*grumbles* stupid keyboard, I just wrote this top note thing and it deleted it! Grr...

But anyway, here's the latest little chapter of Attack of the Valentine's! I hope you like it! Thanks go to Birgitte LP, supergirlprime, littledhampir13, and Vivian Hale for their amazing/loads of reviews. Mrs. Mittens and I love you guys so much! Just like we love all of our readers out there! Air hugs! *mimes an air hug while Mrs. Mittens ignores me completely* n_n; So yeah, hope you like it, much love!

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Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Shared)

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Wall to Wall Valentines

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There was really only one thing Aria didn't like about Valentine's Day and that was that it was completely miserable for single people.

"It's like the national anti-holiday for people like me." She thought mournfully as she slowly walked along the hall towards the room she shared with 'Bee. Well, 'shared' was more of a loosely used term seeing as she sorta, kinda, maybe…lived in his cabinet.

Aria sighed deeply, hunching forward slightly as she plodded on. "Just perfect," she mumbled.

But then she mentally smacked herself. "Hey now, wait a minute. Just cut that out," she firmly ordered herself as she stood up straight and used the wall like a mirror to glare at herself, "You didn't tell them about Valentine's Day just so they could give us," she quickly shook herself, "me cards. It was so they could color and be happy. And there I succeeded, so there."

It wasn't quite the pick-me-up she needed, especially once she noticed the slip into referring to herself in the plural, but it would have to do. And she really did like that the younglings got such a kick out of giving each other Valentines. It was cute.

"Try completely adorable." Aria thought a little happier to herself as she smiled and continued walking towards her 'room'. "Come to think of it, where are the little guys? I haven't seen them since this morning and they've been so quiet since then…" Aria murmured to herself as she rounded the corner on her way to the living quarters. She had to pass the door to the mess hall on the way there, and it swung open as soon as it sensed her. She rolled her eyes at it.

"First it refuses to open, now it opens at every shadow," she muttered under her breath as she walked by the door, "Wheeljack strikes again."

She was about halfway past when eight little figures inside suddenly caught her eye. It was the younglings, all huddled around Bluestreak as the older mech explained something to them.

She grinned at them and changed direction. "Well speak of the devil, there you guys are. I was just beginning to wonder where you all were." Aria said as she walked over to them.

All eight of them jumped at the sound of her voice and whirled around.

"Jie Mei!" Fastlane practically yelled. He tried to think of something else to say, but couldn't think of anything. His optics shot side to side as he silently begged Cloudraker and Bluestreak for help. "What, uh, what are you doing here?"

Aria eyed the eight shifty looks of her younglings and immediately mistook it for guilty consciences. "Oh, nothing much," Aria said, playing it cool. "What are you all up to?" She asked slowly, eyeing them sternly.

"Oh, you know…" Bluestreak tried to say, "we're, uh-"

"Nuthing…" Skids and Mudflap drew out the word.

Aria didn't say anything, just eyed them until they started to fidget uncomfortably under her stare. It didn't take long before Cloudraker opened his mouth to confess.

Aria gave a small little victory smirk. They still couldn't fool her.

But she had celebrated too soon. "We were just-ow!" Cloudraker was cut off by Bumblebee's elbow in his side.

"We were just trying to think of a way to surprise Ironhide with his Valentine. Arcee made him one and she wants it to be a surprise." Bumblebee said quickly.

"I do?" Arcee asked him, sounding very confused. But her confusion miraculously disappeared at a sharp look from the yellow bot. "Oh! I mean, yeah, I do. He always knows when I'm coming and I'm tired of it!" She pouted in a surprisingly convincing manner as she stomped her little foot.

Aria's flat look never left them. "Uh-huh," she said slowly. "They're sticking together. It must be big." She thought as her blue flicked to each one in turn. "And they've somehow got 'Bee on their side over mine. That's never really happened before." She thought, a little worried now.

"So…" Aria let the word hang a moment, "you guys aren't…up to something then?"

Eight little heads shook 'no' at once, doing nothing to soothe Aria's suspicions.

"And you're not planning on using Sideswipe's jetpack to give Ironhide his-" she took a second to remember their excuse, "Valentine?"

The younglings shook their heads again.

