(posted Nov. 18, 2007)
Disclaimer: All Transformers characters, settings, etc. are the property of Hasbro and any other respective owners. Any original characters AND THE PLOT are the intellectual property of Litahatchee/ Letohatchee. No part of the story, ideas, or OC's are to be used without the express permission of Litahatchee/ Letohatchee. Litahatchee/ Letohatchee is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Thanks to the REVIEWERS of chapter 7: lady tecuma, flamingmarsh, theshadowcat, twospotz, Bluebird Soaring, Blume, staringsideways, Karategal, ferretsareillegal, MadameSoybean, grlwdgrntrk, plenoptic, ArmoredSoul, i-love-me-some-leggypoo, Xerios, Lecidre, Freakish Child, Ponta Pie, Bunnylass, Iluvbee1990, 1bloodtempest, and Shizuka Taiyou.
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This is so fun!
Huge thanks to Karategal for letting me use her idea of Ironhide having been Bumblebee's caretaker from her stories 'Youngling' and 'Little Brother,' as well as the Artemis I reference. Thanks also to lady tecuma for the continuing reference of this idea from her story 'Sparks and Plasma,' as well as the reference to Floatila, as she has coined that name for the Youth Sectors. I added an 'l' by mistake, spelling it 'Floatilla,' but kept it as such to delineate between the two stories. The name, however, is still hers.
The idea that a femme or a mech can carry a sparkling in her/his chassis after the sparkling receives a frame (read Chapter 8 for more) is completely mine. I must apologize to my other favorite authors here; I just don't like the bottle thing. I LOVE your stories and the bottle thing is working for you, but I wanted something more sci-fi and not so human. The femme pre-program described here as well as the femme/ youngling bond is also my idea.
NOTE: When talking about sparklings, I'm using the 'he' gender. It was getting too confusing using 'he/she,' so I decided that, since most Cybertronian sparklings end up being a 'he' anyway, that I'd stick with 'he' on that.
Things are a bit serious at the moment. It had to happen, though. This is the story I wanted to tell. It is just a LOT to tell and chapter organization is giving me fits. Sorry if some of this is a bit cryptic. It's all going to come together...
Enjoy!
Night Fire
Chapter 8
Yellow Streak
by Litahatchee
Chromia lay on the recharge berth, staring at the ceiling. It felt good to be back in a familiar place, but she couldn't sleep. She had only one thing on her mind: Ironhide. He hadn't been gone that long, by Cybertronian standards, but she felt like an eternity had passed. Now it was her turn to be constantly reaching out to him. He responded every time, but he seemed withdrawn and he had ignored all her efforts to flirt.
"Thanks a lot, Ratchet," she said to the ceiling.
She sat up and stared at the contents of Ironhide's room. There were data chips scattered about, mostly on weapons and, she noted, a few on human weapons. She laughed at some of his comments on how primitive and useless most of them were, except the sabot rounds. He had an entire chip on those and the damage they can cause to a Cybertronian.
There were a few spare parts lying on a table for his cannons. She idly wondered where he got them. It was very difficult to find spare parts for Ironhide's cannons, for any part of Ironhide for that matter. He should have been retired a long time ago. But then, she figured, Ironhide could probably never truly retire. He loved making the Decepticons suffer; they both did.
Chromia's optics wondered to a single twin berth in the corner of the room. Most of the rooms on the ship had extra bunks that folded up into the wall, but this one was out and, by the looks of it, had been out for a long time. It was as if there was a regular visitor.
Everyone had their own rooms, so she idly wondered who visited Ironhide on such a regular basis that he would have a berth ready for him at all times. She went through everyone on the 'list.' It was way too small for Optimus, and Ratchet would surely want to kill the mech if he spent too much time with him, so no on Optimus and Ratchet. She thought about Jazz and sadly averted her gaze. She could see that mech coming in there to talk Ironhide's irritated head off and then promptly passing out, after drinking way too much energon. She found it sad and oddly sentimental for Ironhide to keep it out for him, as if he were coming back.
