Today's excuse if anyone asked why he was skulking around the Nest grounds, Ironhide decided, was he was on hand to do any incidental heavy lifting, or to make sure the area was clear of humans. Mostly true, in either case, as Starscream thought himself too precious for manual labor, and the humans by large did not know the true reason for the truce.
Optimus and Megatron had readily agreed on that point— humanity was a race divided, endlessly squabbling amongst itself, but as the Decepticons had discovered on a number of occasions, nothing could get disparate groups of humans to get their collective shit together quicker than an outside threat. They might have been fragile, but they could be frighteningly effective at war if given proper motivation.
And a sudden population explosion in a group of suddenly cooperative alien interlopers? Even Optimus was skeptical the humans would accept the same story used to explain the likes of the Protectobots and Aerialbots— 'recruits from Cybertron'. It was technically the truth, even if humans were ignorant of Cybertronian reproductive practices (or rather what they used to be).
For now, at least, only Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky, Carly Spencer, and Chip Chase— their most trusted friends on this planet— knew what was going on.
So Ironhide patrolling the Nest to keep organic looky-loos at bay was a perfectly valid excuse. He wasn't keeping an eye on the 'Cons, no sirree.
He was nobot's fool. He knew Skyfire could keep Starscream on point, and the Air Commander was shockingly honest and impartial in scientist mode. But Ironhide trusted Hook and the rest of the Constructicons about as far as he could throw their combined form. The odd random Decepticon who'd come in to be examined or participate in experiments, even less.
So when Dead End rolled cautiously onto Nest grounds in the small hours early one morning, all alone and unannounced, Ironhide carefully ambled out to where he could clearly be seen. Dead End cruised around to the other side of the building; Ironhide happened to stroll out the entrance on that side. Dead End backed off and transformed to wander aimlessly closer on foot, and Ironhide gave up trying to act aloof.
"Didja drop a buffing cloth, there?" he said pointedly. "Need help lookin' for it?"
Dead End stopped in his indecisive tracks and gave him a particularly sullen glare. The Decepticon huffed audibly through his vents and stalked glumly right toward Ironhide, stopping in front of him.
Ironhide tensed a little. Dead End wasn't bad by himself, if one could get past the metrotitan-sized pessimistic attitude. Without his gestalt-brothers, and certainly without Motormaster around, Dead End could generally be readily convinced to just buzz off without a fight.
"You're not on the regular volunteer list," Ironhide commented, dropping the circumspect act completely. "Y'got business here, Dead End?"
Dead End's optics shifted everywhere but at Ironhide. Then the Stunticon slowly, carefully, raised a fist... and tapped Ironhide on the forearm with his knuckles.
It barely qualified as a tap. The action hardly even made any noise, it was so half-sparked.
And Dead End just stood there.
Ironhide squinted an optic. "Um. What was that?"
"I hit you," Dead End mumbled.
Ironhide was torn between confusion and open derision. He settled for a bit of both. "So is this the opener to a really good joke?"
"I hit you," Dead End repeated more firmly. "I violated the ceasefire. Lock me up."
"Okay." Ironhide pinched his nasal bridge. "You're gonna hafta skip to the punchline. Maybe Decepticon humor is too sophisticated for an old 'Bot like me."
"Look, just—" Dead End shifted from foot to foot. "Just put me in a brig cell or whatever. I just— I can't be in the Nemesis right now."
"So... you got kicked out too?" Ironhide asked, trying not to smirk.
"No, I— augh, what's the point." Dead End Turned away and started to stalk off, but caught himself after a few steps and let out a great gust of vented exhaust: Cybertronian nonverbal for frag all this to the smelter.
Ironhide watched bemusedly from where he stood, content to just let Dead End strut and fret his hour upon the stage, as it were. The Stunticon was a pessimist, but he wasn't suicidal, or an idiot. Ironhide felt reasonably sure he wasn't here to try anything more nefarious than a mope.
"Can I just stay here?" Dead End finally asked in a rush. "The Nemesis isn't— it's not safe right now."
That got Ironhide's attention. Sure, the Decepticon warship wasn't exactly Six Lasers Over Cybertron on its best days, but what would be 'not safe' enough to chase out the 'Cons' poster-bot for cynicism? "That's sayin' something. How do you mean?"
"It's Vortex. And Shrapnel. And maybe Astrotrain, and..." Dead End scowled. "But mostly Vortex. Sick fragger."