Aria didn't feel any better. "Or Wheeljack's new industrial strength bonding agent?" She asked just to be sure.

Fastlane perked up. "Wheeljack's got a new kind of super glue?" He asked, excited.

Aria flinched slightly, but then quickly shot him a glare. "No."

From the look he shot his brother, Fastlane clearly didn't believe her.

"Well that does not bode well…" Aria thought, and then realizing she had probably just caused more trouble then solved it with that little slip of the tongue, Aria pointed a stern finger at the lot of them. "Alright, I don't know what you all are up to, but there will be no jet packs or super glue involved, clear?" She demanded.

"Yes Jie Mei," they all mumbled.

"Or welders," Aria added, remembering when the others had welded Mudflap to the wall. Of course that had only been after he had literally begged for it for an orn, but still, the lecture they got on peer pressure after that had been worthy of the history books.

They all nodded along with some exasperated looks up at the ceiling. "Yes Jie Mei."

"And most importantly no scissors."

"But we need the scissors!" Val shouted before the others could hush him.

Aria fixed them with the well practiced glare of the older sister.

"We'll get Smokerunner to watch us!" Fastlane said quickly, giving Aria a pleading look.

Her eyebrows lowered over her eyes.

"Uh, and Cloudcover." Fastlane added, only now remembering that the last time his guardian Smokerunner had let them have scissors, half of Aria's clothes had end up in pieces on the floor. Of course that was when they had been like, two vorns old, but that didn't matter to Jie Mei. She was still mad about losing her only pair of jeans.

"Fine." Aria grudgingly conceded. "But if I hear even a whisper of another Wrapping Paper Incident then I am smelting the scissors!" She exclaimed fiercely.

The younglings all glanced at each other and found that they all believed her at least a little bit. "A-alright Jie Mei." Bluestreak finally spoke for all of them. "We'll be good, promise." He held up a hand.

The rest were quick to copy him.

Aria took in their overly sincere faces and wide, nervous, smiles, and knew that before the orbit was out, Prowl was going to come talk to her, probably covered in Valentines again.

She gave a deep, resigned, sigh. "Just don't hurt yourselves." She told them, visibly deflating, before turning back towards the door.

"We won't!" They called after her.

There was a long moment of silence as the younglings waited for Aria to disappear through the door. Skids opened his mouth to say something then, but Bluestreak quickly waved him silent. The older boy tilted his head, waiting until even Aria's footsteps were gone.

"Okay," he finally said when he was sure the coast was clear, "here's what we gotta do…"

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Optimus Prime was going over reports in his office when Bumblebee came in. He looked up at the youngling over the data pad he was reading off of to see what he wanted, but Bumblebee just waved and then went about searching for something in the shelves that were set against one wall.

After several long cycles of muted shuffling, Optimus looked up from the one sentence he had read at least fifteen times and frowned over at the youngling.

"Bumblebee, what are you doing?"

Bumblebee paused in his noisily searching and looked over at Optimus. "I need scissors for Jie Mei." He said simply.

Optimus held in a sigh and pulled the scissors he had confiscated from Fastlane and Cloudraker out of a drawer. "Here," he said, holding them out, "now please go use them somewhere else."

Bumblebee smiled at him as he carefully took hold of the scissors. "Thanks Optimus!" He said cheerfully before dashing out of the room.

Optimus shook his head slowly at him before turning back to the report he was going over.

He only got through a few sentences before the door the door opened up again and Bumblebee reappeared. He glanced through the shelves again, but thankfully didn't touch the multitude of distracting object on it. Instead he walked up to the side of Optimus' desk and reached up as high as he could.

His fingers hardly reached the edge of the desk. Watching him out of the corner of his optics, Optimus vented a muted sighed before calmly reaching out and nudging the glue bottle he had confiscated from Skids and Mudflap close enough to the edge that Bumblebee could reach it.

Unaware of Optimus' interference, Bumblebee gave a gratified little, "Ah!" as the glue fell off the desk and into his hands. He rushed out the door again.

Slowly, Optimus managed to tear his optics away from the door so he could concentrate, again, on his work.

The door slid open again.

Optimus didn't even try reading the first word as he looked up in time to see Bumblebee head straight to the shelves and pull out a long sheaf of paper that, miraculously, Optimus hadn't confiscated from anybody.