Chromia figured the humans were gone by now, not that she was avoiding them. Well, she was avoiding them, but not for the reasons Ironhide wanted her to avoid them. She didn't care a thing about what they did or didn't want. She was amazed that everyone was humoring them so. They didn't live long enough for her to waste her time humoring them. They were just organics, sentient organics, but still only so.
She thought about Will's family. Well, she wouldn't mind spending more time with them…Okay, so if all human younglings were that adorable, then maybe she could spare a small joor entertaining them.
Chromia walked out into the hallway. The ship was just so empty. She wondered if there would ever be any other Cybertronians to walk these hallways again.
She stopped to listen…It was just as quiet as all those vorns, dozens of vorns, drifting out in space. Depression threatening to overtake her, she picked up the pace towards Optimus's office. He had been looking for her ever since her arrival, so she figured reporting in now would be good; maybe even good for both of them, though she really didn't have very good news on what she was sure he truly wanted to know.
Suddenly out of nowhere, she didn't even hear a sound of his approach, a yellow streak ran headlong right into her, nearly knocking her down. His arms were full of something and, upon collision, dozens of little square cases full of round discs went flying in all directions. Chromia immediately bent down to help him pick them all up.
"Primus, Ratchet," she said to him, assuming the mech that collided with her was Ratchet. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"
She inspected one of the cases. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before and didn't look like something a medic would have use for.
"What are these things, Ratch…"
She looked up and Ratchet's name caught in her vocals. Before her, still picking up the cases without having looked up, was a mech she had never seen before. She gasped when her maternal pre-programming kicked in as her spark responded to his presence.
All femmes were pre-programmed to care for all younglings, even if it wasn't theirs. This was how the AllSpark was able to produce sparklings and have caretakers for them. It wasn't the same as a bond between a sparkling and its creators; it wasn't as strong. However, there was an innate response program in a femme's spark that called for the nourishment of a youngling. In this way, the youngling was assured of survival.
Chromia jumped up, dropping the cases to the floor, "Dear Primus!" A dozen emotions swept through her as she became filled with great joy.
Bumblebee only had one thing on his mind: to get these CD's to Sam. He didn't know who he had run into, and he didn't hear them speaking, but he started explaining himself immediately, as if he had been doing something wrong.
"Sam wanted me to download all this music from the Internet. He said it's not illegal if I do it, since I'm an alien and all, and he figures the laws don't apply to me. Besides, I can download them much faster than he can anyway."
The youngling was talking so fast, but Chromia had no idea who Sam was, and cared even less about human laws. She just stood there, staring at him, her disbelief paralyzing her. He was younger than any of the younglings from Floatilla would have been by this time, so he had to come after that, but, by Primus, from where?
There were two types of younglings on Cybertron; younglings from a bonded pair and younglings from the AllSpark. She could tell right away that he had bonded creators. He was not an AllSpark youngling. She could also tell that he had been carried as a sparkling, another trait that did not come with an AllSpark youngling.
A sparkling from a bonded pair developed directly from the femme's spark, upon completion of spark-mating, staying connected to her spark, protected in her spark casing, until he was strong enough to receive a frame. As such, a sparkling from a bonded pair was already predisposed to being 'carried.' In this way, a sparkling could be nurtured by residing in either one of his creators' chassis. This was called 'carrying.'
Carrying was usually done for two vorns, after the sparkling received his first frame, until the sparkling was strong enough to take his own energon. There was a special port on the bottom of each creator's spark-casing that connected the sparkling directly to his creators' sparks, via a special cord that the sparkling would lose once the carrying was done. The sparkling would snuggle up to his creator's spark-casing and take what he needed, all the while both the carrier and the carried bonding lovingly.
Both the femme and the mech creator developed this port, upon spark-mating, and could nourish their sparkling this way. This task was usually shared because the sparkling usually demanded a lot of energy from his creators' sparks. There were other, artificial, nutrient methods that some creators opted to use, especially if they wanted to start the sparkling out with a bigger frame.
