Chapter 153

-0-Diego Garcia

They rolled off and transformed, the crate with the weapon held firmly in Ironhide's arms as they walked to the embassy. Waving to the soldiers as they parted ways, the cool interior of the embassy beckoned. They crossed the rec room and entered the Ops Center, traipsing across the command deck to the middle discussion area. Sitting at one end of the room with Orion on his lap, Prowl looked at data screens. One of his digits, his thumb was stuck in Orion's mouth and the infant was sucking on it as he sat and played with his own tiny servos and a soft stuffed dollie.

Ironhide put the box on the table then smirked at the S.I.C. who seemed to be the least likely individual in the garrison who'd be so completely overtaken with infants. They were comfortable, Ironhide could see, and the mellow little sparkling was halfway to recharge.

Prowl turned around to do something then grinned. "You're back and the weapon?"

"A plasma rifle of Decepticon design," Ironhide said smirking at his sparkling. "Lost his binky?"

"It's around here somewhere," Prowl said looking around his stack of datapads to find it. "We misplaced it earlier."

Ironhide grinned. "He likes to suck on everything he can get. Ratchet's afraid he'll put something bad in his mouth."

Prowl pulled out his thumb and turned the sparkling around, holding him up. "He was a good little sparkling. We did a lot of business today."

"So I noticed," Ironhide said taking the infant as Prowl rose to hand him reluctantly over. "Anytime you need to drop him off, I can take him. We make a good team," Prowl said grinning at the infant as Orion smiled at Prowl.

"He's a team player. I'll have to show you his moves. I told Ratchet already. Sparkling's got skills."

Prowl chuckled. "I can see that," he said handing the binky over.

Orion opened his mouth and in it went as a smile greeted that maneuver. They grinned at him like they were both his genitor, which one of them was. Then again, one of them was a genitor, one was a genitor-in-law and a shirttail genitor of the sparkling in question as evidenced by the relationship to the shirttail genitor's youngling being bonded with the adopted sparkling-adult mechs of the genitor himself. Being in-laws, the sparkling in question was thereby a sparkling of the in-law genitors as the sparkling-to-be from the trine, a combo of relationships that tied the two sets of genitors together and would be a cousin of the sparkling now at hand.

Or something like that.

Maybe.

Ratchet paused by the door on his way to Med Bay. He sauntered in with a grin on his face. "I see you made it back." He nodded to the box. "Is that the weapon?"

"It is," Ironhide said settling 'Spud' into the crook of his arm, the sparkling cackling a long string of clicks, spoings, pops, chirps and other sweet sparkling nonsense as he did. They looked at him like genitors, which in fact it turns out they all are. (See above.)

"You know, Ironhide, between you and Prowl, that sparkling is going to grow up and think you're the real genitors and I'm just that sexy doctor who checks his debris valve on occasion," Ratchet said with a chuckle.

Prowl chuckled himself as he squeezed Orion's servo. "I'll have my own squeeze toy shortly and we can sit together and swap tales."

"Me, or you and Ironhide?"

"Whoever wins that day," Prowl said glancing at the door as Prime walked inside.

Stopping by the three, he grinned. "I see the sparkling is running the show again."

"Yes, he is," Prowl said with a grin. "Won't be long until there's another one. I. Can't. Wait."

"We know," all three said together. They laughed then turned to the crate.

Prime pulled out the weapon. "A simple plasma rifle," he said turning it over as he examined it.

"Some of the parts can't be manufactured here," Ironhide said. "I suppose they could reverse engineer a few things out of it but it really isn't that useful to humans."

"They would have to learn the hard way," Prime said. "Even if this is out of their league it is enough to some to have it." He put it back in the crate and levered the lid back onto it. "This should go in the armory. We will hold it in the event that it needs to be discussed in a civil or criminal action. In that case, Ironhide, you would be the one to speak to it."

Ironhide nodded. "It seemed easy, Prime. It may just be me but it seemed so easy."

Jazz having come in behind Prime agreed. "It was the easiest pick up I've ever done. I don't trust Shockwave. I don't know if he's figured this out or not. But it felt way too easy."

Prowl and Prime nodded.

"We need to monitor all frequencies to try to pinpoint all the Decepticons left on Earth. The Seekers said that there were seven active. That doesn't count the symbionts. Barricade is still there. Then there are six more. We need to find them," Jazz concluded.

Prowl glanced at Teletraan II. "I'll get on it."

Prime stared at Prowl who was squeezing Orion's ped. He grinned. "That will be good."

Prowl nodded absently as he grinned at the sparkling.

