NOTE: I posted this last night to ffnet but it didn't show up. I didn't notice until now. :0 Orion face. I don't know what was up with ffnet last night but its a pain. Here we go. Last night's show...
The Diego Diaries: Down Time (283) edited for boo boos
-0-In the (adult) Chairs of Doom
They sat aghast as the film wound down. Roto who was chuckling and apologizing for it looked at them. "And that is not the end of it."
They were rocked but stoic waiting for what could be worse. Roto tuned in another camera and the angle they couldn't see before they could now. Roto stood with two little bots standing before him contrite and weepy. It was excruciating to see with a capital E. Roto was kneeling with the two little bots. After explaining the taboo of fighting in the classroom, he looked at them. "If I didn't love both of you, I would put you in detention."
That was when Orion was emboldened enough to speak. "Han say boo!" Then he did the little Our Gang exaggeration of a big expression of horror followed by a servo over the mouth.
Ironhide tried not to do it. He tried to terminate it even as he failed. A huge snort of amusement greeted his son's ultra transparent attempt to show by ENORMOUS personal SHOCK and DISMAY why Han should get his butt paddled. Everyone glanced at him and he wilted. "Sorry. It looks so … uh … it was funny. Sorry," he said looking at the floor in an uncanny imitation of his son.
The film rolled onward.
Han who was startled looked at Orion, then Roto, then Orion with a glare of anger, then Roto with the most transparently false expression of innocence ever displayed by a Cybertronian face.
Orion possibly noting that he was losing ground patted Roto and said, "Han say boo. Boo not good. Boo is no-no." The look of horror and amazement returned to Roto with that statement along with the pie hole cover of his tiny servo was epic. His optics looking enormous with horror and emotional injury were spectacular(ly)(fake).
The little boo.
Then he continued and demonstrated to all concerned that personal pronouns would likely be a problem for him for some time to come: "Boo is bad, she say." He pointed at Han, then looked at Roto as if his teacher could part water and paddle butts at the same time.
Hopefully Han's.
Roto appeared to be in the throes of hilarity but he held himself together and got to the point: "Boo is bad?"
Apparently it was. To Orion. Han on the other servo looked like a(n) (fallen) angel in his failing effort to cover up his 'bad' with a sweet face and innocent optics. Orion on the other servo continued to drill the point home: "Boo is bad. Bad say him. Boo is." Cue the astonished expression of astonishment.
Ratchet felt things crackle inside and fall into the dustbin in his aft. His oldest youngest son was a snitch.
Ironhide considered his failings which were many but teaching his son to be truthful wasn't one of them. Until now. Since he had lost track of who was in the deepest hole, his son or Han, he sat as dazed as the rest of them.
Roto who stayed on task with admirable will power could be seen girding himself to be stern. Looking at Han, he said, "Are you swearing, 'she'?"
It was Revo's turn to snort. Everyone stared at him and he froze like a man caught sitting on a toilet after a tornado ripped the walls off the restroom.
In the center of town.
In the lobby of the Empire State Building when nuns are taking a tour.
With ratty underwear on.
Like that.
They turned back to Roto who was wiping his optics. "Let's continue."
Four adults nodded meekly. The film rolled again.
Han with his back to the wall did what any reasonable smart individual would do in that situation. He lied: "No! Han good! She bad!"
Deflection is sometimes protection.
Heva nearly having an out-of-protoform experience made a note to kill himself after the meeting and also hire a speech therapist for his son. The morals training of their infant and first born hope for the future would have to be gotten from his grand genitors because it was obvious that they, Revo and Heva sucked at it.
It continued.
Orion drove home the last nail in the 'Han Is Bad' coffin with his deeply felt, dramatically delivered, utterly bogus 'She bad! Orion good! She say boo!' clincher. He homed it in by showing his 'SHOCKED! I'M SHOCKED!' face once more to MR. TOTO! ...
...who was nearly splitting a gut biting his lower lip as he grinned like a maniac at the display of 'OH YEAH!? THEN WHAT ARE YOU!?' being so expertly delivered to him by the shortest pair of hoodlums he knew.
At that point, Han had reached the saturation point of personal abuse and improper pronouns so he turned and punched Orion in the nose. The collective gasp from the parental units would have sucked the oxygen out of the room if there was any. They sat back rocked by the brazen but pretty good punch by 'she'.
