Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
Chapter 22
Curled tightly in her berth with her blankets and covers pulled over her head while she hugged a pillow to her chest staring at the darkness around her Quickfire sniffled quietly to the solitude she had surrounded herself with.
It wasn't often anymore that the brightly colored femme bothered to cry.
After so long of watching lives fade out under her hands no matter how hard she tried to save them there came a point where grieving just became too hard. It wasn't that her spark was too numb to process the pain and the sadness anymore, it was just her processor had become use to the sight and knowledge of death. It was hard for it to truly bother her anymore. It had become too real a part of her life. A medic in the middle of a war that had been raging almost as long as she'd been alive.
She'd seen more death then she'd ever dare try to figure out.
That wasn't truly what had her aching now though. As stupid and foolish as that was. It wasn't. What had her balled there under the blankets was the one death she hadn't seen, the one she was oh so sure had happened.
Him.
Mirage.
Hugging tightly to her pillow she brushed at the cleanser tears that ran down her cheeks before taking a deep breath and burrowing deeper into her covers trying to forget the first time she'd ever seen that mech.
"Hey Fire," The red, orange, and slightly yellow femme look up from her mound of data pads and text books to find three goofy smiles shining down at her. She couldn't stop the small smile that danced up her lips either as the trio laughed falling into the chairs across from her.
"Mechs," She greeted before turning her attention back to her studies.
Well that is she was doing that until a red hand reached out and snatched up her note pad.
"Rider!" She hissed, attention snapping up to follow the data pad as it was yanked to Outrider's chest and out of her reach as he and Hammerdown went to looking it over while Smokescreen laughed. "Give it back, Rider."
"What does this slag even mean?" Outrider tilted his head chuckling as he tried to make since of all the medical script that was running up and down the page she'd been writing.
"It's a relay formula you idiot." She rolled her optics leaning around the table trying to snatch it back and having not a bit of luck. "Give it back! It's due tomorrow!"
"All you ever do is your stupid homework, Fire." Smokey leaned on his elbows grinning at her. "Come do something fun with us for a change. It's not like you don't know all this stuff backward and forwards anyway."
Shaking her head Quickfire made another grab for the data pad and this time snatched it from the big mech's grip and then settled back into her seat to go back to her work. Ignoring the three mechs that had become like her brothers over the vorns after Arcee took her into her spark and her home when they met in the Academy. It was still something that the young femme didn't really understand, but she had learned—with the help of Hammer—that sometimes it was best not to question.
"Awe come on, Fire." Hammer leaned back in his chair smiling. "We're just messin' with you."
She looked up into those three pairs of bright blue optics before letting out a sigh. "I know."
"Then loosen up a bit dear sister of ours," Rider chuckled. "And come bar hopping with us tonight."
To that Quickfire let her faceplate adopt a bit of a deadpan expression with a raised optic ridge while she stared at him. To the look Outrider grinned as if nothing in the universe was wrong with that statement. To him and the two that were smirking beside him it wasn't. To Fire it was less of such.
"What?" The red mech shrugged.
"Bar hopping." She blinked.
"Yeah, you know, slip from party to party. Have fun all night while Prowler is working and won't know where I'm at, Ironhide and Mia are with Optimus, and your dear mentor slash sister type thing is helping the sparkling ward tonight with Ratchet. We're scott free not to mention young, pretty, and totally single. Why not go have a night out on the town?" Smokescreen was almost bouncing in his seat.
Quickfire couldn't help but giggle a little at the glitch. "Smokescreen we're all almost grown."
"We're aware of that." He laughed.
"And you still feel the need to sneak out of the house because your brother isn't home?"
A moment of blinking and then. "Yeah."
Rolling her optics Quickfire looked back to the data pad in front of her before she drummed her fingers against the table only to look back up at the trio.
"You know just because you three aren't interested in doing your homework doesn't mean everybot else is."
"We know that, Fire." Hammer smirked.
"And its completely foolish of you to think they aren't going to figure out you guys went out to bars again. We're not old enough to drink highgrade, you all know that."
"That's why it's fun." Outrider grinned.
"It's also illegal."
"And our family basically runs the justice system in this town." Smokey's optic gleamed. "What do we have to worry about?"
"If you really think your brother won't toss you into a cell for a night you are crazier then I think you are." She said.
The tri colored mech just grinned even wider. "We all know that too."
She huffed in reply.
"Soooo," Hammerdown leaned forward with a wiggle of his optic ridges. "Ya coming or not?"
With a huff of a breath the bright femme shut off her work and pushed herself to her feet ignoring the whoops and cheers around her as her brothers looped arms around her and swished her off from her quiet night crashing in Arcee and Ratchet's guest room to get into what would probably be a lot of trouble.
Damn.
Where were these glitches so hard to tell no to?
"Ratchet is going to flip." She mumbled as Hammer placed her on a chair near the corner of a very loud and very crowded bar.
"Ratchet ain't your sire, Fire." The blue mech chuckled as he took the seat next to her while Outrider slid in across from them while Smokescreen was somewhere in this mess getting drinks.
She rolled her optics. "No but I live in his house. Which means I answer to his rules."
"Only because your apartment burnt down." Outrider grinned.
"Yes, that is why." Quickfire nodded, the memory of losing everything she owed not being the best thing to bring up at the moment. She didn't know where she'd be if Arcee hadn't of knelt down beside her on the sidewalk, pulled her into a tight hug, and promised her it would all be alright. There had also been that moment when Outrider, Hammerdown, and Smokescreen had come racing down the street and flipping out of their alt modes that night. The fear and panic in their optics had been quite visible as they worried for their friend when they heard about the fire.
It had warmed the young femme. The sight that her friends cared so much.
But it was nothing compared to the feeling she had got when Arcee offered her a place to stay. Quickfire had come to Iacon on an Academy scholarship when she was but a thirty-three vorn old youngling from the mid-class orphanage in Central City. The young femme had only gotten the opportunity to attend the Academy because of her extremely high test scores. She didn't have the family rank or the credits on her own, without the assistance she was granted because of her grades she never would have made it to where she was now.
The only problem with that was the Academy didn't house students on campus, and it was true she was granted funds to pay for an apartment but housing in Iacon was anything other than cheap. The complex she lived in was for students such as herself that didn't have funds for anything else. Only now it was nothing more than a pile of ruble and ashes.
If it hadn't of been for Ratchet and Arcee she knew very well she'd have been shipped back to the orphanage from which she came and she could kiss her medical career goodbye forever. That didn't happen though. The medics didn't even let her think it before she suddenly found herself with a small box full of the things of hers that had been saved standing in their living room.
They'd taken her in without a second thought. Just like the trio of goofy glitches that were in her intro classes had. Somehow, without Quickfire even knowing how it happened she found herself with something she'd never known before.
A family.
A family with brothers that loved to get her into trouble. Not that she didn't love to do the same with them. It was still something she was just getting use to the whole idea of. A family caring about her.
This was a femme that grew up in an orphanage without a spark in the world to care about her. Accepting that something as wonderful as this glitched up family wanted her hadn't been the easiest thing to do. It hadn't really taken as long as she thought it would though. Only took one morning of waking up to find Smokescreen had broken into the suite and dumped a bucket of coolant over her head to realize she was officially part of the family whether she liked it or not.
Maybe that had been why it was so easy to fall into their mischief and slip out to where they shouldn't be to—as they said—have a little fun. Even if they didn't have to worry about keeping a scholarship so that they could stay in the wonder of this city. She knew they'd never do anything to endanger her chances of staying here, and that they were also right. Even she couldn't study forever.
And since they saw it as their duty as her best friend to force her out into public no matter what she had to say she found herself sitting there enjoying their laughter, or maybe it was the buzz of the highgrade in her systems.