Ironhide grinned at Prime as he shook his head. They stared at Prowl enjoying his fixation when he noticed.

"Oh, right." Then he walked to the computer.

Ironhide snickered. "Better watch yourself. It's a sickness."

Prime who knew the truth of that remark looked at the crate. "We will send this to the armory." He looked at the two of them, a small sparkling and his big one. "Why not go and play, the both of you?"

Ironhide chuckled then looked at Ratchet. "Wanna come?"

Ratchet smirked. "Sure," he said as the two of them walked out together.

Prime watched them go then joined Prowl in his search.

-0-Med Bay

They sat in Ratchet's office catching up. Orion sat in his old dad's arms, recharging with his plushy dollie in hand.

Ratchet with his own peds on the desk grinned. "You look happy."

Ironhide said, "The mission was easy, no one was shot and I got the sparkling. Just about perfect."

Ratchet shook his head. "You got more than one sparkling. The twins signed the adoption papers. They were filed and Prime notarized it this morning. They're officially ours."

Ironhide glanced at the baby. "That's good news. Orion has brothers."

"And a nephew as the humans put it. Their sparkling is now his nephew."

"And Prime and Prowl … they're his grandgenitors, too. I think."

They both thought a moment then Ratchet pulled a datapad from a stack and pulled up a clean screen. "Prime and Prowl have three younglings, who for the sake of argument using human terms are cousins to our three, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Orion. Or are they nephews and uncles? I think they're brothers-in-law. Maybe."

It was silent a moment as Ratchet wrote things out. "Okay. Here we go. Bluestreak, Rambler, T-Bar, and Spirit are siblings. The three little mechs are brothers-in-law of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Their little mech, the trine, will be a nephew of the three little mechs. Now, since the twins are now ours, that makes us genitors-in-law to Bluestreak the same way that they're genitors-in-law to the twins because the twins are ours. Orion is a brother-in-law to everyone but their little sparkling because he's that sparkling's uncle. No one is an uncle to our sparkling. Our sparkling is an uncle to theirs. Every single one of them is an uncle or genitor of their sparkling including ours. We're grandgenitors of their sparkling. See?"

Ironhide looked at Ratchet blankly. "You lost me at 'here we go'."

Ratchet chuckled. "I think I lost myself, too. Just remember, you're one of four grandgenitors of the new sparkling. Everyone is equal in relation between everyone else among all the younglings but that new sparkling. The twins are ours and we share them with Prime and Prowl since Bluestreak is theirs and Prowl and Prime share him with us. We're legally a related family, Ironhide. You're now a related relation in a relationship with your relative, Optimus Prime."

Ironhide smirked. "If you say so, Ratchet."

Ratchet smiled. He did.

-0-Shockwave

He received the message from Barricade and found himself uncertain. He had taken the usual precautions in backing up all the backups with back ups. Not one to believe anything he couldn't see with his own optics, Shockwave had delegated Barricade to follow the weapon wherever it went. He had made arrangements for it to be loaded onto a truck and taken directly to Nast's headquarters in Houston. When it had arrived, he'd been assured. When it had been diverted, he'd been surprised. When Autobot holograms had carted it out of a storage facility that they'd diverted it towards, he'd been thrown off his game.

He had very little understanding of humans and their psychology, their behavior and their machinations. He had no specimens to learn from and all of the carefully laid plans of Starscream were long distance. Giving Starscream credit, he was impressed with the inroads that usually high strung and self-sabotaging individual had created. It allowed him to do what he needed to begin to bring this planet to its knees.

Now he had to consider what this all meant. Nast must be somehow under the sway of the Autobots. Nothing in his resume could be made for that case. He was a predator, a malicious money-hungry killer who profaned everything in his life to make things happen his way. He even used his God to justify and ameliorate the things he did. That sort of individual he could understand and found useful. This, however, was not something he figured into his thinking so he paced the ship, walking slowly from end to end and back again as he considered what it meant to the end game.

-0-Ironhide and Ratchet later that night

"So he told me that he wanted to read it when it was finished. He wanted to know if he was in it."

Ratchet chuckled as he turned over to look at Ironhide. He and Orion were stretched out on the berth, a towel lying nearby from the infant's bath. They were playing 'get the dummy grenade', which was rolling back and forth between them. The screaming fit that Ratchet had given Ironhide the first time he'd seen it in the little toy box in the corner had been epic and Ironhide had taken pains to show his now white aft slagger that the grenade indeed was empty of explosives.

"Really, Ironhide, whatever am I going to do with you?" Ratchet had raged, holding his sparkling closely as he did.