Orion's expression was classic. It was sort of 'WTF!?' followed by heaping helpings of 'CUT A BITCH!' ending with 'Ow. That sorta hurt.' He looked at Roto. Roto looked at him. Han was levitated into Roto's servo and ended back in the Chair of Doom.
His genitors hung their helms at the same time. Then they sucked it up and watched. Roto's remark of, "Han, bad," rang in infamy in their processors as they sat in puddles of shame. Then they watched and felt a smidge better because the slagging little Autobot would not leave well enough alone.
Roto glanced down. The camera showed Orion rubbing his nose with a gigantic smile on his little face. His cute little face. His Ironhide face. When he looked up at Roto, he dropped the smile so fast even slow motion couldn't help a viewer see it happen. He placed on his little pug face the saddest hurt expression he could find which was pretty intense. Roto who looked ready to throw a rod picked the little hellion up. Orion ready to drive a stake in the spark of his nemesis had a serious expression as he said: "MR. TOTO! HAN SAY BOO!"
Obviously, he didn't like that word very much.
Roto who was grinning attempted to burnish the cow pat of this encounter with some reason: "He did. We don't allow swearing here. Is that a swear word? You both seem to think so."
Orion misinterpreting the commentary and good energy of his God aka MR. TOTO! grinned ginormously, then looked down at Han and spit on him.
Ratchet nearly slid off his chair onto the floor.
Ironhide lost data in the massive glitch that overtook his reason during the 000.0000034 nanoseconds of the feedback loop caused by his emotional distress that began in the middle of his sphincter valve in his aft, crescendoed upward and over the top of his helm to end somewhere around his lower back.
Revo reached into his mouth and pulled his tongue out of the back of his throat. While Ratchet the Poseur merely thought he would swallow his own tongue, Revo nearly did.
Heva listened to the sirens in his helm for a moment, then blinked. He poked his thigh. He couldn't feel it. At that moment, he considered his entire life and started a file in his processor called 'I am sorry, Primus, for all I did if you help me beat this sparkling into submission file'.
Roto on the other servo laughed out loud. "I wish you could see your own faces. I don't know which is funnier. You or these two hoodlums." He continued laughing.
They continued looking at him as he warbled through his hilarity. Ratchet finally kicked his ankle. "Are you through or do you need a moment or two?"
"I'm sorry. I truly am. I just think these two are the funniest things ever."
Ironhide looked at him, then rose. "Oh well then. Nothing to see here. Let's go," he said before being jerked back into his seat rather rudely by his Only One.
"What are we supposed to do, Roto? Now that you've shown us this and had a snicker," Heva said shooting him a caustic optic. "What are we supposed to do?"
"Well, we need to have behavioral modification for both of them at home, everywhere and here. We have to be on the same page of expectations and reactions. I know that they don't act like this elsewhere and they don't act like this to anyone else. But they do to each other and we have to program that out of them."
"Behavioral management," Ironhide said nodding. "Alright."
The others nodded too.
"Anger management too," Roto said. "They are so generous and kind to everyone else that this is one of those things. They are both wonderful little mechs. They have so many good friends. Some day, these two will either bond or bomb each other."
Two sets of genitor optics met two sets of other genitor optics. Then they fixed on Roto. "O-kay," four sets of genitors said in unison.
Roto grinned. "I have banned them from the sandbox. I have them losing three recesses outside. They cannot have unsupervised play and we will begin on the anger management training tomorrow. You have to make sure that they behave in an acceptable way everywhere else. They have to share, be nice and not fight. Arguing and differing are two things. Fighting is another."
They both nodded, two sets of chastened adults who would leave few inches shorter than when they came in. Signatures for training were obtained and they rose. "I think you can take them now if you would like. It isn't going to be long before school is out."
They nodded, glancing all around. Then Neo appeared at the door with two little wilted mechs standing on either side of her. They stood a moment, then spied their genitors. Both of them broke into huge wailing sounds at the same time.
It was a photo finish ending to a really classic afternoon.