For now she couldn't find it in herself to care. She was having too much fun laughing at Smokescreen after he'd been turned down for the eighth time that night for a berth-warmer. Not that Prowl wouldn't flip the frag out if he came home in the morning and found that his brother wasn't there, or worse found that he was . . . and he wasn't alone. Oh, Fire could see it now. The look on that poor mech's faceplate before he glitched and hit the ground.
Smokescreen would never let him live it down. That is if Prowl didn't kill him after he got back up.
It would most likely be an interesting thing to see.
However, it seemed that Smokescreen was unable to win the sparks of any femme or mech tonight and the young mech seemed the slightest bit put out about it as he pouted in his chair beside her while Hammer and Rider went about teasing him without mercy.
"Oh mute it the pair of you!" Smokey grumbled before taking a deep swig of his highgrade then slammed the glass back down on the table.
Rider just barked a rather overcharged laugh at him. "We're just messing with you, Smokey."
"Yeah," Hammer nodded trying to hold back his own laughter and having no real luck with it. "We all know you're a very capable slut."
"Why you!" The tri colored white, red, and blue mech lunged across the table only to end up being caught by Fire and yanked back down.
"I swear to Primus!" She hissed shoving him hard into the back of the booth that made up their seats. "Do you want to go to jail? Starting a bar fight? You don't think Ironhide and Prowl will find out about that!?"
"Oh please." Rider waved a hand. "Not like it's the first time we would have gotten into trouble. Besides, Hide has always said he's gonna be bailing the bunch of us out of jail one orn anyway."
"Yes," Fire tilted her helm. "The lot of you. Not me. If I get arrested, Rider, I go back to Central City."
And just like that the air sobered around the three mechs, their gazes falling to the table.
"Yeah . . . sorry, Fire." Smokey whispered.
Leaning back in her seat she shrugged. "It's alright. No harm no foul. It's not like anybot here is going to bother with age checking us. There's nothing to worry about."
"You know we won't let you take the fall for us even if we got in trouble, Fire." Outrider suddenly lifted his optics to hold her.
"And Prowl would never let them ship you back to the orphanage." Smokescreen added.
"I'd like to see them try and get past Arcee in the first place." Hammerdown nodded. "That's after they get through us that is. Academy or not. We wouldn't let ya go and neither would Arcee and her sisters. They treat you like you are their sister. We're family now, Fire, and family sticks together."
"You're stuck with us now, doll." Rider winked, and Fire couldn't hope to hide her smile.
"I don't think I mind too much." And it wasn't hard to hear just how much those words meant to the bright young femme.
They stayed, laughing and talking for several more joors until a group of rather sassy seeming femme's came up and asked for a dance. Smokey of course leapt at the idea.
Really.
He leapt.
Clear out of the booth.
His highgrade was really starting to show.
However, the femmes seemed to find him hilarious, which he was, and Hammer and Rider seemed to fit their fancy as well. One even held a hand out to Fire with a bright glint in her blue optics as she asked for a swing around the dance floor, but Fire quietly told her she didn't dance going back to her drink. The femme shrugged her of and returned to her friends though Hammer paused before following looking back at her.
"You sure?" He asked.
"Yes," She rolled her optics in good humor. "You know I've got two left feet. I'll just fall on my faceplate."
"You can dance with me." He offered with that charming smile of his. The one he was wearing on her spark orn last year after he and the other two goofballs dumped a bucket of green paint over her head. "We can both look like fools."
She was touched by him honestly trying to make sure she wasn't left out, but dancing wasn't really Fire's thing. Especially dancing like . . . that. She wasn't really sure how a mech as big as Outrider could move that way.
"I'll be fine, Hammer." She promised him touching his arm before shoving him after the femme that was giggling and waving for him to follow. "Go have fun, I'll be right here after they break your sparks and you come back licking your wounds."
He cracked a grin. "You're faith in us is positively astounding."
"Well, unlike them I actually know you." She purred, watching him bow dramatically to her before skipping offer after the pretty green femme.
Rolling her optics at the trio of them Quickfire turned back to her drink only to find that it was empty.
Damn. She mumbled to herself.
Well, there was no point sitting there alone staring at an empty cube. This might not really be what she would have chosen to do on her own tonight, but it was fun hanging out with the mechs who acted like brothers to her, and she did really like whatever the slag was in this drink.
So might as well get another.
Sliding out of the booth she slipped her small frame through the hoards of swaying, grinding, and dancing frames. She might have also kicked some glitch in the codpiece for smacking her aft when she walked by, but the bystanders—his friends it seemed—just broke down in laughter as he hit his knees and the brightly painted femme huffed her way to the bar.
Lifting herself up onto a bar chair Fire motioned for the barkeep, a big yellow mech with a green visor, who held up a hand in a motion of 'be a klick'. Fire noticed the rather heated conversation he was having with what seemed to be some type of dancer and she figured she could wait her turn. Resting her elbows on the slick black bar she quietly swung a foot back and forth letting her mind wonder to the notes she'd been working on. She had a test next cycle and it wouldn't hurt to see how much she remembered of her work even with the buzz she had going.
Huh.
Maybe the mechs were right.
Maybe she did worry about school too much.
"Quite the thoughtful look."
Fire twisted to the left and found herself looking into bright blue optics framed by a sleek white faceplate. Her optic ridges raised at the sight of the very obviously high-end white and blue paint that covered his two tone frame. This mech was quite obviously not from this side of town.
He probably wasn't even from Iacon.
No Iacon noble would be this far past the Tran tracks. That was the reason she and her brothers came here. There was no chance of somebot that knew the adults in their lives would see them and tell about where they had been. So it begged the interesting question; who was he, and what was he doing here?
Not that Fire was going to bother asking.
It wasn't her concern.
"What is the thought that forms such a look?" He went on when she didn't respond, his voice even giving away his breeding and his rank. The light, smooth tones of a high taught bot. He had no draw, nor slang, or heavy words. Every syllable rolled off his tongue like the finest of oil.
Fire snorted. "Notes."
"Notes?" He echoed with a smirk.
"Yes," She nodded looking back to the barkeep down the way, wishing he'd hurry up. Those bright optics were charming, and she'd had just a bit too much to drink to think that she'd keep from making a fool of herself.
Damn.
She was gonna kill those three if something embarrassing happened.
"Notes about what pray tell." He pressed with an amused chuckle. "Couldn't possibly be the drink menu."
To that Fire actually laughed, looking back to him. "You'd like to think that wouldn't you."
"No, not really." He crossed his thin but strong looking arms against the black bar bellow them as he looked into those electrifying blue optics. "You don't really seem the type that this kind of place is your thing."
Another small laugh found its way out of Fire as she shook her head. "It's not." She assured him. "It's theirs."
With a thumb jammed over her shoulder she pointed to the center of the dance floor where the three mechs she called 'family' were making complete idiots of themselves, but hey at least they were having fun.
"Awe," He nodded slowly. "You were drug along. Let me guess, you're supposed to be studying. Big test coming up."
Fire blinked. "How did you . . . ."
He shrugged. "It's a gift."
Leaning away slightly she laughed. "Creepy gift, mech. Ever thought about returning it?"
To that he shook his head in laughter before meeting her bright optics again. "Once or twice." Watching her for a moment he extended his regal looking hand. "Mirage."
She snorted, but shook it all the same. "Quickfire."
Shaking herself out of the memory the orange and yellow and red femme sighed against her pillow trying to make it all go away. Making the memoires of his smile, of his laugh, of his damn too blue optics, and the feel of that kiss go away. The last thing he'd done before leaving her sitting there on her berth completely stunned. She didn't even get a word in, not having snapped out of her damn stupor until after he had left.
Her doorwings tucked tightly down to her back as she closed her optics to keep the tears away.
That stupid glitch!
That arrogant fool!
Why!?
Why!?
She clutched her pillow tighter.
Why didn't he come back? Why did he leave her?
Why . . . didn't she tell him how she felt? Why had they both been so stubborn?
