Well. It's been...a reeeeeeeally long time, huh? I swear, I AM working on this story, I just seem to be slowing down and losing momentum. I AM determined to FINISH IT NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT REFUSES TO BE FINISHED, however. So no matter how sporadic the updates get, know that they WILL continue till the end. But I apologize for the amount of time it has taken me to get this chapter up. But hey! There's even MORE plot development! YAY!
And thank you to all of you who were nice enough to point out the italics problem was okay last chapter. I hope it stays that way. Else I'm going to have a SERIOUS TALK with Microsoft Word.
I owe so freaking much to my wondrous beta-reader Kesera for this chapter. She basically helped me word by word to write the first two paragraphs, so a lot of the word placement and lack of rambling goes to her. She also did some AMAZING calculations for Cybertronian to Earth time units and helped me immensely on that front as well. Also, she managed to get this back to me after beta-ing during her BIRTHDAY WEEK. So Happy Birthday to HER and I hope she has an awesome weekend.
Thanks again to Daebereth and .groove who were kind enough to point out some bad spelling of mine in the last chapter. And some more birthday wishes once again to Dragowolf whose birthday was a few days ago.
But I digress...because I ramble so much. XD
Optimus blew a light puff of incredulous air out his intakes the moment he crossed the threshold and beheld the sight before him—a group of mechs that he held in high esteem, some of his elite soldiers and upper staff who had spent vorns serving together, and they looked completely and utterly ridiculous.
He had been inspecting the Ark's security systems with Red Alert who had just put the finishing touches on the system when he had received the message from Wheeljack requesting an immediate meeting in one of the small, barely used rec-rooms. He had been annoyed at the interruption and had almost declined to the engineer's face, his professional, sophisticated leader persona be damned to the slag-pits. Red Alert's paranoid insistence that Wheeljack was attempting to blow up the Ark and the interruption of their meeting was clearly sabotage had only served to aggravate him further. Then he noticed how completely and absolutely serious Wheeljack was with no trace of his normal jovial demeanor. That in and of itself was so unusual and alarming that Optimus had nary a choice but to come and see what the masked mech wanted of him.
He didn't expect to walk into a room of his crème de la crème acting like a bunch of nervous, first-orn academy trainees, however.
It was completely, disturbingly silent and yet Optimus could still tell that Jazz was doing everything in his power to try and comfort Prowl who was just about doing everything in his own power to look anywhere but at the lieutenant sitting on the couch next to him. An impressive feat, Optimus had to concede. It was noteasy to ignore Jazz when he didn't want to be ignored. Ratchet had all but plastered himself against one side of the room, his chair practically imbedded into the wall. He kept darting flighty and unreadable glances at the weary twins who, for once respecting the status-quo of silence, only returned them with equally silent, flighty glances of their own from the opposite corner of the room.
Sam and Bumblebee, the seeming pillar of light and stability in the whole of the room, were leaning lightly against the wall to the right of the Autobot leader, for all intents and purposes napping while the scene of outrageous incredulity unfolded before them. Wheeljack and Bluestreak were also acting fairly normal.
In comparison anyway. Optimus was fairly certain that in any other circumstance the erratic and meaningless gestures they threw at each other while exchanging nothing verbally would have been considered decidedly non-normal.
"Well?" Optimus demanded, causing most of the mechs in the room to jump. Had they really missed his entrance? Were they that much out of it that they had failed to notice his brightly colored, relatively large chassis waltz through the door? Optimus just managed to not roll his optics when no one said anything, merely training their eyes anywhere but on their fellow mechs, "Come on, I was told this was an emergency and I can only leave Red Alert alone on the monitors for a limited time before he goes crazy."
The silence was deafening. He could have cut it with his electro-ax. Considering the thought of taking out the weapon if only to threaten somebody into answering his questions, Optimus was shocked out of his only slightly murderous thoughts as Bumblebee clicked into a short speech.
"We think it has something to do with the Allspark." The yellow bot muttered. At the mention of the sacrosanct barer of all sparks, everyone in the room couldn't suppress a small wince.
"What?" Optimus asked, stunned. His entire science team had analyzed the piece of Allspark that he had pulled from Megatron's chest and Preceptor, Hoist, Wheeljack, and even Ratchet had found it completely dead, "How is that even possible?"
"That part's my fault." Sam stated. Optimus craned his head down to look at the small human, raising an optic ridge in question.