Ironhide, chastened and silent let Ratchet rage and when he was through sat on the berth to play Orion's favorite game, 'get the dummy grenade' anyway.

"I'll let him read it."

"Read some of it to me," Ironhide said grinning. "I want to hear the greatness that is you."

Ratchet grinned. "I wouldn't go that far, Ironhide, although there's never been a sexier doctor in the whole history of Cybertron than this one."

"You won't get an argument from me," Ironhide said with a snort. He grinned as he looked at Ratchet scroll down to an appropriate place to recite.

"And Prime, dependent upon the expertise of others because of his otherworldly purity looked to the smartest person on his staff, the sexy Doctor Ratchet. "Ratchet," he said, secretly coveting the doctor not so secretly, "what can we do? I haven't got any idea of what we should do. I'm … I'm completely out of my depth. Maybe you can spare me some of your great wisdom."

Ironhide snorted. "I can see that."

"Hold your applause. It's hard enough on the tanks to write this let alone read it out loud."

"I can see that."

Ratchet continued. "It was clear to the doctor that the proposal of the Decepticons to end the war was something that Prime couldn't decide for himself. Selfless bastard that he was, what was asked of him was even more than he could do given his limited life experience with bastardy. In the end, not everyone was as smart as their doctor, so Doctor Ratchet whipped out his prescription pad and dispensed wisdom to his deeply conflicted Prime free of charge."

Then Ratchet paused his recitation, checking a few grammar bits and a comma or two here and there.

Ironhide looked up. "Well? What did you tell Prime? And what's so bad that Prime can't figure it out?"

"He has to bond with Starscream."

Ironhide chortled then bellowed a laugh, catching his sparkling as he jerked with surprise and almost fell off the berth. "Prime and Screamer? What about Prowl? What about us? You don't think we'd let him do that do ya?"

"Let me continue."

"Please do. And don't forget about Bumblebee. You left him with Wheeljack who 'got blowed up' and he had fifteen sparklings in his tank. By the way, I told that to Prime and I thought he'd throw a rod."

"He liked it?" Ratchet asked with surprised delight.

"I don't know about that but he finds you deeply twisted."

"Poor sparkling. He's just figuring that out now?"

"I told him," Ironhide said. "Keep reading. Your sparkling likes fantasies."

Ratchet peered at his infant who was lying on his back playing with a grenade as his genitor patted his fat belly. "I can see that. Where was I?" He checked his datapad and began again. "I think that there's no way out, Prime. I think that to end this war you have to put out."

"Put out what?" Prime asked.

It was silent in the conference room as all of the mechs present looked at Prime.

"Put out … you know ... 'face," Jazz said.

"'Facing?" Prime asked again.

"Interfacing," even Perceptor said.

"What's interfacing?" Prowl asked as he looked at them then Prime, his onliest only beau of about nine million years. "What are they talking about, Optimus?"

"I have no idea, Prowl," Optimus replied looking with deep chaste love and platonic appreciation at the adored and untouched object of his longtime love and deeply repressed highly held personal regard.

"ALL RIGHT! EVERYONE OUT OF THE ROOM!" Doctor Ratchet yelled, rising up to kick everyone out including Jazz who had to be pried off the doorjamb by three other mechs. Ratchet out of the corner of his eye looked at the two sparklings still sitting at the table with looks of infinite confusion on their sweet unsullied faces and felt the doom of Unicron go up and down his shapely backside. When everyone was gone, Doctor Ratchet frowned. "YOU TOO, SHORTY!"

The Mom Van, so short you had to look down to see him rumbled out, grumbling as he began to leave. "Ah cud be a big halp, ya big sexy slagger."

"Ah don't think so, you little runt." And with that the Sexy Doctor punted the Little Red Mom Van out of the room and slammed the door. Turning to the two virgins sitting at the table chastely holding hands, he shook his head as the light glinted off his gray chevron *just so*. "Oh crap," he said softly.

"Med Bay to Ratchet."

"Ratchet here."

"We need you, Ratchet. We have a broken back strut."

"What the frag happened?" Ratchet said as he switched off the story.

"It was a wrestling match at the beach. Nothing bad. Just the usual stupid."

"On my way," Ratchet replied, grumbling as he leaned down to kiss his sparkling. "I'll be back."

"What about the story?" Ironhide asked.

"I'll read it to you when I get back. I'm taking it so you don't cheat." With that, he walked out the door.

Ironhide watched him go, then looked down at his sparkling. He grinned. "That slagger," he said leaning down to kiss his sparkling. "Prime's only half right. That's one truly and deeply twisted mech."

Orion chirped and grinned.