Or at least, he tried to pull it out. The paper was trapped under a heavy box of scrap that Wheeljack had brought in, although why Optimus had no idea. The big mech watched flatly as Bumblebee frowned at the paper and then pulled at it again.

It didn't budge.

Bumblebee adjusted his grip on the paper and with a determined look on his face that Optimus knew only too well, the little bot pulled at the paper with all his might-

-and started a small avalanche as the paper knocked free a hundred pieces of un-wanted junk and sent them cascading down over the small bot.

With a sigh, Optimus climbed to his feet. "Bumblebee, what are you doing?" He asked again as he crouched down next to the youngling and pulled some of the bigger things away from the pile he now found himself sitting under.

Bumblebee shook some spare wires off of his head, setting off a new mini-avalanche that uncovered the rest of his head and shoulders.

"We're making something for Jie Mei," Bumblebee told him again, "and we needed the scissors and the glue, but I forgot that I wanted to make a card for Miss Ariel, so I had to come get some paper too."

Optimus brushed away the rest of the random stuff away from the youngling and helped him to his feet. "You mean one of these Valentines everyone keeps talking about?" He asked mildly. He had the ones the younglings had made him standing on his desktop, but he still only had a vague idea what they were for.

Bumblebee nodded, clutching the paper so that it wouldn't drag on the ground. "Uh-huh. She's nice and she reads me stories sometimes, so I'm going to give her a Valentine." He said simply, then looked over at the door. "Can I go now?"

Optimus shook his head but couldn't resist a small grin. "Yes, alright, just please try and stay out of here for the rest of the orbit. Alright?"

Bumblebee grinned up at him. "Alright." Then he darted towards the door for the third time in as many cycles.

But then strangely enough, he froze when he reached the doorway and seemed to think about something.

"Bumblebee?" Optimus frowned at the youngling in concern. "Did you forget something?"

Bumblebee looked over his shoulder at Optimus, as if he wasn't sure if he should do what he was thinking, but then he darted back across the room, completely ignoring Optimus, and snatched all of the Valentines off of his desk.

Then he darted out the door.

Optimus blinked after him. "I don't want to know." He decided.

He started back to his desk, but stopped when he stepped on something. He looked down curiously to see that it was some of the scrap metal Bumblebee had knocked over.

Sighing, Optimus bent down and gathered up most of the spare bits of metal and dropped them unceremoniously on his desk where they'd be out of the way.

"That boy," he muttered to himself as he went and sat down again, "he leaves a good natured mess of destruction in his wake." He said as he settled himself and picked up the data pad he had been reading over.

But even without Bumblebee's disturbances, Optimus found he couldn't concentrate. "I wonder what they're doing anyway…" he asked himself out loud. He gave a small laugh. "I'll probably find out soon enough."

He looked back at the data pad, but his attention soon started wandering again.

After some time, he gave up, and threw the data pad with a clack on his desk. It would still be there in ten cycles, and he hardly found Prowl's umpteenth write up of the twins for 'disrespecting authority' all that pressing. Doubtlessly, the SIC had them in the brig already anyway.

Instead Optimus found himself staring at the long pieces of spare metal scattered on his desktop. He frowned at one in particular thoughtfully, an idea growing in his head. He picked it up and turned it this way and that, wondering if it would work. He reached up and experimentally bent one of the broad, flattened parts grouped at one end of the stem. It gave way nicely, but didn't break off or lose its form.

He peered at the scrap metal another long moment, thinking.

"A Valentine for Ariel hmm?" He mused quietly to himself.

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It was late in the orbit when Aria finally managed to drag herself out of bed again. After dealing with the younglings she had gone to lie down for a short nap, but had ended up sleeping through the rest of the day instead.

"Man," she groaned through a yawn, "I'm never gonna get to sleep tonight now. I'll end up turning nocturnal like some sort of bat-woman." She complained to herself as she went to go get a new bottle of insulin from Wheeljack. She had gone to go get something for dinner only to find that she was out of her medication. So here she was, walking all the way across the building, just for a tiny little vial.

"I really hate taking shots sometimes, no matter how essential they are." She mumbled sleepily as she turned towards the elevator that would take her to the floor where Wheeljack's lab was located.

