Chapter 8
-0-Late that night
Ironhide sat on the edge of his berth in the darkness while behind him supposedly recharging was the recumbent form of his dearly beloved, Ratchet. He sat staring into space considering the day's revelations and mentally counting his fingers, checking to make sure that indeed he still had five on each servo. The prank that he'd begun had been a defensive reaction to a slight to Ratchet. He never told that to the big incredulous mech but it was so. He loved Ratchet with all his spark and preferred to show him so rather than sputter through words which were not his long suit.
The prank was amusing, brilliant actually and the soldiers had fallen for it. Yet somehow in some way he couldn't understand clearly it ignited something deeply evil and cunning in the spark of Ratchet then spread in a way he was still trying to figure out to Optimus Prime.
*Optimus Prime*! *A FRAGGIN' PRIME*!
The slight buzz of processor fritz helped on by copious amounts of high grade ingested from earlier hit him and he relaxed himself, allowing heat to vent as quietly as he could as he tried to calm down. A fraggin' Prime was either pranking his aft back with the help of almost everyone he around him or else he'd stepped into a parallel universe.
The part about genitorhood was a joke, that much Ironhide could parse. Obviously, if they had sparked a Prime, Hound, and Arcee of all things, he would've remembered that. He would've been there to cheer Ratchet on. He snorted. *Frag, yeah*.It would be a cold day in the Pit before it would've been him carrying anything beyond a laser canon or a cube of high grade. He wasn't built that way, Primus knew. He was Ironhide, berserker front liner, right hand go-to mech of the Prime and all around Chaos Bringer of the Autobots.
He froze as Ratchet stirred then settled, apparently having nightmares of his own. He glanced over appreciating the curve of Ratchet's shoulder and the shadow of his neck, a place Ironhide had spent a lot of time grazing in past encounters with the irascible recipient of his spark's total and completely deep affections. He turned back and considered what could be true. Either he had stumbled onto a deeply held secret that no one had ever heard about and only now the Prime was allowing known or he was pranked down to his peds without spare.
By everyone on base including the most recently arrived today.
It was impossible.
He hoped.
Optimus was a proud mech, someone with almost as much dignity as patience and Primus knew he had patience. Yet, would he stoop so low as to resort to a prank, especially one as complicated and huge as this one? Could he have enlisted the aid of Arcee, Hound, Springer, and Bee? Bumblebee, maybe. That little fragger was a great little mech but he was a youngling wiseacre, a prankster of great and longstanding tradition.
Arcee was about his age and would know better. Kup probably did believe he was Bee's great grand progenitor, the senile old aft and Hound? He would do this. Hound was funny and loved them all. He would do this for Optimus.
Probably.
Springer.
Spr-ing-er.
Spring. Er.
He thought about the Wrecker, the one truly nonplussing part of the whole thing.
Nonplussing. Nice word, Ironhide said to himself, sidetracking for just a moment. The high grade he had with Prowl and Wheeljack was really kicking his aft. He suppressed a giggle and peered over his shoulder at Ratchet, again noticing no change. Looking back at the far wall once more he struggled to understand how he had suddenly acquired a family from the innocent joke he had perpetuated upon the slaggers at the firing range.
"Ironhide."
He froze. "Ratchet."
"It's late and you're fragged. What have you been doing? You missed the first meal together our family has had in literally vorns."
For a moment, Ironhide ran that remark through his processors, then he gazed down at Ratchet. "Wha?" he managed as his optics flared bright with confusion.
"Our family," Ratchet said irritably. "We had a meal together and you weren't there. I'll tell you again, Ironhide. I'm not going to keep making excuses to the younglings about why you aren't at special occasions."
Ironhide blinked, then he shifted slightly, adjusting his optics to night vision as he searched Ratchet's face for the smirk. There wasn't any. He felt the fritz coming on, then discounted it from his semi-drunken condition. Moving to lie down beside Ratchet, propping himself on his side by his elbow, he stared into Ratchet's apparently angry face.
"You disappointed your grand sparkling. It's been a while since Bumblebee has been able to be here with the family and you weren't there. You disappointed him in front of the Allspark."
Ironhide stared at Ratchet, checking his facial expressions for the slip, the seam, the tell that would give him an opening to the joke but it wasn't there. Ratchet was completely serious. He opened his mouth, then closed it, speechless at that moment. Ratchet shifted himself toward the wall, his back to Ironhide as a storm cloud of irritation hung over his entire form.
Ironhide stared at him, then put a hand on his shoulder.
Ratchet shrugged it off. "I'm angry for Bee and the younglings. I don't think it's a lot to ask, Ironhide, for you to be at the first meal we can have when they've all come together. Arcee is pre-bonded. Did you know that? No, you were getting drunk with Prowl and Wheeljack. You couldn't even be there to see her excitement. Our only femme, our only little girl and you weren't there."
Ironhide felt the doom of Unicron fall over him as he lay back to stare at the ceiling. He would still be in the morning.
-0-Earlier
A call to the many was made by the few. Actually, it was the one and they came happy to see him and gather in his office. Prime smiled and asked them to sit, allowing his inner youngling to emerge. "I am glad you came. I have a proposition to make and I would hope if you did not agree to join this operation you would keep it in the strictest and I mean strictest confidence."