Chromia's preferred method was to carry a sparkling. She always felt that Ironhide's temperament was associated with him having not been carried for long enough, if ever. Bots who had been carried also tended to be healthier. Depending on resources and function, the sparkling could be outfitted with a bigger frame once the carrying was done.
Chromia glanced around as if someone with the answers was going to show up at any moment. As the youngling stood up, she realized he was shorter than she was. She felt renewed intensity in her spark and, without warning, his spark latched onto it. She barely had the awareness to resist the urge to cradle him in her arms.
Bumblebee looked up for the first time and dropped all the CD cases again. They clanked to the floor loudly, but he didn't bend to pick them up this time. He just stood there, staring at…What? What was it? What stood before him was…the most beautiful being he had ever seen.
He felt a tug from its spark and his suddenly latched onto the feeling. He wanted to jump into its motherly arms. He barely had the awareness to resist doing so.
Chromia was the first one to finally be able to speak. "Hey," was all she could think to say.
"Hey," he said back to her.
"Where..." she choked on her words. "Where did you come from?"
He wanted to know the same thing of her...Bumblebee knew where he came from. The AllSpark had told him that much, but he wasn't certain that anyone else knew, and his creator certainly didn't know that he knew, so he answered the question with some caution.
"Um, well, I don't know. Uh, Optimus found me?" He ended that last part as if it were a question, shrugging his shoulders.
Chromia didn't notice. She actually found that she really didn't care. What mattered was that he was here now.
"What's your name?" she asked him next.
"Bumblebee," he answered. He didn't have a mouth, but his wide blue optics were full of wonderment.
Dear Primus, he was so adorable, she couldn't stand it. She took a step towards him, not realizing she had done so.
He was a very healthy youngling. It looked like he might have been carried for well over two vorns, whether out of love or protection, she had no idea, but probably both. Though she had witnessed several Decepticons dying for the price of being sparkbonded, she didn't feel he came from one. He was way too good-natured for that. Most sparklings from bonded pairs became Autobots anyway. She attributed that fact to the love and nourishment they received. Someone had loved this mech very much. His creators had to be Autobots.
"What are you?" Bumblebee asked as he tried to understand why he wanted to allow this being to hold onto him forever.
"What am I?" Chromia laughed. All humor melted away as she realized the gravity of his question. Primus, they really were going to become extinct.
"Have you never seen a femme bot before?" she asked tentatively, afraid of his answer, but knowing the truth all too well.
"N-no," he stammered. "The others speak of them, but…" Bumblebee searched his memory files as he tried to decide if he'd ever actually seen one before.
"Well, I might have when I was created, but I don't remember that…and there was this time on Artemis I when I think a few were there, but I was really little…and I might have fought beside one one time, but I was injured and I don't remember too much of what happened." In fact, sometimes when he told the story of his involvement to distract Megatron from the launching of the AllSpark, a femme was present and other times when he told the story, one was not. It was such a crazy time. A lot was happening. This, however, was the first time he really looked, the first time it truly registered.
The youngling was talking fast again. Something about him was familiar, but Chromia couldn't quite place it. Since he wasn't sure what a femme was, he obviously didn't remember his femme creator. Perhaps it was the mech creator who had carried him. It made her sad to think what might have happened to him. She wondered if the carrier died or if he had to abandon the little bot in order to protect him. Someone who had loved him that much would never have abandoned him willingly. Either way, this bot was probably having some separation issues.
"Who are you?" Bumblebee asked her next.
Chromia hadn't realized that she hadn't introduced herself, saying, "Oh! I'm Chromia. I'm Ironhide's sparkmate."
"Ironhide has a sparkmate?!" Bumblebee jumped in utter surprise.
Ironhide never told Bumblebee he had a sparkmate. Ironhide…has…a…sparkmate. The old, crabby, gruff, trigger-happy, soldier with a sparkmate seemed…odd. Yet, here a femme stood before him; Ironhide's sparkmate. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant and what it entailed, but he knew Optimus had a sparkmate and that Optimus was suffering due to their separation. Bumblebee was suddenly sad to think that his guardian had been suffering, but he brightened again because she was here now.