She burrowed further into her covers because no matter what they hadn't done it didn't have a point anymore. He was gone and he was never coming back. So in all honesty it was really stupid that she was here, locked in her quarters crying in the dark. What was that going to fix?
Nothing.
Yet here she was.
Crying over the mech that had been her best friend. That had kissed her and never came back.
Damn bastard.
He didn't knock.
There was no point. She wouldn't answer even if he did. He knew her that well. So instead the two tone medic just punched in his override code waiting impatiently for the door to slide away with a hiss. When it did though a part of Ratchet wished that it hadn't.
It was not easy for the big mech to see the young femme that had meant to much to his mate . . . that meant so much to him laying there under a pile of covers curled into a ball. She was the sister that the femmes took in. The femmeling that had become part of his family. The youngling that came into their lives much like Hammerdown had. Easier then the twins had, and yet at the same time pretty much the same.
She had never been like a creation to him, more like the annoying little sister that never did as she was told. He still felt responsible for her though. He loved her like that annoying little sister. And it broke him in ways hard to explain to see her like this.
That smart mouthed little glitch that had handled those three trouble makers for vorns. Where was she now? Where was the sassy femme that had carved out a place for herself in a world long since gone glitchy? Because she certainly wasn't in that berth.
Sighing the big mech shut the door behind him before quietly making his way over to the mound of shivering blankets. She refused to even pretend like she knew he was there, not that Ratchet was surprised. Fire could be hard headed that way and a part of the medic felt that he probably deserved it. After all he had forgotten what this orn was.
Forgotten to even look up and check on Fire as of lately.
It seemed that having her in such close proximity again made the mech worry for her less and the calls every few orns to both her and First Aid to make sure both his once upon a time apprentices were still breathing seemed to be not needed. It was wrong of him to do though. Just because he could look up and see them didn't mean that they didn't need him. Especially Quickfire.
Especially now.
Placing himself down on the side of her berth Ratchet quietly cursed himself for it having slipped his mind. For Aid having to come and find him to remind him of what this orn was. For not realizing that Quickfire would need something she would refuse to seek out.
Comfort.
"Fire," He mumbled quietly, resting a hand over her mound of blankets to begin pulling back the layers until he found the brightly colored femme hugging a pillow. Another part of his spark broke at the sight as he sighed. Poor thing.
"Go away." It was supposed to come out as a hiss. At least that was what Fire had been planning on it sounding like. However, she was not that lucky and the words came out as a broken sob more than anything else. And somehow before she even knew how it happened she—and all her clutched pillows and blankets—ended up scooped up and placed in the CMO's lap as he scooted around until his back was pressed against the wall beside her berth as he held her tightly to his chest.
And it was with that the resolve to try and pretend that she was fine snapped out of Quickfire's grasp once and for all.
A harsh choke as she tried to keep the cries back before it felt oh so very pointless anymore and Fire latched a hold of the mech's chest, pressing herself as close as she could to the reassuring sounds of his spark beating before she just dug herself in and broke down in tears.
"Oh Fire," Ratchet breathed, clutching her tightly as he rocked her back and forth resting his head atop hers each and every cry that left her settling painfully into his chest. He knew there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. Nothing to offer that would make it better. Because he knew first hand that there wasn't.
This wasn't a pain that could be bandaged up and set right.
This was agony that festered and burned forever. It would never go away. All that could be hopped for was that it would fade slightly in time. However, the medic knew all too well that even then it never truly went away.
He could still feel that empty place in the bottom on his spark where Arcee use to be.
That cold, dark, broken bond that would forever be dangling there in the emptiness of the cosmic fields of bonds searching for the other end of the tether that would never reach back out too it. Because his sparkmate was long gone, and the pain from that was not something any medical help could heal.
Mirage and Quickfire might not have ever just gone on and did what everybot knew they should have—both young bots being far too damn stubborn to admit that they loved each other—but that didn't mean that their sparks hadn't known. It didn't mean that they hadn't been reaching and calling for each other despite their owners refusing to owe up to it. It didn't mean that being forced away and torn apart didn't crush them as badly as it would have had the link between them been finalized.
In fact, the never knowing what it might have been like to admit to each other what they really wanted . . . Ratchet had to wonder if that didn't hurt Fire worst then all the rest of it. He knew it would have hurt him.
Hugging her tightly the mech shushed her softly even if he knew it wouldn't do any good in the long run. It was the only comfort he could offer to his high spirited little sister. The comfort that he understood, and that he wouldn't tell her the lie of saying that everything was okay. He wouldn't tell her that Mirage was coming back. Because as the vorns went by the chances of the spy ever returning dwindled further and further out of reach.
Ratchet knew that Fire would never understand how much that burned both him and Optimus though. It wasn't his right to tell her that it hurt him to know that he had a hand in doing this to her. It wasn't fair to put the attention on himself, but a part of him did it anyway. That part of him that wanted to bang his head against the wall over and over again even if he knew it would change nothing.
It was Optimus' mission that had most likely cost the mech his life, had taken him away from the femme that never got a chance to tell him how she really felt, but it was Ratchet that had put the notion in the Prime's head in the first place.
The question of where was it that Bumblebee came from.
Back when they didn't know what they knew now.
His spark cringed in the knowledge that if maybe they had been a little more patient. Waited just a while longer. Maybe Mirage would still be alive, and Quickfire wouldn't be here sobbing in his lap.
"Why!?" She gasped through her crying making Ratchet hold her tighter. "Why didn't he come back!? Why did he leave me?"
Shushing against her audio Ratchet sighed. "I don't know, Fire. I don't know."
"He promised." She sobbed. "He promised!"
Yes. The medic knew that he had. He also knew about the kiss that Fire had only ever told Aid about, but the other mech had told him. In all it hadn't surprised him, it was bound to have happened sooner or later. However, there was that protective brother part of him that wanted to strangle the glitch for doing it and then leaving without a word to her and never coming back.
It wasn't fair!
Then again, when had any life on Cybertron ever been fair?
There was no where that was written. Life wasn't meant to be fair. If it was then none of this damn war would have never happened. None of all of this would have ever happened!
Ratchet stayed with the little femme well into the night, just being that silent anchor back to reality that she needed until finally she composed herself enough to crawl out of his lap trying to scrape back together just a little bit of her dignity finding herself hunched there beside him staring at the floor while Ratchet did much of the same.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled to the ground.
It was hard to face the medic she'd grown up around after something like that. Family or not, it was not like she cried in front of others all that much. It wasn't something that was all that easy for her.
"Don't say that." Ratchet sighed. "There is nothing for you to be sorry over. I'm the one that is sorry. I'm sorry I can be of no better help. I'm . . . ." He took a deep breath shaking his head. "I am not Arcee."
And pit didn't that sting them both.
"I've never understood what to say at times like this."
"Nothing could be said to make it better, Ratchet." She tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. "And it's okay. You . . . I . . . you don't have to be Arcee. As much as I miss her too."
Ratchet let out that deep breath he had just taken. "Every orn."
"Never goes away, does it?" Fire whispered.
The mech lifted an arm and wrapped it tight around her. "No."
"Well, at least there is something to look forward too."
An empty and sparkless laugh left them both before it trailed off into hurt filled sighs and they were left looking into the others optics again.
Fire offered him a slow, sad smile. "Thanks for comin', Ratchet."
He gazed back. "Thanks for staying, Quickfire."
There were far more meaning behind that simple statement then what was just on the surface. Fire was well aware. Which was why she just smiled softly again and leaned into the big mech before shoving him lightly in the back.
"I'm tired. So go on and get out of here. Get back to worrying over those pups I'm heard about."
Ratchet's optic ridges lifted as he stood from the berth followed by the femme that walked him to her door.
"How is it you already know about those pups?"
She snorted. "Please. Word travels fast around these parts, mech."