"What are you doing Val? Leave it alone!"

Aria stopped as Cloudraker's hushed voice drifted towards her down the hall.

"But it doesn't look right!" Val hissed back.

"It looks fine guys. You lot did a fantastic job on this." One of the femmes, Moonracer Aria thought, spoke above the younglings.

"Yeah, she's gonna love it." Jazz's voice followed Moonracer's.

"Are we finally ready for her then? Is everybody here?" Bluestreak asked a little louder than the others had.

The murmured replies of a whole group of bots said that they were.

"Alright, I'm going to go find her then. All of you go hide-" he started to say.

At that moment Aria crept around the edge of the doorway. She had been creeping up the hall towards the voices as they spoke, careful to keep quiet the whole way.

She gasped when she saw the well lit room beyond the open door. It was beautiful, brightly lit to show off the mess of decorations that the younglings had been busy all day making. There was confetti and a few hearts hanging from the ceiling, but the most obvious was the long chain of paper that had been draped around the walls. Each of its links had been cut into the shape of the heart and then looped through the one next to it to form a long, pink and white chain.

The mechs and femmes standing in the room froze. Most of them just smiled when they realized she had already seen everything, but poor Bluestreak looked downright distraught.

"But-" he stuttered, staring at Aria with big blue optics, "but you're not-"

Jazz smiled and put a hand on the oldest youngling's shoulder. "Well the cyber cat's out of the bag now kid, just say it."

Bluestreak looked over at the silver mech. "Surprise." He grumbled.

"Surprise!" The other youngling's immediately yelled.

Aria laughed as they all came running towards her. "It's amazing guys! I love it!" She told them, going to hug and kiss each one of them, much to their delight. She had just managed to pin Fastlane with a quick peck on the cheek when she paused to get a closer look at the decorations that covered the walls. "Wait, is that…a Valentine?"

Arcee nodded happily. "Yep, they're all Valentines." She told her proudly.

Aria looked around the room again, eyes growing wide as she realized all of the walls and good portions of the ceiling were covered with nothing but Valentines.

"Wow," she said appreciatively.

Somewhere behind her, Aria heard Prowl mutter, "I thought this looked distinctly familiar…" as he looked around the decorated room as well.

One of the closer Valentines caught Aria's eye in particular. "Does that say 'To Cliffjumper'?" She asked uncertainly.

The seven younglings nodded proudly. "Yep, we took them all back." Fastlane declared.

Aria stared at him. "You…what?" She asked, sure she had heard him wrong.

"We didn't have time to make new ones-" Mudflap told her.

"-so we just used the ones we'd made for everybody else instead." Skids finished.

"It was all Bluestreak's idea." Val said, clearly thinking this was the best idea he had ever heard in his short life.

Aria turned to the only youngling she hadn't hugged yet. "Is that true Blue'?" She asked.

Bluestreak's optics looked uncertainly at her. He nodded quickly before staring at the floor and fidgeting slightly.

Aria looked around the room again. "Stealing back Valentines for wallpaper. Interesting." She murmured.

Jazz suddenly cleared his vocal processor, making Aria look up at him. He jerked his head in Bluestreak's direction. "He worked real hard on it." He told her quietly.

Aria jerked slightly, realizing she hadn't even thanked her precious host yet. So she smiled at him lovingly and ran up to the small mech that had stayed in the background since she had walked prematurely into the room.

When she was right next to him, Aria smiled up at him. "Did you do all this for me?" She asked.

After a moment, Bluestreak nodded.

Aria grinned wider and hugged him too, or at least, as much as she could. "You're so sweet!" She told him loudly, but then added in a softer, heartfelt, voice that was just for him. "Thanks Blue'."

Bluestreak's optics flicked towards her and she saw some of the sting leave him. "You're welcome Jie Mei," he told her, and then added more uncertainly, "love you."

Aria grinned up at him. "Love you too Bluestreak." She said, and then waved him down so that she could kiss his cheek.

How could she have ever doubted them?

*heart!* Bluestreak is so sweet! I just love him! Isn't he just a lil cutie? ^n_n^ (purrs a yes)

Up next, the very last chapter of my little side story: OP has a gift for Ariel and Arcee finally gives away her own special Valentine. ;)