Chromia wondered why Ironhide hadn't mentioned something as important as a surviving youngling to her. She remembered the waiting twin berth in Ironhide's room...
"Do you visit Ironhide often?" she asked him.
"Ironhide's my guardian," he answered cheerfully and proudly. He was utterly excited that Ironhide had a sparkmate.
A hollow feeling crept into Chromia's spark. "Since when?" she asked next.
"Since I can remember," he said. "My whole life, I think."
Chromia's spark sank as she realized a very dark truth; Bumblebee was old enough to have been around well before the quest of the AllSpark began, before her and Ironhide's separation. She knew immediately that Bumblebee was not Ironhide's. Besides, that would have been impossible without her. He was more like Optimus than any other mech she knew. More like Optimus…
She didn't have time to analyze this thought as she tried to process what was happening. Her happiness at discovering a surviving youngling was replaced by something else entirely as it sank in that her sparkmate had never told her, that he hadn't included her, that he didn't even ask for her help.
Bumblebee couldn't contain his excitement. He didn't understand why Ironhide had never told him about her, but he didn't care. He had a family!
Without warning, the youngling shot strait at Chromia, wrapping his arms around her. Her spark rejoiced at his unexpected, but welcome, embrace. But, before she could return the gesture, he disengaged, looking somewhat embarrassed, and then took off past her down the hallway, transforming into a yellow Camaro with black stripes. In his excitement, he left all the CD's on the floor.
Chromia watched, with wide optics, the retreating Camaro. When he rounded a corner and was out of sight, she reached down to pick up all the curious little cases, thoughts of what her sparkmate had kept from her threatening to cripple her.
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Ironhide walked into the room, fully intending to ask Chromia why she never told him that their joinings were hurting her. It was bothering him immensely. Instead, he was met by Chromia's blazing plasma cannon on her shoulder. She shoved him up against the wall, pointing the cannon right at the optic on the bad side of his face.
"I should just shoot you right here," she said to him, her anger seeping into his spark.
Ratchet was the only other bot, besides herself, that knew he was blind in this optic. Again, finding replacement parts for Ironhide was an issue. Since he was blind in it, she figured he wouldn't miss it.
"What…" was all he could get out before she rolled out the cannon on her arm and shoved it below his abdomen, right against his interfacing port. Since she no longer had one, he had no use for his. Ironhide jumped up strait against the wall. Chromia was not playing games. He thought about what Will said about how they shouldn't be allowed to have guns. 'Primus, maybe Will was right!' he thought to himself.
"Whoa! Chromia?!" he yelled. "What's wrong?!"
"Why didn't you tell me!" she practically wailed at him.
"Tell you?!" he got out before she shoved him harder, the cannon on her arm pressing ever so much more uncomfortably against his port. His pump literally stopped for a second as he realized she must be talking about Bumblebee.
"Start talking," she threatened.
He just stared at her dumbly as he tried to think of the best way to 'start talking.'
"That file in your familial directory," she continued, "is about the youngling, isn't it?" Something caught in her throat, "He was here, Hide! He told me you raised him!"
She suddenly pushed off of him, subspacing her weapons, and started pacing the room. He relaxed, if only a little.
Oh Primus, he hadn't wanted her to find out this way. He wanted to tell her himself when the time was right, though he didn't really know when that was. There was no way he could keep Bumblebee hidden. He didn't need to protect him any more. He was practically an adult now…and with only four mechs on ship, she was bound to notice him sooner or later.
"Optimus brought him to me after he found him," Ironhide said to her.
"Well, if Optimus found him, then why didn't he just take care of him?" she turned around and asked him.
"He didn't think he could protect and hide him as well as I could," Ironhide answered. "Bumblebee was already a target, being associated with Prime would have made him even more so."
"You raised him from a sparkling. He is older than our separation. You had him before we were separated!" Chromia just couldn't believe it. She really couldn't. How could Ironhide do this to her?
"Yes," was all he could say. Bumblebee had been in his care well before their separation. He didn't know what to do. He had wanted to tell her; he could hardly stand that he had to keep such a secret.