Decepticon ranks peppered with sadistic sociopaths and entrenched infighting, news at eleven. "Motormaster not have your back? Soundwave, maybe?"
"Now who's telling jokes?" Dead End snapped. "Motormaster's very busy avoiding the carriers like it's cosmic rust. Soundwave's got better things to do. I even tried to tell Thundercracker. He told me I was big enough bot to handle it myself. He just doesn't get it."
Ironhide crossed his arms. "What, all of a sudden you don't have the ball bearings to deal with whatever those fraggers'd do to you?"
A flash of real, quite lively anger bubbled up from underneath Dead End's irritable apathy. "You don't get it either, you big stupid Autobot," he growled. "This isn't about me."
Belatedly Ironhide noticed Dead End's hand had come up to cover his lower core. Oh.
...Oh.
Ironhide stood aside and gestured through the open entrance. "Go on in. You're gonna bunk with Swindle, though, 'till we figure out how to handle... this."
"Whatever." Glum and detached once more, Dead End simply walked in.
"I want to be sure Dead End is not in trouble for taking refuge here," Optimus said, as Ratchet ran a high-resolution imaging scanner through its paces over his chassis. "It shouldn't be viewed as desertion."
"Hold still," Ratchet grumbled.
Across the lab, Starscream snorted. "It's not desertion if there's nothing to desert. We're still at ceasefire; as long as everyone's where they belong once hostilities resume, Dead End can be morose wherever he likes."
"Still, it's encouraging to see him concerned for the welfare of another," Optimus said. "Less encouraging that he fears for the safety of his little one coming to harm from his own side."
Ratchet knocked his leader in the helm. "Hold still. Use your comm, you're messing with the scan. And what're you thinking? Asylum here at the neutral site?"
/I'll discuss the matter with Megatron at our next meeting./
"Dead End isn't listed as one of the eleven carrying Decepticons," First Aid remarked.
"Eleven?" said Starscream. "I thought the reserve of energon for carriers was low. It's fifteen. Including myself."
"Megatron lied. I'm shocked." Ratchet fiddled with the scanner's controls with one hand and with the other held Optimus still. "Withholding information like that could prevent adequate medical care if something goes wrong. And we really should monitor everyone, just to get a handle on what a 'normal' gestation looks like to begin with."
"Our mighty leader is thinking strategically," Starscream said airily, poring through a datapad. "What he doesn't want to acknowledge is that all data is of strategic importance. You can bet your transformation cogs if I were leading the Decepticons—"
"Scan complete (thank Primus)," Ratchet interrupted. "Well now. You've put on weight, Prime. Nearly half a ton."
Optimus sat up. "But the circumference of the chambers has remained static. It must be getting rather tight quarters for him in there by now."
"See for yourself." Ratchet called up a wireframe image of the scan.
What once had been bare struts and open framing was now mostly-enclosed by smooth, featureless plating. The tiny thing was curled up, legs and arms pulled in, one fist shoved partway in his mouth. His optics were shuttered— actual, fully-formed shutters— and his head was completely enclosed in a plain, round helm.
"Half a ton is a bit much for its size," Starscream muttered. "This is going to really throw off my balance in the air..."
"Some of that weight is in the array itself," Ratchet replied, taking the pad out of the seeker's hands to add to the data.
"The chamber itself doesn't seem capable of expansion," said First Aid. "The mechlet must be rather dense in construction. Likely to continue nanite-aided growth after it's emerged, I should think."
Starscream peered down at the smaller Protectobot. "'Mechlet'?"
Ratchet studied the hologram thoughtfully. "That's a good guess. Seems to be following an organic model so far. Y'think this might be spontaneous mass adaptation imitating life we've most closely associated with for so long?"
"Well, they'd better get bigger, anyway," Starscream said, half-scowling at the curled-up figure that, rendered life-size, would fit in just one of Prime's hands. "They'd be useless that small. Soundwave's brats notwithstanding."
Optimus smiled ruefully behind his mask. The usual simmering tension between factions during previous treaties had put in no appearance this time around. He felt it was in large part due to the nature of their common problem.
It had nothing to do with death. No invaders, no enemies. Instead Autobot and Decepticon worked shoulder-to-shoulder to explore this mystery of new life.
The mechlet— and Optimus would have to ask First Aid where he'd gotten the word, it was perfect— inside squirmed and kicked, as he often did. Optimus responded in kind, lightly drumming his fingers on his abdominal plating, and the little one paused. When Optimus stopped tapping, the mechlet gave one mighty kick. Optimus chuckled quietly while the medics and scientists chattered in serious tones about this theory or that.