They all agreed. Then he explained the points of the operation, the background bringing laughter like he hadn't heard in his office in many an orn. He grinned, waiting for them to subside. Then he explained his plan, outlining all the mobile and stationary parts, the general stated goals and the predicted endgame they were shooting for. They all listened, grinning with excitement at the prospect of bringing down a formidable foe with teamwork and the Will of Primus. For surely after what Ironhide had done to all of them in a long life of hilarity and pranks, they were owed.
Springer leaning forward asked a few pertinent questions of his own given that he was a leading character in the charades to follow. "How long will this last, will it be culminated by your decision alone or will we all have equal voice in termination? It could be that it's such a great plan that some of us might want to continue to carry it through to the end while others might … how do I put this? Wimp out?" he said trying out a new word from the database he had downloaded into his core data banks.
"He got you good once?" Prime asked.
"Beyond the pale," Springer said.
"Well, I guess we could vote to end it as a committee," Prime speculated.
"That would be great," Hound replied chuckling at a memory. "I love Ironhide but he has payback coming just from me."
"Ironhide has never pranked me," Arcee said with a grin. "I guess he's more of a gentlemen with femmes. But I'm in."
Bumblebee listening over an encrypted comm line chuckled. "You know you can count me in."
"Then we're all in agreement," Prime said glancing at Kup. "Then Operation Frag Ironhide's Aft is to commence tomorrow when Bumblebee arrives. I want everyone on the tarmac when Bee drives up. I want everyone to wait until then to do their part but for you, Springer. We have a weekly meeting with the soldiers tomorrow and you can begin then. They were the spark to ignite this lunacy and they need to be fragged, too."
Everyone rose and left, chuckling at the idea that now they were family and their 'parents' didn't have a slagging clue. Prime sat back incredibly satisfied and as he did he forgot one little item of great importance: Prowl.
-0-Later, the night of Operation Frag Ironhide's Aft
A knock on the door pulled Wheeljack from his reveries as he called out. "Enter."
The door opened as Prowl peeked around tentatively inside. "Wheeljack?" He looked around and saw no one until a sound attracted his attention. A flash of yellow light and a helm peering around a desk drew his optics. "Wheeljack? Are you alright? What are you doing on the floor?"
A bottle materialized upward from behind the desk held in a powerful black servo. "Prowl, get in here. We're tying one on."
"Tying what on, Ironhide?" Prowl asked as he moved to the desk to look down at two drunk mechs sitting side by side on the floor.
"The sweat of Unicron, that's what. Have some," Ironhide said holding out the bottle to Prowl.
Prowl feeling propriety rising took the bottle and felt uncertainty warring with a crushed spark. The crushed spark won so he sat down next to Wheeljack. He sniffed the bottle, the smell a cross between window cleaner and bacon grease. "What's in this?" he asked tentatively taking a sip. He gagged and felt it burn as it slid downward into his fuel tanks.
"You don't want to know. Just know it was made with love, right, Ironhide?" Wheeljack slurred, giggling slightly as he reached for the bottle.
"Don't speak to *me* about love," Ironhide bellowed. "I don't have a slaggin' clue about it."
"Nor do I," Prowl replied, his optics filling with coolant as his sorrows rose in his processor. He took back the bottle and drew a long drink, frowning and squinting as it coursed its way downward like a pad of steel wool. Handing the bottle back to Wheeljack who gave it to Ironhide, he leaned back feeling the loosening of his inhibitions as the liquid did its job. "What is love anyway?" he asked to no one in particular.
"You give your entire life to a bond and what do you get?" Ironhide asked.
"Don't ask me," Wheeljack said sadly. "I'm all alone."
"You and me, Wheeljack, alone," Prowl said sniffling. He took the bottle and drank another gulp, one so big he almost gagged. He handed it back to Wheeljack who had it until Ironhide grabbed it. "I had *dreams*," Prowl continued. "I had dreams ... *hopes*. Now? What do I have?"
Both Ironhide and Wheeljack looked at him.
Prowl looked back, his face scrunched in misery.
"What do you have, Prowler?" Ironhide asked gently, passing him the bottle and pulling out another one.
"Nothin'," Prowl slurred as he took another big drink. "I don't have a slaggin' thing."
"I didn't know you swore, Prowl," Wheeljack slurred, suddenly filled with maudlin sorrow for the sad distraught winger.
"I don't. Didn't until now, mostly. My genitors didn't allow it. Did I tell you about them? They wouldn't allow it. Well, guess what?" he said looking at the ceiling for their faces, perhaps.
Wheeljack and Ironhide looked up, too, with their bottles poised at their mouths.
"I don't fraggin' care!" Prowl said grabbing a bottle away from Wheeljack. He looked at the two mechs, one with a bottle and the other searching his hands for the one he thought he just had. "Here's to fraggin' love. Here's to broken dreams and hopes."
Ironhide and Prowl clicked their bottles with Wheeljack reaching, then failing to grab one as the two knocked them back drinking long and deep.
"Here's to a broken spark and to a bond that's a slaggin' traitor," Ironhide said. Then he sniffled. "Here's to a slaggin' treacherous bond that's the bestest old mech in the galaxy. No, the whole universe."
Prowl looked at Ironhide noting that there were two of them now. "And here's to the best fraggin' Prime in the galaxy and whole universe. And the Matrix, too," he said sodden in sadness. "To the best fraggin' two-faced tease that ever lived."
Ironhide thinking he was talking about Ratchet agreed. "I'll drink to that."
Wheeljack who was watching himself with his own despairs on display reached for a bottle, taking the one that Prowl held. "I'll drink to that, too, whatever the frag you're talking about."
And he did.