Chromia reared back and punched him as hard as she could, causing a new dent in the already bad side of his face. He didn't make a sound. He didn't even grunt in pain. The force of it pushed his head to the side and he just hung it there, shuddering his optics, sadness threatening to overtake him. He deserved it, he really did. He didn't know if she could forgive him.
"I needed him, Chromia," he whispered.
If she hadn't already punched him so hard, she would have punched him after that statement. It was the worst thing he ever could have said to her after all they'd been through. Now she was just spark-broken.
"Didn't you think that I might have needed him too, you Pit-spawned selfish fragger?!"
Ironhide turned to her now, "I wanted to tell you, Chromia. Oh Primus, I desperately wanted to tell you! I wanted to share him with you. I wanted you to help me. I was…" he hesitated. "Afraid…" this coming out as a whisper. "He's the last one! I couldn't…" he hesitated again. "For the sake of Cybertron… I couldn't take the risk."
No, no, that was the worse thing Ironhide could have said to her. At this point, she no longer had the strength to even glare at him. She no longer had the strength to do anything. Her mind became numb and Chromia suddenly found that her legs were too weak to hold her up. She slowly lowered herself to the edge of the berth, her disbelief, her pain, her grief, her horror showing on her face and spilling out of her spark.
Chromia lowered her gaze to the floor, trying desperately to block it all out. He was still taking things from them, after all this time. She couldn't believe that it could be happening so indirectly. Now he had taken Ironhide's trust from her as well. Anger and hatred seeped into her emotions. She hated him. She hated all of them. She wanted to rush out, find anyone that remained of them, and rip their armor plating off, piece by painful piece.
Ironhide read her perfectly. "I trust you, Chromia," he said, kneeling down next to the berth in front of her, and buried his head in her lap. "Please understand that I trust you. I was trying to protect you both."
The truth was, Ironhide couldn't assure himself that he could prevent it all from happening again. He hadn't been able to protect her then; he hadn't been able to protect either one of them. Bumblebee was his second chance. He protected him at all costs and the bot was still alive. There was no way that he could handle this alone, yet he hid the one thing that could have made her happy, because of his fear.
His spark grew cold as he realized that he was winning. He had instilled such a fear in Ironhide that he would lose everyone that he loved…
A new fear gripped him. Was it possible that he could loose her outside of death? Hatred found its way into his spark. He wanted to rush out, find anyone that remained of them, and rip their armor plating off, piece by painful piece.
The shock and hurt and horror that Ironhide could feel through their bond was one of the most painful things he had to endure. He tried to embrace her, but she shoved him away.
"Don't touch me," she warned harshly, grief threatening to overpower her in all its crippling horror.
"I couldn't say 'no,' Chromia," Ironhide said painfully. "I just...couldn't."
A coldness gripped her spark of the likes that she'd felt only once in her entire life, "You're trying to replace him."
Ironhide quickly looked up at her, "I'm not trying to replace anybody!"
"I'm not talking about just anybody, Ironhide!" she cried.
Despair and woe swept across his features as he looked away from her. Chromia couldn't handle it anymore. She had to get out of there!
Ironhide tried to grab her as she suddenly jumped up and headed for the door. She dodged him nimbly and he was left to sorrow alone.
He was winning. She wasn't dead, but, somehow, inexplicably, he was winning anyway...
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A/N: I thought I'd explain the Bumblebee bad memory a bit more. I did this because I noticed a discrepancy in the prequel comic and the Wal-Mart special, lazy ass, cartoon that came with the movie (if you bought it at Wal-Mart). So, in the actual comic prequel, Bumblebee is fighting beside Arcee. However, in that lazy cartoon they did, which was nothing more than taking snapshots of the comic prequel, Arcee was omitted entirely. I figured that since BB is telling the story each time, he must have glitch in his memory. Plus it works for me, so I went with it. I LOVE fan fiction!
Forgive all the maternal stuff. I couldn't come up with anything else, but I figure the pre-programming could still be considered 'maternal.'
I sure do thank you for all the reviews given thus far. Again, I LOVE fan fiction! It is way more fulfilling than I imagined...
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