"Once we found him, Ratchet," Sam said with a pointed glare in the medic's direction. Said medic grumbled and just folded more into himself while shooting a glare at Wheeljack, "and Wheeljack did a few more scans on me and found that something weird was happening."
"Something…weird?" Optimus echoed, attempting to achieve some sort of clarification.
"That's all I got." Sam said with a shrug, "If you want more info, ask the scaredy-cat over there."
Optimus followed the human's pointing appendage to the hunkering Ratchet. Googling the term "scaredy-cat," Optimus found it hard to apply to the usually animated and grouchy medic. Taking a closer look at his old friend, however, he noticed that something had seriously happened to change his demeanor so drastically. This was definitely important. Hopefully Red Alert could hold on a bit longer—though he did have Inferno there to keep him marginally sane, so Optimus would give him about one more breem before all hell would break loose.
"Ratchet?" Optimus prompted when the medic did nothing. Ratchet glanced down at his lap, his fingers fidgeting. Twisting his facial plates in slight annoyance, Optimus repeated the mech's name with a bit more force, "Ratchet!"
Snapping to attention, the rescue vehicle locked optics with his commander with a small twitch. Meeting the pleading eyes, Optimus just raised another optic ridge. With a long suffering exhalation of intakes, Ratchet stood up and all optics were immediately glued to his frame.
Shuffling embarrassedly (Optimus had to stare at that—Ratchet hadn't been nervous since he had graduated from the medical academy with honors) Ratchet cleared his intakes and spoke.
"We couldn't recognize it at first. Our regular instruments couldn't detect it. Once I became aware that…something irregular was happening and that it might have some connection to Sam, we ran a few more in depth tests."
"And they came up with surprising results." Wheeljack added, breaking away from Bluestreak to stand next to Ratchet. The medic acknowledged the support with a small tilt of his head, one with a slightly angry edge to it, however, Optimus noted dryly. What hadWheeljack done to upset the medic so horribly?
"The Allspark is alive, Optimus," Ratchet stated after a moment, locking optics with the leader to impart the magnitude of the statement. It was unnecessary. The moment he had heard it, Optimus's CPU had dropped all thoughts to the interrelations of his officers as it reeled at the possibilities. Then…their race was saved!
"How? Why?" Optimus implored, his vocals cracking with the intensity of emotion.
"Why is a little tricky. As for how…" Wheeljack shot a small look at Sam and Optimus thought he might have an idea, "When Sam destroyed the Allspark, he didn't so much destroy it as…weaken it."
"Weak and unable to support itself outside of its protective container, the Allspark sought out the only other living thing near that could house it as it slowly recovered." Ratchet explained.
"Me." Sam said, interjecting into the conversation. Sometime since Optimus had come in, the human had crawled up to sit on Bee, leaning against his guardian who had one hand wrapped protectively around him.
"Yes, we were getting to that," Ratchet snapped. Optimus hid a smile behind a cough, the extended explanation seemed to be doing Ratchet some good.
"What does any of this have to do with…the events that have taken place?" Prowl spoke softly from the couch.
"The Allspark…well, it's basically in Sam, yes?" at everyone's somewhat hesitant nod, Wheeljack continued, "So it can act through him, yes?" everyone's nod was somewhat stilted at that, most clearly not completely understanding.
Ratchet, noticing the confusion, continued, "It was the Allspark that must have done something, through Sam, to a few of the Autobots here. And our best guess is that it was by touch."
"So, what? It just implanted these feelings in you or something?" Sunstreaker asked snidely, his gaze sharply focused on Ratchet's frame.
"Ah…well, no. It's a little bit more complicated than that…" Wheeljack said hesitantly, shooting a look at the suddenly subdued medic.
"Come on! How could it possibly get any more complicated?" Jazz, frustrated with Prowl for refusing to even look at him, exploded.
"The Allspark is not that…maleficent as to just make up these, ah, 'feelings' that we were, well, feeling." Wheeljack stuttered.
"Are you saying the feelings are real?" Sideswipe spoke up for the first time, his optics locked onto the now shaking form of the medic.
Ratchet, his own optics locked on the floor rather than at the now rapt twins answered with a small voice, "Yes."
"You can't be implying what I think you're implying." Prowl said from the couch, moving for the first time to face the two mechs who were explaining. Wheeljack immediately turned to face the tactician, but Ratchet stared unwaveringly at the floor between his feet. He could feel the twins' gaze on him and the last thing he wanted was to have to meet their piercing optics. That would mean answers, and he just didn't have any.