Ratchet just stared.
"Alright fine," She sighed playfully. "Aid told me yesterday."
"Figures." Ratchet just nodded, not all that sure he wanted to know how the other young bot found about the pups before Optimus had told anybot other than Magnus. Though that was probably how the red and white mech found out.
"Yeah . . . is Jazz glitched?"
"Possibly."
"Are you and or Ironhide and Optimus and Prowl going to kill him?"
"Doubtful."
"Will the pups be safe to have around Bumblebee? After all they are static-hounds."
"Hounds are as they are raised." Ratchet shrugged. It was pretty much true. They both knew it had some inking in wishful thinking though. "Besides they already chose him."
"They did?" Quickfire blinked as they reached her door.
"Yes." Ratchet nodded pushing the key to have the door swish open as he walked into the hall to turn back and face her. "So really there is nothing we can do now."
"Since none of you are willing to just kill them." Fire tilted her head with a smile.
Ratchet snorted with a roll of his optics looking like he wouldn't mind doing just that. "I suppose not."
"You're too soft for your own good, old mech." She smiled as she used the term she had always called him earning herself a playful glare before that glare became a look of fondness as the medic stepped forward again to his younger protégée giving her a warm hug before pulling away with one last pat to her head.
"I'm here anytime you need me, Fire." He told her quietly. "Right here."
She smiled. "I know, and right back at ya."
With that she watched her mentor's retreating back as he made his way back to his own ship and the other problems he had no doubt put off for the orn to check on her. He really was too soft for his own good.
Shaking her head back and forth fondly she pushed herself off the door and was about to turn around with every plan to fall faceplate first into her berth and recharge until First Aid drug her out in the morning for something or another just so she could forget the pain in her chest and the aching in her processor before a flash of blue caught her attention.
Glancing back she found Hammerdown turn into the hallway his deep optics locking on her. Once again she couldn't stop the smile that wormed its way up her faceplate at the sad grin that rose up his lips as he walked the rest of the way to her until he came to a stop before her. Tilting her head up to gaze at his faceplate since he was so much taller than her she lifted an optic ridge.
"Hammer?"
"Fire." He responded.
"What are you doing down here? I thought you were on patrol or something. Didn't Hot Rod take a group out?"
"He did." Hammer nodded, rolling his shoulders as if trying to get an ache out of his transformation relays. With her highly trained medic optics, Fire was quite sure that was just what he was doing. "Which is why I'm this late."
"Oh," She titled her head. "Late for what?"
He didn't answer verbally and yet somehow everything that needed to be said was there in his optics as he reached into a subspace pocket and pulled out a bottle of highgrade.
It was all the answer Fire needed as she smiled sadly, seeing the pain of loss in his optics that reflected what she knew was in her own. Tonight might be the night she ached for the mech that had never returned for her, but she knew very well she wasn't the only aching spark on this ship. And the big blue and highlighted in black mech that stood before her now was the only one of her brothers she had left.
The rest had been taken from her as harshly as they had been taken from him.
"You don't have to, Hammer." She mumbled quietly.
"You didn't have to either." He replied, meaning the night after she had been released from medical and Hammer had returned with Ironhide, Optimus, and the others with Bumblebee back in their grasps. That night that she had showed up at the makeshift door the big mech had made for himself in the tunnels they were all crammed into holding a bottle of highgrade much like he was doing now. She had come for the loss of his latest brother. For the hole in his spark where Cyber use to be, but she had also come for the rest of it. For Rider, Smokey, Mirage, Cee, Mia, and Elita. She had curled up beside her brother with two cubes a piece and they had mourned together the only way either of them knew how as of now with their walls up to the rest of the world and their barriers down to each other as they hunkered down in the dark and drank themselves into a stupor. Knowing that when they came too there would be no judgment or tears from the other. They would simply pick themselves up off the floor, wipe off the dirt and the pain, and go back to living the best they could. Because that was what the ones they had lost would want them to do.
It seemed that it was time to do so again.
With another sad smile she stepped aside and motioned to the small table at the other side of the room. "Cubes are on the top shelf."
Mornings had become something of a nightmare of the massive ebony mech over the last dozen orns or so. Because it seemed no matter what he or any of the other adults had to say about it Bumblebee's newest best friends had no concept of sitting still long enough for the trouble making trio to be feed and Primus forbid they hold still long enough for a wash let alone to have a caretaker keep up with them for any long period of time unless ever door was locked and the air vents were still welded shut.
Yeah . . . that had been a fun afternoon.
Seemed Ravage in the ventilation system wasn't enough of a lesson for them all. It took Scout and Echo taking a run through the mini maze with Bumblebee holding onto their tails for them to get it through their thick heads that they were going to have to do something about those vents.
There might have also been a rather long argument—or raging screaming match as Prowl dubbed it afterward—between Ironhide and Hot Rod about why he designed the damn things into the ship that way in the first place. Let's just say it took Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime to pry them apart after the screaming turned into hitting.
But on the upside Bumblebee has having fun.
His family was losing their damn minds, but the youngling was having fun.
Which was why the rec room was currently a giggle fest as the tiny yellow mechling tried without much success to hide his laughing little self behind Ratchet's leg as the big yellow and red mech sat there sipping his energon with a youngling clinging to his ankle while the two forms of the black sleek shapes across the room went about sniffing and humming between their selves as they tried to find their new brother and master.
At least now when the youngling was playing hide and seek it was easier to keep an optic on him. It was really hard to miss the two big black pups that were growing rapidly trailing after him everywhere.
Sideswipe was convinced that the two hounds were just humoring Bee in how long it took them to find him, but it wasn't like the mech or anybot else was going to tell Bumblebee that. If this satisfied his need to play hide and seek then by all means they weren't going to say a Primus damn thing.
Bee peaked out from around Ratchet's leg as he watched the larger and much bulkier form of Scout sniff his way around his sister with his long swishing and spike tail in the air over his back as his audios flickered while he breathed in the scents on the floor. The tiny youngling bit his bottom lip to keep his giggles quiet as Echo circled around him and headed in Bee's direction making the little mech force back a squeak and tuck himself in behind the CMO's foot.
Ratchet held down the urge to laugh at the Squirt while he watched the two static-hound pups work their way along the figure eight of a scent trial Bee had made by running around in circles before the hounds came looking for him after he hid behind Ratchet's foot. It was easy to see that the tracking lessons were teaching the pups as much as they were Bumblebee which was why they were even being humored in the first place.
Life had surly changed all over again for the Autobots with the new additions to the family having been quite honestly dumped in their laps.
Jazz may or may not still be stuck on desk duty about all of this as well.
However, the bots were nothing if not resourceful and as much as the first reaction to the pups had been a few chasing Jazz around the ship screaming at him—and for once it wasn't Ratchet, no this time it was Hound and Trailbreaker going on about how much they were going to get blamed for slag now—it was kind of the running tally as of now that maybe the pups weren't all that bad, and they were making Bee pretty Primus damn happy, and might also be the best built in security system they could have hoped to ever find for him.
So maybe Jazz wasn't such a total idiot after all.
Though there was the whole little problem with Wheeljack was now also utterly fascinated with the little creatures and was going on scientific ramblings about things that none of the rest of his family understood and Hide and Optimus had more than once snatched the youngling from the inventor halfway to his lab with the pups in tow telling him in no uncertain terms that if Bee so much as stepped through the door of that accident waiting to happen death trap of his he'd find his happy tri colored aft moving to Hot Rod's ship. Which of course lead to even more wonderful bickering matches between Roddy and Hide.
All in all though, life for the Autobots was cooling down again after the whole Ravage and Laserbeak incident, but it wasn't totally cooled back down to waiting for Megatron to try something stupid again.
Because Megatron was already up to something, and with what Jazz had learned from Thundercracker and Skywarp before the poofed off into space was that whatever he was scheming was very, very bad.