He excused himself, leaving them to tease what they could from new data, and strolled into the central great room of the Nest. The mechlet kicked again.
"Easy, little one," Optimus rumbled, pitching his bass harmonics downward, his voice sending low-frequency vibrations through his metal. The mechlet wriggled excitedly for a moment— startled? Frightened? Happy? He wished he knew.
"I can't wait to meet you," he murmured. "As big as you're getting, I hope it's soon."
Across the way, emerging from one of the other labs, came Tracks and Wildrider, having what appeared to be civil conversation. When Tracks stumbled, struck by an oncoming overload, Wildrider actually caught him by an arm, steadied him, and guided him over to the wall to lean against. Wildrider then furtively glanced around, spotted Optimus, and transformed to roll sheepishly out... mortifying, for a Decepticon to be caught in an act of courtesy to an Autobot, apparently. Optimus shook his head.
It might be hard, perhaps, for some of his Autobots to get back to fighting when this was over. It was maybe a fool's hope to want this peace to continue, but... well. Alpha Trion hadn't reformatted an idiot. Optimus knew Megatron well enough; his old rival planned on having new soldiers, and not much else. Prime had plans to propose that all the new people resulting from this miracle be classed as protected neutrals until they could make informed decisions about which, if any, side to take in the war. A more permanent treaty for their offsprings' sake would be ideal, if they could just weld Megatron to one spot for a day or several. But Megatron was as scarce as ever, his public appearances brief, his exits typically abrupt.
Another impatient kick from within.
Optimus tapped a reply. One miracle at a time, he supposed.
Soundwave was not by nature a nervous or paranoid mech, but he could swear someone was following him around, and had been for days.
It was barely a tickle of a mind, but he could sense it. Always nearby— very nearby. The innate sense of the minds around him was something he had had all his life; his long-dead mentor had called it a gift from Primus. Soundwave was given to be a bit more prosaic about it these vorn, but he was nonetheless grateful to whatever quirk of Vector Sigma had granted him the ability. It meant knowing exactly where he stood, for one, and very rarely being caught by surprise by anyone's actions. And not once had it ever failed him. Been blocked, thwarted, occasionally fooled (but not for long and never twice), but never failure on his part.
His cassettes were accounted for. He'd recalled them once he was certain it was 'someone' trailing him and not a sensor ghost, for their own safety. It wasn't Mirage. The Autobot spy was never this sloppy, and word was he was starting to have trouble maintaining invisibility while overloading.
Soundwave finally decided to cut his daily haunt through the Nemesis short and see if he could get his unknown stalker to stop being coy. With one processor thread watching his private security feeds, he headed into his quarters and locked the door.
... the presence was still there, inexplicably inside his quarters despite having seen no one enter behind him.
Irritated, he was about to initiate a thorough— and unpleasant— telepathic scan of the area, when Frenzy gave him a hesitant mental nudge.
/Boss, I think it might be the scraplet./
Soundwave pulled himself up short. The research teams had agreed that the cluster of neural crystal that formed in each active "gestation" chamber could potentially function as a processor. Soundwave had reservations, to say the least. They weren't nearly sophisticated enough, had not shown evidence of any real programming, and—
But there it was, a quiet presence, dormant inside him. No wonder it had felt as if someone were following him.
If it was a processor capable of consciousness, it really was a true mech, spark and all. Prime had been right.
The non-carrying Decepticons had been giving their affected comrades suspicious sideways glances since this whole thing had started, and the prevailing hope was that any day now, the think-tank at the so-called Nest would discover their crucial mistake and find a way to destroy what were surely insidious parasitic monsters. Any day now.
The little mech inside him— the one that wasn't a symbiote— stirred drowsily, in both body and mind. The as-yet simple processor flared briefly with interest and curiosity, then settled once more.
This... changed things, somewhat.
/Hook: Prime's hypothesis confirmed. Begin independent research into possible upgrade methods./
/What? But... acknowledged./
As usual, Sideswipe didn't so much boot up as half-my-processor-took-a-two-minute-vacation-without-me slog back to fully online in a process that took nearly as long as the overload episode itself. He made himself lie still and quiet on the berth for several minutes. Past experience had proven that trying to talk, move, or even think complex thoughts right after one of these overloads, and, well... Sunstreaker had a baker's dozen short videos ready to hit the internet the instant a blackmail-ish mood took him.
