That next orn, to say the least, went by pretty smoothly. For the first part of it, Jazz was confined to he and Prowl's shared berth, watching the little sparkling and made sure that no one learned of it; they new that they were going to be unable to keep it, and therefore it would be useless and certainly unneeded for the rest of the mechs to get attached to it as well and then when the time came for them to give it away, that they not want to. Mirage was smart enough to make up a rumor that Jazz had gotten a virus, and was confined to stay in his berth until further notice, Ratchet being nice enough to go along with the story. Several times the ninja came by, dropping off Engergon for the sparkling and a few cubes for the older mech. It was funny enough that Jazz was still trying to make the sparkling laugh every time Mirage came by to check on him, even though it was worthless to do so; every time Jazz was trying to make the sparkling laugh, Bumblebee - that's what Jazz said his name was now - merely looked up at him with a blank look, as if everything he was doing wasn't helping and was stupid.
Then finally, it was the Ninja's turn to take care of the little bugger. He was lucky that he could turn both himself and the sparkling invisible at once, as well as all of 'Bee's current belongings. The only problem was keeping him quiet. He had heard from Prowl that afternoon that Jazz had "miraculously recovered from his virus" and was able to go back to being on duty. Mirage would have loved to have seen everyone's faces when Jazz came strutting in looking good as new, when the ninja had everyone imaging a sick and colorless saboteur, purging every five breems and unable to keep anything down. He was good at making people believe something that wasn't real, he just didn't know he was that good.
Honestly, Mirage hadn't seen very many sparklings as an adult mech, making Bumblebee the first since he could remember. Compared to his red paint job, Bumblebee's paint job was yellow, and the ninja also realized that he had two black stripes running down his back. It was an odd color, Mirage had thought to himself. However, he was not the one to judge, and it actually fit the little sparkling. For the rest of the orn until bed time, Mirage spend merely looking after the sparkling; he seemed either so tired or so weak at the moment that he just didn't feel like moving. That was alright with Mirage; he quickly learned that sleeping sparklings were cuter to watch than ones simply giving you a blank stare. He was just lucky that Ratchet told him how to take care of the Sparkling; never really seeing a sparkling until now was one thing, but actually taking care of one was another story.
The Sparkling was cute, which, to Mirage, made it easier; who would hurt a being so small and harmless and unable to hurt another being was beyond him. The way the Sparkling looked up even at him, with those watery blue optics, obvious trust in them even though he hadn't known the ninja for even a few breems, well, it nearly made his spark melt. He knew that he wasn't supposed to get attached to the little creature, because they were soon going to find him a place to stay until he could take care of himself, but looking at that face, it was so hard. Besides, weren't Sparklings supposed to be cared for by touch? As stated before, he really hadn't been able to be around Sparklings much, and therefore didn't know much about them to begin with, yet he was sure that they needed to be handled a lot, and he was sure that it would be hard to not get attached to Bumblebee while giving him the attention that he desired. Well, seemed to desire; Bumblebee really didn't move much except to explore one's facial plates and to hold the tube that was connected to his specially made Engergon cubes when eating. Other than that, he simply laid there, either sleeping or looking up at you like you were something that he'd never seen before. And, knowing that, that was saying a lot.
XXX
He had to admit, he wasn't much of a happy camper; he had tried to explain to everyone else that there was no way in Pit that he would be able to take care of a sparkling, even with the help from someone else. But no one seemed to care for what he had to say. So, after a while of trying to plead his case, he had given up the fight; there was no use in trying to fight with the Hatchet, anyway, when he wanted his way and knowing that he was going to get it; 'Hide would had rather have kept his helm where it was at the moment, therefore thought it best not to anger him more than needed.
So by the end of the day, while Mirage and Jazz were relaxing from their time off; Prowl was still trying to find a place for the sparkling to stay permanently so they wouldn't have to take care of him and where he wouldn't get caught up in the war; Optimus, of course, running the Ark and made sure everything went smoothly, and yet still secretly he was trying to help Prowl in his goal; and then there was Ratchet in his med bay, making sure that everyone was in tip top shape. Which, for the end of the evening and most likely the rest of the night, meant that he was in charge of taking care of the small sparkling, promptly now known as Bumblebee.
He had to admit, he had never seen anything so small in all of his vorns; he had been to the Youth Sector plenty of times, and, compared to all of the other sparklings that he had seen, Bumblebee had been the smallest he had ever seen. Weather that was because he was built like that or his spark was just too small to handle any bigger of a frame, Ironhide couldn't guess which. Ironhide was almost surprised that such a small creature was able to make it in the world; any longer in that house alone, and if the Decepticons or Jazz had never shown up to find him, Bumblebee might have simply died, even within a matter of breems, had the cold had a long enough time to set in and freeze him. And although Ironhide would have hated to admit it, he couldn't stand the thought of the little sparkling dying there, alone in his carrier's arms, not realizing that his family had just been killed around him because there was a war going on, and that he would have had so much better of a life had they not been killed in the first place. Ironhide wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy; and, as far as he was concerned, the better half of the Decepticons would fit into that category.