Jazz's focus was split quite magically down the middle between the script he was trying to decode of another one of those weird messages that had somehow shown up and the youngling that was giggling on his desk with Echo wrapped around his back and Scout laid out in front of him both the pups snacking away at their energon gel cubes while Bee munched on his own. He'd wanted to see Jazz this morning when Hide dropped him off with Optimus, and when the mighty commander was called to Magnus' ship for some sort of 'meeting' the Prime allowed his request and left the youngling with his lunch in the saboteur's care.
Because Jazz was never too busy for Bumblebee and this pups, even if this coded message was starting to drive him glitchy. He'd almost let himself be distracted from the ones that had come before, but now with this one that had magically shown up in the Prime's inbox the orn before Jazz was just about ready to start ripping wiring out of his head. Not that he could do that in front of Bumblebee though so he forced himself to keep up posturing until his little lunch guest got picked up by the twins when they got off shift.
Munching on the soft edge of his energon gel cube Bumblebee watched through big baby blue optics as Jazz worked on 'hacking the code' whatever that meant and didn't really bother all that much with Bee or his pets on the desk. Echo and Scout—most of his family thought the youngling gave the pups their names, but actually he didn't, they told him their names the second morning they were here—were very fond of Jazz. Since it was the silver mech that had saved their from starving out there in the ruble of Tyger Pax and brought them to the little mechling that was now their master, brother, and friend. So they were quite at ease laying about on his desk eating their lunch, though Echo did seem as interested in whatever it was Jazz was doing just as Bee was.
Scout didn't care.
But then again if it wasn't either loud, chase able, or food the big mech pup didn't really have all that much interest in it anyway. He tended to leave the wondering about what the big bots were doing to his sister and Bee. Not that they minded.
"What he do?" Echo questioned in her sweet song like pitch through the bond that had formed and flared between Bee and his pets under that table in the medical bay. When he'd woken up to the poking and prodding of the pups via their noseplates and their sparks the next morning Bee hadn't stop giggling for breems, making Ratchet scan him just to make sure he hadn't wiggled something lose in his processor. Then again Bee didn't really expect his family to understand.
They'd never got that he'd been able to talk to Risk either.
But he had.
Which was why this new and warm bond between the siblings and himself wasn't something he even bothered to question. To Bee it was normal.
He had no idea how un-normal it actually was.
"No clue." He answer as he gnawed on his cube. "Optimus call it 'hacking', but me no known what that mean."
"Stupid." Scout rumbled out loud. That deep pitch of his coming both over his spark and from his vocal processor. Though out loud it just sounded like a tiny crack of thunder. The pups could make the most fascinating sounds and Bumblebee was as intrigued with them as Wheeljack was. Though none of the trio really understood what it was about the sounds they made that made the older mech so giddy. He couldn't understand them over their sparks like Bee could.
That much was obvious.
None of the grown bots could.
Not that Bee and the pups understood that either.
"Not stupid." Bee shot back, but didn't take his optics off the strange scrolling scrip that had his big brother's attention.
"Can't play with it. Can't eat it. Can't chase it." Scout grumbled. "Stupid."
Echo let out a purr of amusement. "Scout don't care less him can eat it."
Oh that hadn't taken Bee long to figure out. He laughed softly to himself watching as the larger and older mech pup pinned his lips back over his fangs and snarled at his sister before she huffed back in response. The exchange drawing Jazz's attention.
"What's up with you three?" He said with a smile. "Still hungry?"
Bee giggled as he cast his big optic up to Jazz. "Scout always hungry."
"Is he now?" Jazz chuckled, reaching over to get another gel cube and tossing to the waiting jaws of the mech pup. Scout snapped it mid air with hardly an effort and went to purring contently as he began to scarf it down as well. The sight made the silver mech laugh even harder.
"Uh huh." Bee nodded swiftly, then he was quiet for a few moment before looking back up into Jazz's bright visor. "Thanks Jazzy."
Jazz—who had looked back to his monitor—glanced the youngling's way again. "For what Lil' Bee?"
He grinned, point at the pups around him. "Them. Me loves them. Very much."
It got two very happy purrs from the pups around him before Jazz cracked a smirk.
"You're welcome, Bee. I kind of like them too." Reaching out the saboteur stroked the femme pup down her side making the sleek black and highlighted at the edges—strange for a hound—white pup purr even louder as she snuggled her muzzle into Bumblebee's back. Scout wasn't really all that fond of anybot beside Bee touching him. It only took one good snap to Sideswipe's hand for the grown bots to figure that one out. So the other pup was content to just be left alone by the large mech while Jazz reached out with his other hand and rubbed Bee affectionately between his antennas.
"You do?" Bee chirped hopefully. There was still a large part of the little mechling that was afraid his family didn't like his new friends and would take them away. After the whole incident after they first met, but Optimus had promised him the pups could stay. As long as the three of them behaved.
Which Bee promised he would.
For the most part.
"Yeah." Jazz nodded, giving his own purr as he plucked up his little brother and brought him to rest against his chest where Bee snuggled in tightly while Jazz went on. His tone becoming a lot quieter as if lost in the past. "They remind me of the ones I use to have."
Bee leaned away in shock while his pups looked up as well tilting their head making their oversized audios flop back and forth. "You had static-hounds!?"
Jazz rumbled a soft laugh. "Yeah I did. A really long time ago. I even had a little femme one a lot like Echo here. I called her Sly."
Bee's big baby blue optics shimmered with wonder. "That pretty name."
"I thought so, but I wasn't the one that named her."
"Really?"
"Nope."
"Who name her?"
"A femme I use to know." Jazz answered quietly, his optics drifting behind his visor as that blood red femme flashed through his mind. "My best friend actually."
Bumblebee didn't even really need to reach out to feel Jazz's spark wonder into things that made it twist and pull into itself to try and keep away painful memories. He could feel his bright caretaker darken with it. Sitting up a little straighter against Jazz's silver chest Bee pressed his little head above that strong pulsing spark and pulsed out with his own. Grasping for the link that connected them together and trying to push out with the warmth that live inside him so that Jazz would feel him and come back to this place in time.
It only took a moment and then Jazz shook his head a few times before looking down to the youngling situated in his arms. With a heavy sigh the optimist of a mech pushed away all the pain and the failure until he was grinning down at his little brother again pushing out with his own spark to answer that wave of warmth and light and love until their sparks were wrapped around each other in a happy, bubbly little world of contentment where it felt like no bad and no pain could ever come.
With a happy little click Bee snuggled back into Jazz's chest and purred from all his little self was worth feeling the bigger mech place his chin atop his head and rock them slowly back and forth in his chair.
"Ya sure is somethin' else ya know that, Lil' Bee." It wasn't a question.
It was a fact.
"Yep." Bee giggled happily, grasping his little fingers around the crevices and dips along Jazz's chest armor holding tightly as the mech let out a breath before turning back to his monitor.
"Do you want back down with the pups or you want to stay here?" He questioned.
Bee just held tighter, feeling more than seeing that Scout and Echo were just fine where they were munching away with their long slender tails twined together as they hummed contently from deep in their chests. Taking the holding as answer enough Jazz leaned back in his chair with the tiny mechling holding fast to the area above his spark while he tried to figure out what it was that was hidden away in the text on the screen.
With a click the round slid back into the blasters chamber, the big mech took aim, and fired. The sound echoed like thunder across the repaired shooting range before the same set of sounds happened to his right and the other mech blasted his own drone to tiny little pieces.
Ironhide chuckled.
"You know, Hammer, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were in a good mood."
The big blue mech snorted. "Good thing you know better."
They took aim again and fired in session. Another set of perfect shots.
That got Hammer chuckling. "We're damn good shooters."
"And not the slightest bit cocky." Hide laughed as he heated another plasma round in his left cannon letting it fire off instead of his blaster this time.