-0-Outside on the sidewalk of the school tower
They stared at each other with weepy infants. Neither knew what to say but all of them were THRILLED that they didn't live next door to each other anymore. After a moment of limp chit chat, Revo and Heva turned and walked onward heading to the sparkling school and their infant, Lef.
"You better see if you can get Praxus, Ironhide. I just remembered we had another one. That's a joke by the way." Ratchet stood swaying with an exhausted Orion in his arms. Ironhide nodded and walked back inside. Ratchet crossed the street and paused in the quad that dominated the center of Terra. He sat on a bench and looked at his son. "You are a terror. I love you madly and we pat your servo and aft when you do wrong. You sit in the corner and you get training on character. You have extended family … grannies and grandpas, yet you brawl in kindergarten. Whatever will we do with you?" Ratchet asked with a smirk. "You're supposed to be a good example for the infants coming up."
He looked up at Ratchet and vented a ragged sigh. "Han bad."
"So I hear," Ratchet said kissing his son's helm.
"She say boo."
Ratchet grinned. "I say boo too, hoodlum. You're getting a nap when I get you home."
He was too tired to argue.
Ironhide walked out of the building with a happy Praxus and they turned heading for home. A short visit to RTR Tools and a pit stop at the store for dinner items culminated in a ride up the elevator to the apartment. Entering, Ratchet walked to Orion's room and lay him on his bed. Stuffing toys around him, he covered the infant with a quilt. "Go to sleep, hoodlum."
He smiled at Ratchet as he grasped his favorite toy this decaorn, a soft brown teddy bear. Venting another sigh, he slowly fell into recharge.
It had been that kind of orn.
Walking out, Ratchet watched as Hero and Praxus stood beside Ironhide watching him as he put groceries away in the fridge and 'baked goods' into the cupboard. Prowler was lying on the couch. Ratchet picked him up and kissed him moving to the rocking chair by the window. Watching Ironhide kibitz with the sparklings, he grinned glancing down at the infant who was looking up at him. "Hi, stranger. How is the dance of doom with your old pa?"
"No one has reported us. No one has said a word, Ratchet," Ironhide said with a grin. He turned and walked to the couch sitting, watching as Praxus and Hero walked to the toy box nearby. "I'm too stealthy for them."
A message light beeped on the monitor as they sat relaxing. Ironhide opened it. It was from Herling.
"Hi, Ironhide. I am inviting you to bring Hero in for pre-school examinations so that she can enter the next cycle of infants in the kindergarten. Let me know when you can come. We are so excited about having another Ratchet-Ironhide collaboration in our school. Thank you, Ironhide. By the way, our Genitor-Teacher Committee meeting is changed until tomorrow at 1900 hours on the Terran Military clock. Glori is bringing the punch. If you could bring a snack we would appreciate it. The agenda is rather long so we want to have refreshments. Thanks! -Herling, Director of Education for Mars.
Ratchet glanced at Ironhide who looked like he had been slammed in the face by a low flying Seeker. "Frag," he whispered.
Ratchet felt Ironhide's pain. "I'm sorry, Only One. You were so stealthy too. I am really astonished that Herling remembered Hero."
Ironhide sat a moment in major shiva, then glanced at Ratchet. "Are you kidding, Ratchet? Look at her."
They both did. She was still wearing a little quilted coat that Ironhide had picked up that morning at The Sparkling Store. It matched her little hat, an egg yolk yellow color with butterflies on it. She was smiling at Praxus and handing him blocks out of the toy box. He was smiling at her and building something with them.
"That little femme is so slagging awesome, they can see her from space," Ironhide said with a tear in his optic.
Ratchet nodded. "Her atar is that far outstanding, Ironhide."
He nodded. It was silent a moment. "Thank you for Prowler, Ratchet."
"You're welcome, Only One."
Ironhide looked miserable. "I miss her already. She's great company."
"I know. I do too."
It was quiet a moment.
"She likes the little firecracker hand grenades that the micro-mini cons use," Ironhide said.
Ratchet grinned. "See? If you hadn't had her with you, how would we ever know?"
Ironhide grinned in spite of himself. "Yeah," he said glancing at Ratchet with a smirk. "How would we?"
The evening would pass quietly at the homestead. Ironhide would take 'donuts' to the meeting. He would not put cyanide in them thanks to Ratchet.
-0-TBC
04-24-13