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean, Prowlie?" Jazz said, his tone ice.
The room went silent and Optimus mentally groaned at the return of the tension. Prowl slowly turned in his seat to face the saboteur, finally locking optics to visor.
"We are friends, Jazz." He said smoothly.
"So? Doesn't mean we can't be more." Jazz growled.
"I…the emotions were always there, Prowl," Wheeljack said, glancing evasively between the two bots on the couch, "The Allspark merely helped them come to the surface. Forced us to act on them. They were—are…real."
"Hear that? That means you must have felt—feel something. For me." Jazz said, his tone softening slightly and he brought one hand up to almost touch Prowl's doorwing. Everyone in the room grew uncomfortable as the moment between the bots became more and more personal, but they couldn't leave until this issue was completely resolved. They just had to make do with avoiding looking at them and trying to tune out their conversation.
They failed miserably. It was like watching a train wreck, Sam reflected, his eyes focused raptly on the veritable alien soap opera before him.
"That is…possible, I'll admit. But I don't think it's the best idea—" Prowl continued, stubbornly refusing to move back at the sight of Jazz's advancing hand.
"Which is why you slinked out before I onlined, right?" Jazz asked, halting his hand centimeters from Prowl's wingtip.
Prowl's optics flashed, "I wasn't slinking. I was merely…going to someplace else. To think."
"Lots of help that did, huh? You still didn't come to the right conclusion." Jazz said and Optimus noticed that there was a bit of his trademark grin slipping into the tone.
"And what 'right conclusion' might that be?" Prowl asked dryly and, though he tried to stop it, his wing fluttered slightly, batting against Jazz's hand.
"Come on, Prowlie. For once in your life, take a chance. Take it on me." Jazz said lightly, trailing his hand lightly over the tip of Prowl's wing in the unconsciously asked for caress.
"I don't take chances." Prowl said, but even Bumblebee could see his resolve weakening, his whole body leaning into Jazz's lightly stroking fingers. And if Bee had noticed it, he could be sure that Jazz had, too.
"You can take this one. I promise you the odds are definitely in your favor." Jazz said lightly, running his hand down Prowl's wing and lightly brushing more of the appendage.
"Jazz…" Prowl rumbled, no longer controlling his lean into Jazz's fingers. With that small submission, Jazz knew he'd won. He smiled one of his regular smiles and leaned in to give Prowl a small peck on the mouth.
When it looked like the peck might have evolved into something decidedly more involved, Bluestreak coughed with a squeak of his intakes. The two mechs broke apart and Jazz smiled sheepishly at the room.
"Sorry 'bout that, guys." He said, completely without shame.
"Like rabid turbofoxes." Sideswipe mumbled, loud enough for the room to hear him. It earned a small, forced chuckle from the gathered Autobots.
"I can kinda get how it managed to make you act on your 'hidden feelings'," Bluestreak started once the cold laughter had died down, curving two of his metal fingers into representations of the quote marks around the words, "But why? What caused it to just start acting up so randomly?"
Wheeljack shot a look at Ratchet, the only mech in the whole room who hadn't taken any notice of Prowl and Jazz and who was too focused on his inner musings to hear the question. Elbowing Ratchet in the midsection, Wheeljack was only slightly gratified when the medic shook himself back to attention, "What?"
"They want to know," Wheeljack said softly to Ratchet with apology in his optics. They hadn't said anything of what they had figured out in the hopes that it wouldn't need to be publicized, but with the question asked, it had to come out now, "Whythe Allspark did what it did."
Ratchet's whole frame shook and Optimus shot a look at the twins who were halfway out of their seats, obviously wanting to go and comfort the medic but unable to know how he would take it. Optimus was quick to put two and two together and, after running the context of the previous conversations through his CPU one more time, he turned a more calculating eye on the assembled Autobots, noting the groupings. He was hard pressed to stifle his amused grin as he realized the reason for Bumblebee and Sam being so suddenly clingy, though he couldn't help the twinge of worry in his spark over the medic's continued behavior.
After a few seconds and once Ratchet had gained marginal control over his shaking, he spoke, "That…that might have slightly been my fault."
There was an echo of silence before the room burst into commotion, everyone shouting out questions at Wheeljack and the frightened Ratchet. The twins, noticing Ratchet's growing distress, attempted to herd the other mechs away from him, yelling at them to shut up and unfortunately only adding to the cacophony of noise and Ratchet's distress rather than decreasing it.