"Oh Primus forbid that ever happening." Hammer threw back his head laughing without even looking as he took the shot and blew a hole through the practice drones chest.
Ironhide laughed with him again both of them cycling a few more clips before the two of them were leaned back against one of the weapons benches sipping on some energon as their blasters and cannons cooled from the work out. The air between them had become much easier and a lot lighter over the last few vorns and especially since the crew had come back together again.
It was something that not long ago Hide had thought he would never know again. His last little brother there beside him happy and at ease. In a world long since lost its damn mind it was a moment of ease that was rare for their lives now. It had the massive ebony mech smiling.
Taking a deep breath Hammer turned his optics to the older mech.
"Hey Hide,"
Ironhide tilted his head. "Yeah?"
"Do you remember the orn we met?"
That got the slighter bigger mech chuckling. "You mean the orn I came home to three mechlings on my couch instead of two?"
"Yep that's the orn." Hammer smirked. "That had to be one of those orns you wanted to stuff Rider in a scrap bin, huh?"
"Something like that." Ironhide nodded, with a fond let sad smile. "There were plenty of times I wanted to do that to the lot of you. Though most times it was Rider I wanted to strangle. That afternoon . . . wasn't one of them though, Hammerdown. Neither me nor Mia ever regretted Rider bringing you home."
It was one of those times the bright red twenty-two vorn old youngling was absolutely positive when his big brother—and Smokey's big brother—found the two of them they were going to beat them both over the head with a hammer.
Not that either of the mechlings were all that worried about it though.
Faceplates pressed up against the transports windows two sets of big curious optics stared out at the big shiny world of Helix. It was the first time Outrider had seen another city beside the ones Ironhide brought him too after he came back to get him from their old home in the desert. For Smokescreen though it wasn't. That didn't mean both of them weren't absolutely thrilled though. There were few in this world that hadn't heard of the legendary floating Helix Gardens. For a mechling that had come from the larger city that surround the inner smaller one and yet never seen the crystals it was something the tri tone mechling had always dreamed about.
Prowl had never taken him to the seen the Gardens, even if the older mech promised while they were staying in the hospital that he would. However, it wasn't something that Smokey could hold against his brother. After everything that had happened he understood what drove his brother to flee the city that was their home and take the first job he could get somewhere that wasn't Praxus.
He'd been too young to really understand what was happening when it had, but now it was hard to blame Prowl for wanting out of the memories the causeways and pillars held. Watching ones creators slowly fade from existence by the fangs of a slow moving virus was not an easy thing to overcome. Smokescreen didn't truly remember either his carrier or his sire, but Prowl did. He remembered it all. And even if Smokey was the furthest thing from an easy to handle younger brother he would never ask too much of the older mech.
Taking him back to Praxus, to Helix, was asking too much.
So, Rider and Smokey went alone.
"You're really from here?" Outrider mumbled in awe as they slipped from the crowded transport—drawing a few curious glances from mechs and femmes as to why such young bots were traveling alone—and into the terminals heading for the gardens.
"Well not here." Smokescreen shrugged as they ascended some stairs. "The outer ring of Praxus is where Prowler and I live before we moved to Iacon."
"And Helix isn't Praxus, but at the same time it is." Outrider repeated what his friend and might as well be brother told him on the transport earlier.
"Yeah." Smokey nodded. "It's like a city within a city. Praxus is huge."
"Cool." The other mechling grinned when they found their way to the busy sidewalks and started staring at street signs. "So uh . . . you do know where we're going right?"
Smokey barked a laugh. "When do we ever know where we're going?"
To that Rider had to laugh as well. "Good point."
"And sorta . . . the Gardens are in the center of the city so if we head that direction we'll stumble on them sooner or later."
"Whatever," Rider said as they headed along through the crowded streets. "Long as we're back before dinner."
"Yeah . . . because it's no fun making Prowler glitch if I'm not there to see it." Smokey giggled.
"I know!"
"Can you see his faceplate if he met Hide and Mia back at your suite to pick me up and we're not where they left us?" Smokey went on.
"Before or after he hits the floor?"
"Both."
And then they broke down into cackles, grasping at their sides as they stumbled along heading for the gardens.
However, the two younglings never made it to the gardens. They got about halfway there before something strange caught their bright optics. In fact, Rider got halfway past an alley way before he paused mid-step, looked at Smokey, who looked back at him, and then they both backed up three paces, leaned around a corner, and blinked in confusing at what they saw.
A young blue mechling, couldn't be any older or younger than them, crouched under a lamp post leaned against it with a small broken cube of energon in his hands that he was dipping his fingers in and letting a small glitch mouse lick at when he reached back down to the tiny grey creature.
Rider and Smokey could only stare.
For a mechling their age he was a great deal thinner than they were, yet he looked as if he should be Outrider's size. He wasn't the typical Praxian frame type either like Smokey. And since he was most obvious in his second frame—like the other two—he should have the small yet very noticeable doorwings that were twitching in curiosity on the tri colored mechling's back as he looked to his red brother. Something just told the two of them that the mechling didn't belong here at all.
And since neither Rider nor Smokey had ever learned to leave well enough alone—they didn't see the point after all—the two of them made one more glance between themselves before spinning on their heels and skipping down the alley toward the other mechling.
The sound of which had the blue youngling's head snapping up, his optics wide in fright at first, before he actually looked at what it was that was approaching him. For him, this was definitely a new one.
"Hi," Outrider grinned as he and Smokescreen came a stop a few paces from the other mechling that pushed himself to his feet leaning a hand against the post behind him to try and make his obvious lack of balance from so little fuel in him not as noticeable. The glitch mouse he'd been offering some of his find to had long since scurried away at the sight of the other two, but he wasn't quite sure what to make of what was in front of him.
"Hello," He mumbled carefully.
"I'm Outrider," Rider's smile grew. "But everybot calls me Rider. Well except when I'm in trouble. Which is a lot of the time. This here is Smokescreen; most times we just call him Smokey though."
"Hi," Smokey chimed in.
The mechling's gaze shifted between them as he mumbled again. "Hello."
"What's your name?" Smokescreen took a step forward only to have the other mechling step back. That made both Rider and Smokey pause. He was . . . afraid of them?
"Hammerdown." He answered quietly.
All the other two could do was smile bigger though, a part of them having thought that he wouldn't answer.
"Cool," Rider held out his hand to the air that was like a void between them. "It's nice to meet ya, Hammerdown. Can we call you Hammer?"
For a moment Hammerdown stared at the offered red hand before him before he shrugged and carefully reached out to shake it. "I guess, no bot really ever calls me anything. They tend to just try and pretend I'm not there."
The other two blinked. "How come?" They asked together.
"Cuz I run away from the orphanage." The other titled his head as he drew his hand back. "I won't stay there. I can take care of myself."
"You're an orphan?" Smokey questioned.
The other shrugged like it was no big deal. For him it wasn't. He knew he'd been dropped at the door of that stupid place before he was hardly a handful of orns old. His creators hadn't wanted him, and he'd decided a long time ago that that wasn't going to slow him down.
So what if they didn't want him?
He'd find a place where he belonged—a place that wanted him—all on his own. He didn't need the orphanage or anybot else's help to do that.
"Yeah."
"And you're all on your own?" Rider added.
"I don't like that place." Hammer replied. "I don't need 'em. I can take care of myself."
Huh.
Rider and Smokey could respect that, but they could also see how hungry and weak the other mechling was. It was in that knowledge that the two of them shared a look before a grin split their faces. In one mirrored movement that came from growing up with each other they reached across the distance between themselves and the other to grab one of his hands each—much to his surprise—and pulled him along between them heading back to the transport station.
He tripped a bit from the speed at which they moved, and they quickly slowed down until he was stumbling along between them looking at each of them like their lost their minds. To Hammer it didn't make any sense. These two were obviously not orphans. Their paint was too shiny, their optics too bright. They were well feed and well cared for. Bots loved them, looked after them.
