A/N: Thanks for waiting...
Resting on Prowl's chest Bluestreak could feel the faint thrum of the adult's spark. He didn't dare moving, afraid that if he even vented too loudly the spell would break and he would online hungry and alone in an abandoned old building. Unbeknown to him, his doorwings were aflutter with suppressed emotions.
"Oh, look who's up!" Jazz's smiling voice announced. "Morning, Blue. Did ya recharge well?"
Giving up Bluestreak onlined his optics and... Much to his shock nothing happened. A hesitant smile lit up his face as he nodded in answer to Jazz's question. He had never recharged better in his life! Looking at Prowl he flared his doorwings wide and then bounced them high up, wordlessly saying 'thank you'.
"You're welcome," the adult smiled at him. It was nothing like Jazz's permanent grin – it was a brief, economical smile, just a rise of the corners of his mouth – but it was sincere and to Bluestreak it meant a lot. He slid off Prowl's chest, allowing the enforcer to rise as well.
Jazz crouched to Bluestreak's level and stroked the sparkling's cheek: "Listen, Blue, Ah have ta leave for a mission. Ah don't know when Ah come back. Maybe in two orns, maybe in ten... But I'll visit ya as soon as Ah can, promise! Be good and take care of Prowler for meh, will ya?"
It saddened Bluestreak that Jazz was leaving. He liked the mech. But Jazz said he would come back and Prowl was staying, right? They weren't leaving him all alone here.
Forcing a smile on his face Jazz kissed both Praxians on a cheek. "Ah miss ya already," he sighed. "Ah should go. The sooner I leave, the sooner I'll get to see ya again. Bye, sweetsparks! Ah'll hurry back to you!" He left with a cheerful wave, making the room suddenly feel much emptier.
Both sets of doorwings drooped.
The playroom swarmed with sparklings of all ages. With his audios' sensitivity toned down a few notches, Paintbrush followed the nursebot as they made their way through the small (but very noisy) crowd carefully watching their every step.
"This is Bluestreak," the nursebot finally announced. The sparkling Paintbrush was looking for was (thank Primus) quietly sitting in a corner playing with holographic cubes.
"There's not a speck of blue on him," the artist muttered to himself, "but that can be easily fixed."
Having caught his designation the little Praxian perked up, looking at the two adults distrustfully.
"Bluestreak, this is Paintbrush," the nursebot said. "He will repaint you so your plating is all nice and shiny again."
"Hello, Bluestreak. Will you follow me?"
The sparkling held up a servo asking him to wait and ran off to the adults' section of the room.
Prowl had decided to use the unexpected time off to finally work on some low priority tactical scenarios he'd never had the chance to contemplate. Seeing how distressed Bluestreak got when Prowl disappeared from his sight the doctors let him stay with the sparkling. Thus he ended up in the playroom where he simply offlined his audios and tuned his doorwings to monitor Bluestreak's movement. He immediately snapped into attention when he felt someone approaching the sparkling.
Noticing Prowl watching him Bluestreak smiled and waved his doorwings asking the adult to follow him.
"Hello, I'm Paintbrush," the violet and green mech introduced himself, shouting to be heard over the noise. "I'm here to repaint Bluestreak if that's alright with you." Some creators were picky about who repainted their sparkling but luckily the bigger Praxian - Prowl or something - nodded in consent.
Unnoticed by anybot Sunstreaker perked up at the mention of repaint and followed the trio into the paint studio.
"Alright, Bluestreak," Paintbrush smiled, happy to be back in his (wonderfully quiet) kingdom smelling of high quality paints. "Can you please stand in this circle here so we can scan you?"
The little one looked shyly at his creator, who encouraged him to go ahead and do so. It took only a few clicks to complete the scan. As the sparkling descended, a perfect hologram appeared where he'd been standing.
Paintbrush struggled to suppress a moan. Such a horrible finish! Something terrible must have happened to the poor mechlet... Thank Primus he was alright now – and judging from the way he was clinging to his creator, he was in good servos. The only thing that was missing was a beautiful shiny paintjob.
"So, Bluestreak. What are your original colours? Or have you thought about what colours you would like to be?"
The little Praxian just looked at his creator helplessly.
"I honestly have no idea," Prowl admitted, shocking Paintbrush speechless. A creator who didn't know what his sparkling's colouring should be?
Impossible.
Then again, nobot said Prowl was Bluestreak's creator. It was just a natural assumption, given their frame type and their closeness. Just look at Prowl's protective stance and the little one's trusting optics! It was kind of hard to believe they weren't family...
"Alright, let me just create a design for you and we can make some changes to it," he proposed, collecting himself. Standing over the design board he tapped a few colours to mix a perfect shade. "Now I would suggest we keep the grey foundation..." Tap tap click tap "And add blue racing stripes going from the chest..." tap swipe click click "like this" swipe swipe "all the way up to the doorwings. Blue pelvic plating to match the stripes..." tap tick tick click "and blue servos." Tap tap. "There. What do you think?" The slowly rotating hologram now displayed Paintbrush's changes. He let it complete the rotation and punched a few keys. The hologram transformed into a standard Praxian alt mode. Of course, Bluestreak was too young to transform but it would at least give him an idea of what he would look like in a few orns.
"Absolutely not!" a sparkling's voice protested vividly. Much to Paintbrush's surprise, it wasn't Bluestreak. He turned around to look at a young warrior model with absolutely stunning paintjob – thirteen shades of golden yellow expertly blended to highlight or visually suppress certain areas.
"Nice finish," he said, receiving a smug 'thank you' in return.
"Sunstreaker. What are you doing here?" Prowl demanded.
"Helping Blue choose his paintjob. That's what friends are for." Sunstreaker moved through the studio as if it belonged to him, walking right up to the console.
Paintbrush blocked his way. "Please don't touch anything. That's some very expensive equipment."
"Hey, relax. I know how to work with design boards. Who do you think designed my paintjob?"
"You?" he raised an optic ridge sceptically.
"Of course. I wouldn't trust anybody else with something so important."
Hmm... A warrior model with a gift for design? How unusual.
"Alright, but if you break it I guarantee your creators aren't going to be happy," Paintbrush warned.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Sunstreaker tapped a button and undid the last few changes. "Look, I agree with the grey foundation but I would go for more than one shade. Silvery grey here, here and here. I'd put a darker shade here and here. Darker still for the chest and forearm guards. Red stomach plating and thighs to match his chevron. Now let's just add some highlights... And some shadows... There, all done." The sparkling turned to his audience expectantly.
Bluestreak clapped his servos, excited. It was a beautiful paintjob and Sunstreaker designed it just for him! He loved it!
"You're very talented, Sunstreaker," Prowl nodded in approval.
"I knew you would like it," the young artist declared with confidence.
Paintbrush shook his helm. Apparently words like humble or shy weren't compatible with a warrior programming. "How could you know something like that?"
"I've studied Praxian ideals of beauty. A design like this would be found pleasing by the majority of Praxian population."
"I have to admit it is quite good indeed. Only there's no blue in it..."
Sunstreaker heaved a sigh. "Never mind that. It's a long story featuring my idiotic twin."
"Very well then. Bluestreak, Prowl, you can wait here while I mix the paints or you can come back in twenty breems, it's up to you." Turning back to Sunstreaker he added: "Would you like to help? And more importantly, have you considered apprenticeship?"
Sunstreaker's grin couldn't turn any smugger.