still grinning, turning to jog the rest of the way across the yard.
With a long suffering sigh, Lennox followed.
He caught up with Epps at the doorway to the rec room, lingering alongside him with a matching expression of surprise. Optimus and Ironhide certainly didn't look like they were mid-coitus. In fact, they looked mid-fight and indifferent to the mech and teen sitting on the oversized sofa a little way from them. Evidently Bumblebee and Sam had already been here when this spat had walked in and hadn't tried to leave yet.
Sam had never really seen any behaviour between the two mechs that suggested they were a couple, aside from occasional touches and catching them fooling around in the showers once. It made seeing their lovers' spat in the making absolutely riveting.
Optimus stood positively filling the room with his presence as he folded his arms and looked down upon the broader, but undeniably shorter mech. "You think that carrying a sparkling is degrading?"
"Oh, he is so dead," Sam murmured under his breath with a grin.
"Or we are," Bumblebee whined quietly, making for a discrete retreat but finding his human charge wasn't going anywhere. It would be outright negligent of him as a guardian to leave Sam here alone just in case the pair really kicked off, so with an uneasy warble he simply shrunk on the spot.
To his credit Ironhide didn't try to shirk under that withering gaze. "No, I just don't like the idea of being unable to do my job because of carrying."
Optimus cocked his head at that, optic ridges rising just-so. "You're saying that I didn't do my job whilst I was carrying Tempest?"
In the doorway, Lennox and Epps exchanged a look. Bumblebee put his head in his hands. Sam was practically bouncing.
Now Ironhide did shift a little, glancing to the ceiling as if it might have an answer. It shrugged back and he met his sparkmate's bright optics again. "I didn't say that," he replied evenly. "But you were overclocked almost constantly, not to mention the kicking. You struggled, and you've pretty much got a desk job."
Optimus took a step closer, positively looming now. "Desk job?"
Bumblebee synthesized a cough, hoping that reminding the pair of their audience would curtail this since he couldn't leave. Epps was looking between the mechs as if watching a tennis match and Lennox had his hands pressed together to his mouth in near-prayer.
To the hanging enquiry, Ironhide ran a hand across his jaw with a grimace. "Uh, comparatively speaking."
The taller mech narrowed his optics. "I fought Megatron inside a nuclear reactor. Whilst in labour."
Ironhide huffed loudly, rolling his optics. "In a display of tactical brilliance, I'll add."
Now Optimus shifted irritably. "Don't start that again. I was fine."
The dark mech pointed a blunt finger. "That's not always a qualifier of success."
"Neither is 'has it -completely- exploded?'"
A glower and Ironhide opened his mouth to retort but suddenly realised that Optimus was smiling behind the mask, the plates around his optics crinkled in amusement. He shook his head. "You're a slagging pain sometimes, you know that?"
Optimus gave an innocent half-shrug. "It's very rarely that I tweak your bearings."
"Didn't mean that you had to do it for a whole week," Ironhide groused back, though there was a trace of a smile in his features. It had been a long time since Prime had displayed such playful teasing, the stoic burdens of command and duty usually leaving little room for humour. Evidently he hadn't lost his touch, though, playing him into digging his own holds like a harp.
"This is what you've been doing all week?" Lennox blurted, stepping properly into the room and looking between the mechs. "We thought you'd been bed-bound trying to make a sparkling."
Ironhide grunted faintly, folding his arms. "Not that fast – not without discussing it first."
"To bear a sparkling is a large decision and a significant undertaking," Optimus explained gently.
Epps nodded a little. "Yeah, it's the same for us." A beat before his eyes widened and his hands came up. "Humans, I mean. Not guys. Guys don't, can't, even -"
Optimus raised his own hand, sensing the man's discomfort. "We are aware of the reproductive shortcomings of your gender."
Where Sam mouthed silently, Lennox echoed aloud, "Shortcomings?"
The Autobot leader gave Ironhide a knowing sidelong glance. "Comparatively speaking."
As Epps tuh-ed under his breath, Lennox elbowed him to let it drop. Bumblebee touched Sam's back lightly with one finger. "Come, Sam, Wheeljack wanted your opinion on his latest project today."
Sam's brow crept up towards his hairline. "-My- opinion?"
The yellow mech smiled. "I believe it is a toy he's been making for Tempest, based on an item some humans enjoy using."
Intrigued as to what a Cybertronian's idea of a toy was surpassed the foreboding but-best-not curiosity that came with any of Wheeljack's 'projects', and Sam nodded for Bumblebee to put him on the floor. "Cool, let's check it out."
"Please make sure it isn't volatile. Tempest is still an infant," Optimus requested with a seriousness that made Sam grin.
"Yeah, no problem." He looked to the pair in the doorway. "Are you hanging around here, Captain, or are you coming to give your two cents?"
Lennox clicked his gaze up to Optimus, noticed the subtly request and finally smiled back at Sam as the teen approached. "We'll take a look with you. Annabel's not much older than Tempest, and I wouldn't mind seeing what a bot's idea of a toddler's toy is."
After the humans had left with Bumblebee followed close behind, Ironhide's vents hissed a sigh and he stepped in close to his sparkmate, rubbing his optics. "Sorry about some of that. I didn't mean to say that I thought-"
"'Hide," the taller mech murmured, cutting off the apology. "I'm sorry for taking things too far. I hope you know that I'd never force you to do anything you didn't want to do. If you don't wish to carry, I shan't ask you."
Ironhide met his gaze suppressing any indication of his unease. "So that's it? You'll do it?"
A gentle sound of assent. "One of us has to as I don't wish to seek a surrogate, and you're uncomfortable with the idea. I know what to expect and I'm content to do it again."
"Are you sure?" Ironhide asked softly, brow knitted in a frown. "It's a damn hard thing for a mech, and Tempest could have been a lot worse than he already was in carriage."
Optimus ghosted a metallic stroke down his sparkmate's arm until he touched a scarred hand, loosely mingling their fingers. "It won't be so hard with you, and I'm happy to do it for us."
Ironhide squeezed the paler fingers. "It's a great gift you give me."
The slick sound of the prow-shaped mask retracting. "I give it gladly."