What were they doing out here all by themselves, and what interest did they have in him?
"What are you doing?" He asked, but really made no move to get them to let him go. It's not like he really had anywhere to be and the cube he had been drinking—nasty stuff he'd swiped from a scrap bin—was now shattered on the ground behind them.
"No bot looks after you right?" Rider asked.
"And you don't have a home?" Smokey added.
"And on bot will miss you if you're gone?" Rider finished.
Well that was one depressing way to put it, but yeah.
"Uh huh." Hammer glanced between them only to see them grin even wider as they pulled him along.
"Good." Smokey nodded. "Because now you're coming home with us."
"What?" Hammer stared.
"You're coming home with us." Rider repeated what the other mechling had said as if Hammer hadn't heard it. However, Hammer heard it just fine. He just didn't believe it.
"Wha . . . why?"
They both looked at him as if he was crazy.
"Because everybot should have a home." Rider said with a smirk. "And we've got a huge family. They won't have a problem with one more."
"Besides." Smokey shrugged. "You are far from the weirdest thing we've drug home."
And it was true. He really wasn't.
"And you won't be one they won't say can't stay. They'll take one look and you and just cave. You got that youngling cuteness that we got. All you'll have to do is blink a few times and smile real big. It'll be easy." Rider told him. "I'll show you when we get on the transport. The femmes give every time, and really they're the only ones you gotta convince."
Hammer just stared.
He was so fraggin' confused right now it wasn't even funny.
"But . . . but . . . why would your family want me? Why would you creators want me if they already have you two?"
Now at that the other two mechlings paused and looked back at him as if he they really did think he was glitched or something.
"Well why not?" Smokey questioned.
"Besides." Rider went on. "We don't live with our creators. Our creators are dead."
Now to that all Hammer could do was twist to look at the red mech that was to his right and stare even more. "Dead? You're orphans too?"
"Well yeah." Smokey shrugged.
"You live in an orphanage?" Because Hammerdown was not going back to an orphanage. The one he came from or any other.
"No." Rider shook his head. "We live with our brothers."
"Yeah." Smokey went on. "I live with my older brother, his names Prowler. He's a bit of a stick in the mud sometimes, but he's fun once you get him to loosen up a bit. Rider here lives with his older brother Ironhide and his mate Chromia. But that is not all of our family. There's Ratchet and Arcee, and Optimus and Elita, oh and Jazz too. Jazz is a blast. And Megatronus if you want to count him. Technically he is, but we don't ever see him much. Sentinel always keeps him really busy."
Hammer looked between them. All these names. All these bots.
"Why would they want me?"
The might as well be brothers looked between each other before turning back to look into his deep blue optics as they shrugged together. "Well why not?"
Truthfully, there was no real good answer to be had.
Which was why several joor later the three mechlings were back in Iacon, curled up on the couch the two of them weren't supposed to leave in the first place, stuffing their faces with kettle energon watching movies on Hide's big screen waiting on their brothers and Mia to get off work and come home.
Something that surprisingly didn't happen all that long after they were all settled and stuffing their faces.
Within a breem or two the key pad on the door chirped and then slid away to Mia walking in with an arm full of grocery bags with Hide much the same behind her and Prowl trying to help. Not much attention was paid to the mechlings on the couch, the vid screen being on and the forms on the couch being just glanced out to make sure they were really there. The adults didn't notice the extra as they walked their bags to the kitchen. Even when the bright red mechling along with the white, red, and blue one smiled at each other around the confused blue one in the middle before scrambling up to their knees looking over the back of the couch while Hammer slowly picked himself up between them and did the same.
What they saw was Hide and Prowl helping Mia put away the energon gel cubes, and such.
Rider beamed. "Hey Hide, hey Mia, hey Prowl."
"Hello, Rider." Mia answered. "Hey Smokey. You two have a good orn?"
They glanced between each other. "Oh yeah, it was a lot of fun."
"You didn't light anything on fire did you?" Hide called without looking up from stuffing things in the energon dispenser.
Rider laughed. "Nope."
"Smokescreen?" Prowl's tone warned when his own brother didn't answer, his doorwings twitching as his back was too them helping Hide while Mia stocked the fridge.
"I didn't either, Prowler."
"Good younglings." Mia praised with affection. "What is it you did th . . . ."
But as the femme turned around to see them she stopped short in her sentence to find herself blinking a few times just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. And she wasn't. There really was a dull blue mechling with dark blue optics leaning over the back of the couch between Outrider and Smokescreen.
Uh . . . that was different.
When the femme trailed off it had Ironhide and Prowl snapping to attention to turn and glance at her before their own gazes swept to the living room expecting to probably see the two mechlings covered in something or holding something they either weren't supposed to have or that they had broken, but no. Instead they found the same thing Chromia had.
A mechling that hadn't been here when they left leaning there between their two trouble makers.
Okay, the mechs had to admit it wasn't the worst thing they had come home either to Hide's or Prowl's suite to find the two of them had, but it defiantly wasn't supposed to be there.
With matching grins both Rider and Smokey lifted a hand and pointed down to the blue mechling's head as he kind of ducked a little under the gazes of the adults.
"This is Hammerdown." They echoed each other.
The adults blinked, glanced between each other, and then looked back before Mia quietly spoke up taking a few steps forward out of the kitchen to stand just a bit behind the couch looking down at the youngling that was crouched there between the two they all looked after looking up at her with something between fear and hope. One good sweep over his frame told a story that Mia wasn't sure she wanted to know. He was under fed, his color dull, and very thin for a youngling that looked as if he should be the same size as Rider.
Just what was going on here?
"Hello Hammerdown." She said softly.
He blinked, and then. "Hi."
"Umm," Mia glanced between Outrider and Smokescreen. "I don't think we've met?"
It was more of a question then it was a statement as the mechs came from the kitchen to stand on each side of her looking down at the mechling on the couch between their grinning brothers.
"You haven't." Smokey smile wider.
"Just out of curiosity you two," Prowl said, his tone careful and confused. "Where did you meet this mechling we don't know?"
They looked between each other while Hammer shrunk a little glancing between them as well.
"We met him this orn." Rider answered.
"Did you?" Hide lifted and optic ridge. "Met him where?"
"I'm from Helix, sir." Hammerdown answered softly only to have Rider rib him in the side.
"You don't have to call him 'sir'." The red youngling rolled his cobalt blue optics. "I already told you that. He's Hide. He's all big and tough, but he won't hurt you."
"Well what else am I supposed to say, they don't know what you two did." Hammer snapped back.
"Well we'll tell them if you'd just wait a klick." Smokey snorted with a laugh. "It's not like their gonna throw you out on the street. Relax, Hammer."
"You don't know that." The other youngling crossed his arms and glared.
"Uh yeah we do." Rider made a face. "We live with them. We know what they will do."
"Besides," Smokey waved a hand. "We've done way worse than drag you home, remember? This is nothing compared to that time we brought the cyber-coyote to Ratchet's."
"What did you two do this orn?" Hide's gaze narrowed slightly bringing the whole little conversation to a halt.
Which snapped the two younglings back to the massive ebony mech making both of them shirk slightly under his, Prowl's, and Mia's gaze.
"Umm . . . well." Smokey started.
"We sort of snuck out after you left, hopped on a transport, and went to Helix." Rider finished.
The three adults stared at them in shock for a good five klicks before.
"YOU WHAT!?" Prowl and Ironhide yelled, making Hammer sink fully into the couch while Rider and Smokey did the same.
"Are you fraggin' glitched!?" Hide's hand snapped out and latched hold of Rider's scruff bar, hauling the mechling that now stood somewhere around his hip high off the ground swinging back and forth as he tried and failed to smile innocently up at his big brother.
"No." He whispered. "We were just bored."