"Just let us explain!" Wheeljack shouted over everyone. Reluctantly, but still obeying, the standing mechs returned to their seats. The twins sent one last look at Ratchet before also returning to theirs, though they both sat on edge with optics trained on the still shaking mech, ready to spring out to help him at a moment's notice and only listened with half an audio as Wheeljack continued explaining. "At Sam's last check up, he and Ratchet had a conversation that lead to…some regrets over never seeing sparklings again. I'm sure that if Ratchet had known who, or what, he had been talking to, he would have never made the wish."
"The Allspark must have understood it as me asking permission." Ratchet said quietly and the other mechs in the room stared sheepishly at him as his melancholy tone registered. It was so decidedly…un-Ratchet-like that it made all the bots pause and not flock the medic with continued questions.
"So, um… it's like you went into heat or something?" Sam asked from where he was relaxing against Bee. He knew it was a sensitive time, he could tell by the continued silence, but his brain hurt and he really needed the clarification before something imploded in his head.
"In a crude way, yes, I suppose you could say that." Wheeljack agreed.
"Then why'd it not just affect the doc?" Jazz asked, keeping one optic underneath his visor on the CMO but addressing the question to Wheeljack. He didn't think he'd ever seen Ratchet like this. Was he really taking bedding the twins so hard? Sure, it was a shock, but with the way that Ratchet was constantly in the twin's lives—fixing them, throwing things at them, helping them get out of trouble—he couldn't see how he wouldn't have developed some kind of feelings for them.
"Sam just harbors the Allspark, it's not like he can control it. But he still has some sort of connection to it, one that we're going to have to do a few more tests on to confirm, and he must have accidentally…prolonged the Allspark's consciousness and affected all those that he touched." Wheeljack explained.
"With the Allspark's acquiescence…" Sideswipe began, only to choke on air as his CPU came up with the answer before he could voice it.
"…does that mean that…well, that there's a chance for…sparklings?" Sunstreaker finished his brother's thought, staring intently at the medic who, flinchingly, raised his head and finally met his gaze.
Silent and expecting, the room was hushed and Wheeljack, locking optics with the surprised ones of Bluestreak, was oh so loathe to break it, "The idea is of…relatively plausible possibility, yes."
Though his revelation failed to garner forth another public outcry, the silence after it was just as bad. Sam and Bee, for the first time since the meeting had started, were also slightly startled at the revelation, they hadn't thought that far ahead. Even Optimus couldn't find anything to say.
Sparklings? Here? On Earth? Optimus didn't know if he should be excited and horrified about the prospect this presented or just good old plan horrified. Looking around at the group of decidedly unstable mechs, Optimus was slowly leaning towards the second.
Well. This would certainly prove to be interesting.
Ironhide had been having a good day. Relatively, anyway. While his previously construed notions of a "good" day hadn't beforehand included toting around Will Lennox and his posse as the so called "designated" driver, he had gotten some rather compromising recordings of Lennox that he could now hold over the captain and hopefully cause him to ceaseannoying him about his new altmode. It wasn't funny. Especially the three thousandth or so time.
The weapon specialist spent a dark moment wherein he considered just releasing the video without giving the captain a chance to stop him as he recalled how the giggling drunkards had forced him to drop them off a few blocks from the bar so that they weren't seen in such a "girly" car. It positively rankled Ironhide that the humans would dare to think he was anything less than un-girly.
Because he so was.
"Come on Red! It's only been a few breems—"
"And that's over half longer than Optimus said he would be gone! I tell you, he could be lying somewhere in a Decepticon trap! We should be planning immediate procedures to rescue him!"
Ironhide paused outside the security office, the conversation not odd so much as the fact that it was happening on (he quickly double checked the downloaded duty log) Optimus's inspection shift. A peek inside the open door and into the monitor filled room, however, failed to provide the instant visual of the large red and blue leader. Instead of that great bastion of calm, there was rather all that could possibly be designated as the opposite.
Red Alert. With Inferno. Alone. Ironhide let his face fall into his hand in a human display of ah, crap. Red Alert, by himself, was bad. Give him Inferno, however, and the Chief Security Officer was a walking nervous wreck of catastrophic proportions.
Well, more so than usual, anyway.
Under normal circumstances, Ironhide found Red's little crush hilarious. There was quite possibly nothing else he considered more enjoyable then watching the paranoid security director—who was already a bit far off into the deep end—go almost completely bat-crap crazy as he tried to do everything in his power to not give himself away.