Sideswipe was equal parts horrified and proud. Embarrassment via Youtube was usually his thing.
"You back with us, Siders?" His current visitor, Huffer with the daily energon delivery. "Sunny couldn't make it just now. Sleeping off another one."
"Yeah, that happens." Sunstreaker's overloads tended to drop him straight into deep recharge for a couple hours, which meant his usual resting cycle was pretty much shot. According to the polls, he wasn't the only one keeping weird hours these days. Gestational overload followed no discernible schedule for any of them. The timing seemed completely random.
Except for Prowl. Whose overloads came at precise fourteen-point-six-two hour intervals. (Seriously, what a freak.)
Sideswipe took his daily ration through the bars. "Thanks, Huff."
"Yeah, yeah." Huffer turned to go. "Oh, your thingy beeped while you were having happy-time."
Sideswiped briefly wondered what it would take to bribe Ratchet to reattach Huffer's head backwards. "Real cute, buddy. Next time you clank chests with someone could be it!"
Hmm. He picked up his 'homework', the datapad linked to the ongoing research. Sure enough, there was a batch of new scans and nanite analyses to pretend to understand. But first, he dashed off a quick message:
[okay so we know what causes baby but has anyone wondered how to keep it from happening]
After a moment, a reply: [Do you mean a possible contraception equivalent?]
[yeah that see it's nice we've got a bunch incoming but unless we all stop interfacing we could be up to our cranial vents in baby]
A longer pause.
Sideswipe smirked. [even more baby if they end up having same equipment of their own maybe]
An even longer pause.
[exponential baby]
[YES, THANK YOU, SIDESWIPE, WE'LL LOOK INTO IT.]
He snickered. That was Ratchet. On a good day Starscream was fun to needle (from the safety of the brig and a remote connection, of course), Perceptor fought back by formulating all his replies into alliterative haiku, but Ratchet always resorted to the double-stress glyph-lock.
Sipping his energon, he brought up the new material. More structural scans. Oh hey, Bluestreak's little sparky had little nubs on the front rim of his helm, almost like the beginnings of a chevron. That was adorable. And like all the rest, the mechlet had developed a line of anchor points along his armorless spinal strut, attached to the inside of the gestation chamber.
Sideswipe made a note of the development on another datapad. So far the attachment to the inner chamber wall looked like a regular thing, something that was supposed to happen. Like the outer plating (thin though it was) forming, and the optics lighting up at a certain stage.
And Sideswipe was perversely determined to not only become the expert Prowl had sarcastically ordered him to be— he intended to literally write the book on the new Cybertronian reproductive cycle.
Of course, How is Babbybot Formed, How Bot Get Pragnent was merely a working title.
Sideswipe thumbed through the other scans, turning them each this way and that a few times. Something was different. It was most pronounced in Jazz, on the spherical chamber itself, rather than the mechlet within.
Arcing over the curved surface, was that a... a seam? No, that was a series of seams. The chamber was becoming segmented.
All levity dropped, one hand resting nervously on his midsection plating, Sideswipe sent a simple query to the research teams to ask why nobody had apparently noticed and made note of the chambers' impending ability to possibly open.
It looked like birth-day was upon them.
Jazz was awake, again in the middle of the night. Somehow he'd rolled off the berth without realizing it and was half-kneeling beside it, fumbling underneath for the stash of energon he kept squirreled away.
By Primus, he ached. Everything from armor inward, neck-down and up from the hip joints, throbbed dully. Not pain, precisely. But definitely an ache.
And he'd had a full cube before turning in, why was his tank churning so? It was just regular energon. Why did he suddenly, absolutely have to get another cube in him right the pit now?
He downed it on the spot, kneeling there on the floor. Through the haze of his half-booted processor he felt mildly sheepish. He'd seen empties intake energon with more dignity.
...and he still didn't feel any better.
His vents were open, going full bore, but he wasn't overheating. His systems seemed to swing back and forth just short of giving actual errors. Carly had once described to him the experience of a human malfunction called the flu, and he could swear this was what a 'cold sweat' felt like.
Jazz tried to stand up, to get back on the berth. He only ended up more on the floor. So he simply braced himself on all fours, trying to remember how that standing thing worked.
The ache pooled more deeply, centering on...
There was a twinge and a click, barely heard over his roaring vents; Jazz absently brought a hand up to his abdominal section. And he came suddenly, dizzyingly alert.
His plating was open.
And there was something pressing against his hand.