"Bored!?" Prowl hissed snatching up his own little brother much the same, only he had Smokescreen by the corner of a wing and his scruff back making the mechling twist and try not to squeak in pain. "You don't leave the damn city alone when you're bored, Smokescreen! What if something would have happened!? We would have had no idea where you were!"
"Nothing bad happened." Smokey pleaded in his brother's grip. "We're fine. And we made a new friend."
A friend who was currently trying to make himself very small on the couch.
"Calm down both of you." It was the sight of those scared dark blue optics that brought what was about to become quite the punishment to a halt as Chromia spoke up. When she had both the grown mechs' attention she tilted her head to the guest on the couch that was watching them before both Hide and Prowl let out a breath and dropped their brothers back to the furniture.
Once there Rider and Smokey sank again, knowing now they had really pissed them off this time, but not really regretting what they'd done seeing as how they had a new friend sitting between them.
There was a moment of silence again as they adults stared at the three younglings before Chromia finally spoke up again.
"Did you at least tell his creators where he was going before you brought him back here?" She questioned.
Outrider and Smokescreen looked between each other again, but it was Hammerdown who quietly answered.
"I don't have creators, Miss Chromia."
And now didn't that snap the adults to attention.
"What?" Ironhide asked.
"What do you mean you don't have creators?" Prowl clarified.
Hammer shrugged. "I don't. They didn't want me. I'm an orphan. They dropped me off at an orphanage when I was just a few orns old."
"Orphan?" Mia breathed.
"Yeah," Outrider joined in. "He told us all about it."
"He doesn't stay at the orphanage either." Smokescreen added looking up with pleading orbs to his brother. "They're mean to him, Prowler, because he's not really Praxian. He lives on the streets."
"It's not that bad." Hammer lowered his head, because it was. He just didn't want to admit it.
"Oh don't lie." Rider snapped at him. "You told us. You can tell them. They're not so bad. I promise. They just get upset when we do what we shouldn't."
"You live on the streets?" Chromia's optics filled with pain for the young mechling who looked up at her slightly afraid before nodding slightly.
"So we told him he could come home with us." Outrider looked between his brother and Mia.
"We didn't figure you would say no." Smokescreen was still staring hopefully up at his big brother.
Chromia, Ironhide, and Prowl stared at each other for a few nanos before looking down at the mechlings only to have a slow, warm smile light all their faceplates.
"Of course we won't say no." Chromia all but purred making Hammerdown light up and sit up straight on the couch while Outrider and Smokescreen beamed. "You did the right thing mechlings."
It earned the two brother a pet to the heads to which they purred to before shoving her away playfully when she turned to smile down at the shy smile on the blue mechling's lips.
"Would you like some real dinner? If you're not stuffed on kettle energon that is."
Hammerdown grinned. "Yes, please."
"Well alright then." Mia nodded looking between her mate and her friend as they grinned at her. "I'll call Elita and Arcee and we'll just have ourselves a real feast. You can meet everyone else, Hammerdown."
"You mean . . . ." The mechling trailed off for a moment before braving the words. "I can stay?"
The adults blinked.
"If you want to." Ironhide told him softly, the tone seeming odd from a mech as rough and tough as him, but it was what was needed for the little thing that his younger brother had brought home. "Do you want to stay here?"
Rider and Smokey all but bounced beside him.
"Stay, stay!" Smokescreen laughed.
"Yeah! Then we'll have another brother!" Outrider added.
Hammerdown grinned, but ducked his head as he looked up to the big black mech. "You don't mind?"
"Believe me, no one can be more to handle then Rider and Smokey all ready are." Hide promised with a chuckle.
"O-okay." He beamed brightly when Outrider and Smokescreen whooped for joy and went to springing around on the furniture before Prowl spoke up again. They might all have no problem taking the mechling in, but there were some legal matters to be looked into. Starting with this orphanage that didn't even bother to stop a mechling from running away.
"Hammerdown," He said softly. "Will you tell me about this orphanage you are from?"
Hammer stared at him slightly confused from where he'd been hopping around with Rider and Smokey. It was that look in his brother's optics that made Smokescreen snicker with glee.
"Yeah, Hammer. Tell him, tell him. Prowler is an Enforcer for Sentinel Prime. He catches all sorts of bad mechs and sends them to jail. It's gotta be wrong what they did to you in that orphanage. Isn't it Prowler, isn't it wrong?"
"Yes, Smokescreen." Prowl nodded as he leaned on the back of the couch to stare into the shorter mechlings' optics. "If they were cruel to you, Hammerdown, that is wrong."
The mechling paused for a moment before nodding slightly. "I can tell you I guess."
"Alright well, while you all talk about that I'm gonna call my sisters and start dinner. Ironhide why don't you see if you can get a hold of Jazz." Mia said as the big mech followed her into the kitchen why the three younglings talked with Prowl.
"I will." He nodded, waiting until they were behind the kitchen wall before turning to look at his mate who was looking back into his optics. "Did we just adopt a mechling we know nothing about?"
Mia smirked. "No. Rider adopted a mechling he seems to know everything about."
To that Ironhide laughed. "Sounds like something he would do doesn't it?"
"Well he is your little brother, Hide." She smiled, only to somber up slightly leaning around the wall to look at the mechling again among the other two younglings before once again looking to Ironhide. "You're okay with this right?"
"Well I'm not going to thrown him back out on the street." Hide replied.
"No." Mia shook her head. "If he's happy that's all that matter right?"
"Well make a home for him, Mia." Hide pulled her into a tight hug. "It'll all work out just fine."
"Somehow everything those two little troublemakers do always does doesn't it." That however, was not a question.
"Yeah." Ironhide laughed. "It probably always will. Lucky little glitches."
Chuckling Ironhide shook his head as he turned to smile at Hammer while the other mech grinned back at him.
"We made your lives a living pit most of the time didn't we?" The younger mech laughed.
"Oh yeah," Ironhide sighed. "But I wouldn't change a klick of it, Hammer. The three of you had a way of making every orn count for something whether you meant to or not."
"We just wanted to say that we had lived, Hide." Hammer's voice drifted off as sadness crept into his spark as he took a deep breath.
"You all certainly did that."
"It was what those two were good at." Hammer shrugged. "I just hung on for the ride most the time."
"You made your own messes a few times if I recall." Ironhide ribbed him, trying to keep the pain out of his own voice.
"Yeah . . . ." The younger mech leaned back heavier against the table behind him. "I still miss 'em, Hide. All of them. Every orn."
"Me too, Hammer." Ironhide took a deep swing of his energon. "That isn't something that will ever change."
"I know." Hammer looked away. "But I keep telling myself that their not coming back and it's time to just move on. They wouldn't want me to morn, you know?"
"Yes," Hide nodded. "I do, but no amount of telling yourself that is going to heal that hurt inside, Hammer. It's just something you learn to live with."
"Well it sucks."
"That it does."
And hey look I got a chapter of Bee done!
Who wants to hurt me less now?
Yeaaaaah, I'm sorry guys. Between classes and how loud Jynx has been lately Bee was neglected. No fears though, he's not going anywhere. Still have a lot of his story to tell. Hope you guys can forgive me for taking so long to get another chapter up.
On another note though.
I love Outrider and Smokescreen so freaking much! You have no idea. You just don't. Oh those back stories were so much fun! The lot of them are all so cute together. And Hammerdown and Quickfire. Oh I just want to snuggle them.
I really loved writing this chapter. There was so much in here. So much cuteness. Between the pups, who now have names by the way what do you think, the flashbacks, and all the rest of it I was just giddy the whole time I was writing it.
The next chapter will be up far sooner then it took to get this one up. I promise. And its full of even more wonderful baby Bee and the rest of this crazy bunch.
So as always your reviews mean the world to me so please leave me what you thought. I'm dying to know if you love them all as much as I do.
See ya next chapter.
-Jaycee