Which, inadvertently, gave him away. To everyone. Except, of course, to the blissfully unaware fire truck who wouldn't know a clue if it hit him over the head with his own ladder.
"Red! Wheeljack said it was important. Optimus could just be caught up—" Inferno tried, attempting to placate the smaller mech with a hand on his shoulder.
"Cau-caught up!" Red stuttered, jumping away from the fire truck's hand as though it burned and plastering himself on the opposite side of the small room faster than Ironhide could hope to follow, "See! Even you think he's caught!"
Ironhide noted Inferno's small look of hurt that was almost immediately covered by a harried one. The fire truck was used to calming down the security director, but even Ironhide could tell that he was getting annoyed and just a bit depressed at the fact that Red constantly flinched away from him.
Huh. Mayhap the crush wasn't so one-sided.
Ironhide snorted out his intakes. This was getting to be too much like those disgusting soap opera shows that Sarah always insisted on watching. He couldn't understand why humans, whose lives he thought were pretty much messed up on their own, constantly viewed recordings of outlandish situations concerning people even worse off than them. Thank god the Ark didn't have that much drama. Ironhide was grateful for that, if anything.
"Break it up, you guys." Ironhide thundered as he stepped into the room, stooping a bit to fit his bulk through the doorway.
"Ironhide!" Red Alert exclaimed almost instantly, "Quick, it's Optimus! He's been captured by Decepticons—"
"Hello there, Ironhide." Inferno said, cutting the smaller mech off quickly, "Have a fun day with your human?"
Barely resisting the urge to growl, Ironhide replayed his new vid files before answering, the added visual reminder warming his spark to something akin to vengeful happiness, "It was…educational. I never really understood the human phrase 'drunk as a skunk' until now."
Deciding that he really didn't want to know, Inferno just shook his head in resignation. Noting the movement, Ironhide frowned. Those humans were infectious. Soon they'd be swooning and crying and doing all those dramatic human things if this continued to carry on.
"But what about Optimus?" the security director exclaimed, interjecting into the conversation and gesturing wildly to import the significance of the situation.
Ironhide shared a look with the frustrated Inferno before replying, "How 'bout this Red: I'll go check up on Optimus and make sure he hasn't…ah…"
"Fallen into enemy hands." Inferno suggested dryly.
"Yeah," Ironhide said slowly, "That."
"Excellent! Thank you so much, 'Hide! He's in the rec room on Level 5." Red said, positively gleeful at the fact that someone was taking him seriously. Truthfully, Ironhide had needed to see Optimus anyway, he still had a few lingering complaints about certain aspects of the Ark's reconstruction that he felt should have been number one priority. Namely, the shooting range.
Honestly, just because it looked like the Decepticons had taken a break didn't mean a slagging thing. They needed to be in top shape should the sons of glitches come crawling out of the woodwork as they were prone to doing and how were they supposed to do that if Optimus refused to prioritize correctly?
"My pleasure, Red." Ironhide said, casually smacking the security officer in the back "companionably." He waltzed out with an equally causal, "See ya 'round Inferno!"
He chuckled softly as the fire truck was unable to respond, arms currently full of flailing Lamborghini as Ironhide's "innocent" push had all but thrown the smaller mech directly into his arms. Strangled sounds of embarrassment melded with frantic metallic clangs as Red desperately attempted to disentangle his limbs from those of a profusely apologizing Inferno.
Humming a catchy tune to himself as he strolled down the corridors and away from the haphazard pile of mech in the security office, Ironhide made for the lift to take him up a few levels. As he approached the double doors of the elevator, however, Ironhide suddenly caught himself doing the irritatingly human habit and winced. True, it wasn't his fault that he had heard the song over thirty times that night—Lennox had expressed a rather frantic love of it—and it was the background to the lovely Files of Blackmail that he was continuously playing, but the fact that it seemed to be placed in loop and was incessantly playing through his CPU left him a bit unsure of his mental capabilities.
'Ah well,' Ironhide decided, 'the song could be worse,' before positively skipping onto the elevator and replaying the vids one last time, cranking up the volume on his speakers as the lift doors closed shut to better enjoy the recorded experience.
"You are the Dancing Queen! Young and sweet, only seventeen!"
It…wasn't that he didn't want it.
Apparently, anyway. So he had been told.
Just…what was he supposed to do with this?
