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Regular - Cybertronian
By the time the three femmes were walking, the communication barrier had practically been demolished. Ratchet was constantly surprised by the speed in which the three of them grasped concepts most sparklings would not, he hadn't seen sparklings like this since Prowl had been a youngling, and Ratchet had been quite sprightly then himself.
He knew the three of them would go on to do amazing things, but until then they were just three mischievous sparklings.
Three mischievous sparklings knocking oil onto the floor and drawing pictures in it.
Ratchet grumbled and lifted the three of them away from the oil, dropping a few rags on it that he would clear later, for now he had to clean them.
The three of them laughed as he mopped their faces, digits and peds clean of the oil and then he stared down at them as sternly as he could while those six big blue optics stared up at him.
"If you want to make a mess, then you need to let me set up a space. This is the medical bay, even if it is the private bay and I can't let any sort of infection get in." He explained carefully, the three of them chattered in their little language before they chorused up at him sweetly.
"Sorry Ratcheeet!"
"Sorry Ratch!"
"Sorry papa!"
Primus, his spark would always skip a pulse when Spitfire called him that, almost made him forget they'd made a mess on the floor. Almost.
"Just don't do it again." He scolded, but there was no spark behind it because until they got older those puppy optics were going to have everyone wrapped around their little digits.
He left them to themselves again, keeping a stern optic on them as he read through the latest file reports Prowl had delivered along with Nightwire and Starblast. They had managed to make a schedule that would allow them all the care for the femmes whilst doing their jobs during the day, then the femmes would return to their parents every night to recharge.
Ratchet knew in a few clicks that Ironhide would be here the collect the three of them so that they could spend time with Bumblebee, who at last could spend time with children and not the twins. The twins had tried, harder than Ratchet had ever seen them try before, to be responsible for Bumblebee and to make him feel like one of them, but responsibility just wasn't in their programming.
Bumblebee had felt happy at least, even when he was laughing at his surrogate brothers as Ratchet clapped them upside the head with his wrench. Ratchet knew they'd try with the femmes, because every time they looked at them they saw the sister than never got to grow into the femme she deserved to be.
Femmes were still being culled left right and centre, only a fraction remained. Chromia and Arcee had been rendered unable to breed after Ratchet had been forced to remove their breeding units, Chromia had been hit especially hard, poor femme had always wanted a sparkling.
There were small groups of femmes remaining, but after the cull had began many went off world and the ones that remained either had their units removed by a medic, or became warriors. Megatron had initiated the cull, but even he couldn't control his mechs desires and Ratchet knew too much of forced bonding by the cons.
It made his spark lurch to think about it, now more so than ever because of his own precious sparkling.
"Hey Ratch, I'm here to collect the femmes - Ratchet are you alright?"
Ratchet turned to Ironhide, he hadn't realised how much he had bonded with Spitfire until the idea that the cons could do…that, that unspeakable thing to his little girl.
"Of course." He bit in his traditional grouchy voice "Merely thinking, you know what time to bring them home."
Ratchet leaned down and placed the gentle kiss on Spitfires helm before Ironhide collected them all up, sparing another glance at Ratchet before he took them out to join Bee and Chromia until it was time for them to recharge.
Ratchet had to go out into the medical wards today to do some extensive rounds after that last battle, the decepticons getting steadily closer to Iacon with every attack and leaving more injured then they could handle.
"Wheeljack, how are the energon stores looking?" He called across his comm.
"Looking good Ratchet, the team found a large quantity a few clicks ago and have began mining it, they think it'll take at least a cycle to get all of it!"
Ratchet hummed over his link in satisfaction, it was about time they found a good energon store. The cons never seemed to run out of the stuff, not to mention Megatron had been playing with dark energon and that did things to a bot that Ratchet didn't even want to think about.
"How're the femmes?" Wheeljack asked in what he must have thought was a casual tone.
The sparklings had been introduced to a few more mechs, some had accidentally come across them during medicals just as the twins had and some had been chosen to meet them instead.
"Barely a breem old and they've got everyone suckered in."
He could feel Wheeljack's amusement.
"Good then?"
"…very."
Ratchet wasn't surprised that the femmes were adored, nobody was able to resist three sparklings especially at this stage in their development. He knew in a few more cycles they'd need their first frames, built specially to ensure good posture and healthy growth for their protoforms.
He'd spent a very long time creating these frames, the femmes each had picked a colour and their parents the other so that they were two coloured, a theme favoured by almost every Cybertronian on the planet.
His own little Spitfire had picked silver, and Ratchet had picked red meaning her theme would be similar to his own. He had asked her as plainly as he could but she didn't mind, she seemed happy to have the same theme as her father.
Nightwire had decided on periwinkle blue, Prowl had chosen black.
Jazz had tried to dissuade the mech to picking something brighter but Prowl had denied him, and Nightwire didn't seem to mind the darkness in contrast to her light.
Starblast had chosen an electric blue, Optimus had chosen red.
Ratchet wasn't sure who was more excited for them to try on their first frames, the femmes themselves, or their parents. No, scrap that, Optimus, Prowl and himself were all much more excited than the femmes.
XXX
Starblast knew that she shouldn't have done it, but when Chromia had told her 'no' she had immediately thought YES! Primus would she ever learn?
So here she was perched on top of some hunk of scrap that Ironhide had left in a rush to get to an emergency meeting with Optimus, Chromia was sat in her quarters head resting on her palm as she recharged softly.
She'd been away on a long undercover mission and the four of them didn't want to disturb her, but they might have to if Starblast wanted to get down.
"Bee can't you just jump up?" Nightwire asked in a hushed voice as Starblast peered over the edge at them.
Slag it wasn't even that big! It barely reached Ironhide's waist! Bee's head almost reached the top, but he wasn't strong enough to reach over lift Starblast and place her on the floor.
So there she perched, and then she grinned.
"Oh scrap." Nightwire muttered seeing her face.
"She's got an idea." Spitfire groaned and Bee took a few quick steps back.
"I think she's going to jump."
Starblast wobbled on the edge with the ends of her feet teetering over the edge as she swung her arms backwards in preparation.
"She is going to jump." Spitfire agreed.
"And she is going to hurt herself." Nightwire added.
Bee was the only one who was panicking, holding his arms out as though he could possibly catch her when she leapt from the heap of scrap parts and ruined medical kits.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE PIT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Apparently, Chromia had woken up.