Bumblebee sat on the large berth that belonged to Ironhide; the weapons speaclist had to clean his broom to the fullest extent, from his work station to the bed itself. He thought he did a pretty good job, considering it was a mess to begin with. The little yellow sparkling was surrounded in pillows, making a small chair-like object in a half circle, with a few blankets around him and two covering him. He seemed pretty relaxed; he had just been fed by Mirage before the ninja handed him off to him, after yet another scan by Ratchet to make sure that everything was still alright with him; he was, after all, the smallest sparkling that anyone had seen before, and the condition he was found in wasn't the best of ones. Bumblebee sat with a half glazed over look, partly nodding off as he stared dimly at his current sparkling sitter; Ironhide stood a few feet away from the sparkling, arms crossed across his chassis as he examined the small being carefully. Every time Ironhide had tried to turn away to let Bumblebee sleep - 'Hide as well needing to clean out his cannons, of which were sat on his desk waiting to be done so - 'Bee would simply start whimpering, and if Ironhide chose to ignore that, they would exculate to whining; and if he chose to ignore that, it would exculate to crying, which Ironhide did not want to hear; plus, there were other mechs around who could hear and would question him.
And if there was anything that Ironhide needed, it was not that.
Sighing, Ironhide shook his head; either the movement or the sound making the sparkling jump slightly and wake up a bit, focusing a bit more on Ironhide before becoming tired again, yet not quite falling asleep. What was he going to do with the little sparkling? He obviously couldn't stand there until he fell asleep, and he knew he couldn't go into recharge just yet; while he needed to clean his cannons, 'Hide promised that, if it made anything go by faster, he would try to help find a place for the sparkling to go to that didn't involve Decepticon activity. And with how things were going, he wasn't going to get anything done that night with a sparkling half in and half out of sleep. Sighing again, his shoulders slumped, his arms still tightly across his chassis.
"Primus, child, what ahm ah gonna do with you?" Ironhide asked aloud, knowing that the little creature on the berth could not response. The sparkling merely shifted more on the berth, his servos - along with his arms that were firmly on top of the blanket - moving as his small servos clenched the top blanket that kept him warm; Ratchet had found a few toys that were old and dusty that he ended up needing to wash off before giving them to Ironhide, one of which was the human equivalent of a pacifier, and the sparkling didn't seem to be doing much with it; sucking on it every few breems, however for the most part keeping it as still as possible.
Finally the usually gruff mech gave in; it looked as if he was going into recharge early that orn instead of staying up and doing what he needed to do. Turning, Ironhide his small trips around the room, cleaning up DataPads and putting his cannons aside for the morning when he could actually get his work done; Bumblebee whimpering and whining when he couldn't see his current care taker. He expected as much; although he had never taken care of one personally, he knew that sparklings and younglings were an exhaustion to take care of. He had figured as much by how much the caretakers at the Youth Sector ran around in a mad frenzy; yet none of them seemed in a frenzy or too tired because of all of the moving around. Most of the caretakers were femmes, so perhaps it was built into their central processor to take care of sparklings. He never doubted femmes in that category, therefore just figured as so. As Ironhide finally finished clean up, he wondered to the lights, knowing he himself could not sleep with the lights on, and promptly turning them off.
There was a light thump at the berth, which sounded like the sparkling's pacifier falling out his mouth, and the sparkling started to whine louder than he had been.
"You're al'ight," muttered Ironhide, making his way to the berth and shifting the pillows around; picking up the sparkling as the small creature tried to move himself towards the large mech to no avail. He was pretty weak, it seemed, only able to hold his arms up for a klick at a time. Finally Bumblebee was laid to rest on a large chassis as Ironhide moved under the blankets, Bumblebee still having one wrapped around him, moving pillows so that if the sparkling slid off of his chassis, he would have something to land on. "Yer a pain in my rear, you know that?" asked Ironhide softly as he settled down, placing one servo behind his helm and the other over the squirming sparkling.
The little fella was small enough to almost fit completely in the weapons specialist's servo, which seemed to amaze the mighty mech so much. Baby blue optics looked at him tiredly as the sparkling shifting on his belly, obviously liking the feeling of a warm spark to feel beating as he went into recharge. Ironhide smiled; he had to admit, the sparkling was pretty adorable. He was just lucky that no one was there to know that he thought that. After one last look, the sparkling sighed, unable to keep his helm up any longer, and laid his helm down on the broad chassis curling up as Ironhide pulled the blanket all the way up to the sparkling's shoulders; knowing he was warm with two sheets and a blanket on him, plus a servo keeping him tucked in.
Relaxing himself, Ironhide looked up to the ceiling; Optimus had said something about informing the others on the Ark about the sparkling, seeing as how it might be a while before they found him a suitable place to stay, or at least so that way they wouldn't have to hide him as much as they did. Ironhide didn't mind that; at least there would be more mechs to watch him, instead of himself having to watch him all the time. Then again, he did seem a little attached to the mechling now that it was his turn to watch him; having to put him to bed and all. Looking down at the sleeping form, Ironhide couldn't help but wonder: who in the Pit would do such a thing to a sparkling that could do no more harm to others than a speck of dust floating in the air.
Ironhide sighed and relaxed him helm back on his pillow; only time would find out.
What a nice mech Ironhide is. xD