Ratchet was all kinds of confused. There was no possible way this could ever hope to end well. Sure, Prowl and Jazz he could see. Wheeljack and Blue were bound to have sparkbonded eventually. Even Bumblebee and Sam, for Primus sake, wasn't that unreasonable.
But him and the twins? The idea hadn't even entered his CPU until he had suddenly found himself all but mauling them.
…Okay, so that wasn't completely true. But three or four times didn't constitute him having feelings for them. They were practically the bane of his existence.
And they really needed to stop looking at him like that.
"Sparklings?" Sam breathed out in disbelief. He only had vague ideas about the enormity of the situation, but even he could tell that this was major.
"A possibility." Wheeljack was quick to correct, breaking optic contact with Blue and turning to face the rest of the room. The small twitches and glows of his earfins, however, betrayed the fact that while he might be no longer looking at Bluestreak, he was still somewhat communicating with the gunner.
"A rather good one, nonetheless." Prowl stated calmly. A calm that was contradicted by his sudden death grip on one of Jazz's hands. The saboteur leaned in closer to Prowl, offering his comfort silently. And though Ratchet was still marinating in his own specialized brew of depression, ultimate confusion, and absolute denial, he still couldn't help but lift his mouth plates in a small smile as he noticed the gesture.
At least one good thing had come out of this situation: that damnable 30 vorn old tension between the two black and whites was finally over and dealt with.
"And enough of one that we should make immediate preparations." Optimus interjected from where he still stood only slightly in front of the rec-room door.
"Immediate?" Sam asked from his perch on Bee's knee, his innate curiosity about Cybertronians once again overriding his confusion, "Exactly how long does it take for a…sparkling to be born, anyway?"
"About 60 astrocycles, one hundredth of a vorn." Wheeljack stated. At Sam's blank look, however, he added, "Ah…one earth year. Give or take."
Sam couldn't figure that one out. For beings who lived such a long lives, that seemed like an inordinately small proportion of time before their young were to be born, "That certainly is immediate." He'd have to question Bee about it later on.
"Immediate in that we need to make some serious changes. As of now, I'm taking all of you except Bumblebee off the active field duty roaster until this can be completely sorted out. If any of you are carrying sparklings, I don't want you or your partners out in the field."
Prime's announcement was followed by instantaneous chaos.
"Prime, I still have those strategic field tests that I need—"
"First Aid is a good medic, don't get me wrong, but—"
"I still haven't finished analyzing those chemicals—"
"You think you're going to find someone else crazy enough to be in the front lines—"
"Special Ops still has that ongoing—"
"But I still haven't gotten used to the new range on my rifle—"
"Enough!" Prime roared and the hoard of Autobots fell silent instantly, though Bee and Sam—who had remained silent through the lot of objections—could practically feel the energy around the seven Autobots crackle as they barely held themselves in check.
"I said active field duty. You'll all be responsible for your usual in house duties, but I will not see any of you out in the field. There's plenty of opportunity for monitor duty, or—" Prime started to coolly explain.
"All due respect, Prime," Sideswipe interrupted, "But you're gonna put me and Sunny on monitor duty?"
"They have a point, Sir. Most of us have other obligations that we need to get done outside the field, such as a backup of paper work," Prowl sent a pointed glance in Ratchet's direction and the medic pretended to not notice the reminder, "But the Twins and Bluestreak are not officers. They're soldiers; their places are not behind desks."
Though cynical, most of the mechs present had to agree to the SIC's point.
"This is not a permanent reassignment. But the course of action is clear: I will notsend a mech who is even suspected of being with sparkling into the battle-field nor will I send their partner—the balance between sparklings and their creators is much too delicate at this stage for me to just throw either creator away in a skirmish. We can make do without the Twins and Bluestreak for a few astrocycles and they can deal with being restricted to base. Is that clear?" Prime's voice was steady and clear and left no room for arguments.
"I…suppose that we can work some sort of new schedule out." Prowl said, breaking the silence and all the mechs present reluctantly agreed with mumbles and nods.
"Good, I'm glad we're in agreement," Prime said, glancing over his slowly simmering down troops before locking his optics onto the silent pair of Autobot and human, "Sam, if it's not too much trouble, I think it might be best if you stayed here for the next few weeks. At least until we can figure everything out."
Sam nodded, "I understand, Prime. I just hope my parents'll see it the same way." Bee chuckled at the last part and tapped his charge lightly on the head. Sam swatted his hand away and mock-glared at the teasing before sticking his tongue out at the yellow bot.
Bee was about to respond, but his reply was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door behind Optimus.
"Hey, Prime! I've got a bone to pick with you—" Ironhide began as he stepped through the door before halting mid-stride and staring, wide-opticed, at the scene before him.
"Yes, Ironhide?" Prime prompted gently.
"What's going on?" Ironhide grumbled, not at all fooled by his leader's attempt at placation. The room was completely silent, all gazes glued to Optimus and awaiting his decision on the matter of whether this was going to stay a secret or not.
Clearing his throat, Optimus shot the mechs and human in the room a look before stepping over to Ironhide, "Well, it's going to get out sooner or later to everyone. But I'd prefer if, for the masses, it was later. Perhaps it's best if I explain it to you in my office…" Prime said, catching Ironhide over the shoulders and all but pushing him out the door, throwing back a curt, "Dismissed," to those still in the room before briskly escorting the weapon specialist towards his office.
"Well, at least that's one mech we won't have to hide it from." Wheeljack chuckled, his earfins flashing weakly at his own joke.
"Though it begs the question of when and how we're gonna tell everyone else. Something this big ain't gonna stay a secret for long. 'Specially on the Ark." Jazz said from his position next to Prowl, still loosely clasping the tactician's hand.
"We should leave that 'till we've decided if we're even going to have sparklings," Ratchet said quietly before snapping, "Which means check-ups for the lot of you!"
The assembled Autobots just stared at the apparently schizophrenic medic in front of them before groaning at the prospect ahead of them.
"Hey Sam, you okay if we head out now? Get that permission from the parents?" Bee whispered to his charge as the rest of the room continued to groan about the promised checkups.
"Sounds like a plan, Bee." Sam whispered back, smiling slightly at the hoard of Autobots as they somewhat returned to normalcy. Though he couldn't help but notice that Ratchet had yet to completely shrug off his downhearted air. Glancing at the Twins, he couldn't help but also notice that their optics were still fixed on the Medic's form as well—they must have been able to detect the lingering gloominess, too.
Satisfied that the Twins could handle it (Sam blushed a bit at the implications of Ratchet needing to be taken care of by the Twins), he slid off of his guardian's knee and slowly tiptoed out of the room, glancing behind him to see that Bee had followed his example and they silently exited the room, letting the door swish shut behind them and cut off the continued grumblings.
"There's nothing for it! Tomorrow I better see each and every one of you in the med-bay for a complete check up, you hear me? This is not a negotiation." Ratchet said, glowering at the assembled mechs though he was careful not to stare too long at the Twins.
"Including yours." Wheeljack said, glancing hard at the medic.
Ratchet winced, but nodded his head, "Yes…including one for myself."
Satisfied that the medic wouldn't neglect himself for the situation, Wheeljack nodded his head back in response, "Good. Then we'll see you tomorrow."
Ratchet rolled his eyes at the engineer before shooing him off with a flick of his wrist. Grabbing a startled Bluestreak by the wing, Wheeljack dragged the spluttering gunner out of the room and into the hallway.
As the door rolled closed those left could still plainly hear Wheeljack's fading voice as it moved away, "And we've got someserious issues to discuss. I can't believe you never told me about…"
Smirking at the dwindling voice, Jazz inclined his head to Prowl in his own invitation to leave. Prowl tilted his head in agreement before turning to Ratchet, "We'll be in the med-bay on the marrow as well, then."
"You bet your aft you will be. So help me if you're not." Ratchet grumbled as the two black and whites, having said their piece, turned towards the door and also exited, both grinning slightly at the medic's returned grumpiness.
And as the door slowly closed for another time, Ratchet suddenly became aware that he was one of the last occupants of the room. That it was now just him and the Twins.
Oh slag it all to the pits.
Look at all that plot development! And Optimus and Ironhide were even in it as promised to ShiTiger and gs! Yay! Hopefully the next part will be faster in getting out to you. Thanks to ryagelle and her allowing me to steal her meme, however, I now have an awesome anti-writer's block tool!
Side note: Ironman anyone? And really, it is not fair to poor college students who live in towns where theaters overcharge that Ironman and Speed Racer should come out only SIX DAYS apart from each other.
But anyway, I hope you enjoyed and please feel free (even though we all know how long it takes me to get back to you because I SUCK at time-planing. Grrrr...) to drop me a line!