Sunlight streamed in, through the open window nearby. And Arcee - half sitting on the recharge station, with her arms around her youngling daughter – smiled a little, glad of the warmth against her body panels. She watched the screen of the holo-vid player, on the work table beside them, laughing just a little when Cybershock gasped – the little bot so obviously shocked and disbelieving at the scene unfolding on the screen.
"Ah, come on!" the youngling groaned. She shifted just a little, in her carrier's gentle hold, snuggling the stuffed cyberhound that she herself held closer to her chest panel. And dramatically she huffed a little, under an intake. "She can't love him. He's a dirtbag and she knows it... flirting with six of the neighbors!"
"Don't forget that he's still wanted for stealing that car," Arcee reminded her youngling. And again Cybershock just groaned, nodding her head before she looked up at her carrier – uncertain.
"So... that same old 'thing for bad boys' then?" she asked her optics once again on the little screen – watching now as a human television character begged some man to stay.
"Definitely!" Arcee's chuckling laugh stopped suddenly. And for a good long moment, she just looked at the youngling bot still snuggled in her arms. The little bot understood such things already – at least at least with the base understanding of a girl just beginning to notice such matters. Arcee lamented yet again over just how fast the little bot was growing up. And she wondered, with a hint of sadness, if Cybershock would have even allowed herself to be snuggled at all anymore, had she not been still so badly damaged.
"Cybershock, please promise me you will never fall for the Cybertronian version of that individual," Arcee said, pleading. And when Cybershock's optics opened wider – her faceplate filled with her obvious disgust at the idea of romance in general – she only sighed with her silent relief, at her child still acting very much like a silly, playful, and innocent child. It was certainly good to hear the young bot truly laughing too – to see her truly smiling, and being truly silly. Because that day was the first one since the racetrack attack, that the youngling had been well enough to do any such thing.
Arcee's attention drifted slowly from the movie on the holo-vid player. And instead of watching it, she looked around the youngling's small hospital room – her optics taking in the now familiar collection of stuffed toys on the recharge station and more on the chairs... the cards on the nightstand, the window ledge, and the shelf in the corner... and so many colored racing flags that hang from the recharge station rails. Gifts from their people – both Autobots and refugees. And still more arrived each day, in support of the little bot whose name the whole city knew so well now. The collection was still growing too – and amid the colorful clutter Arcee so easily spotted at least two new stuffed toys and a handful of cards, which now overflowed to the lower of the shelves.
"Can we send these stuffed things to the refugee center?" Cybershock asked suddenly – her optics now looking over said toys to instead of at the little holo-vid screen. She considered for barely more than a second before adding. "The newly arrived refugee younglings need them so much more than I do!"
Arcee only hugged her child just a little tighter then. Because despite her own still terrible state – recharging so much of her days away, unable to stand on her own feet, and with one arm still broken – her thoughts went first to her world's less fortunate people.
"We certainly can, if that's what you want to do," Arcee replied, smiling. She looked for a second at the little blue stuffed cyberhound in her daughter's arms – dropped off the past day by Smokescreen, and with its fuzzy body signed by several of the 'masters class' racers. "Not that one though of course. You'll want to keep that one."
"Yep," Cybershock's answer was immediate. "I'm keeping this one!"
"Repairs to the racetrack are nearly done already," Arcee said then – sure her daughter would smile at that news, and be relieved when sure enough, she did. "'Amateur class' should race again in a few days. And 'Masters' a couple of days after that."
She didn't mention anything about the 'Junior class' youngling racers though, not wanting to tell her little bot yet that the fate of the youngling's own league was now unknown entirely. Families were nervous. And rightly so – Arcee herself thought she'd be more than okay with her own child never again stepping onto the track. And by now she'd also heard plenty from Speedbreaker, about just how many of the world's smallest drivers themselves were unsure about ever racing again.
"Keep me posted on the stats, please Mama," Cybershock said, her tone hopeful as she looked back again toward the holo-vid screen, and the Earth movie still playing on it.
The little bot and her carrier both watched the movie for just a little longer before the youngling was once again looking away – staring instead at her carrier with hope-filled optics, and an uncertain expression on her face-plate.
"What if..." she began to ask slowly, hesitantly. "I came home tomorrow, Mama? Do you... think I could?"
"Oh.. baby..." Arcee muttered, sad as she wished for the same thing herself. She hugged her youngling daughter again – looking her over and seeing every bit of the sadness on her face plate now at being left out as life moved on around her.
"Hotwire brought you some schoolwork today," she said. "You were recharging when he did." She wasn't going to give her youngling the data-pads that said best friend had dropped off that morning. And she certainly wasn't going to push her to actually do much with them if she did finally decide to. But her youngling liked her schoolwork – and far too much to be okay with missing out on it for long. Sure enough, the little bot smiled then, her optics grateful, and her faceplate filled with interest – even if only for a fleeting moment, until the smile faded again. She sighed – the slow helpless sigh of a defeated youngling – and turned her attention back to the holo-vid movie again, watching as the 'bad boy' character now on the screen, was finally arrested for auto theft.
"Good afternoon!" Knockout's voice was the next to break through the quiet in the room. And he walked in slowly, letting the door slide shut behind him as he did.
"How are my two favorite ladies?" he asked, grinning, his med-kid in one hand, and an energon container for the youngling in the other. He paused a moment then, looking at the little screen of the holo-vid player and shaking his head just a little
"Arcee..." he asked, dismayed. "Tell me you are not seriously introducing our lovely little girl to the world of trashy Earth dramas!"
"May...be..." Arcee's reply was fast and laughing. And next to her, their youngling daughter giggled.
Knockout only sighed then, huffing a little under his intakes before his attention went fully to their youngling instead.
"That arm of yours needs to be re-wrapped today I think," he said. And he smiled then, assurance on his face-plate, before adding, "Perhaps you have a particular color preference."
Cybershock appeared to consider for a moment – clearly nervous about the likely need of another forced power down, however short. And she snuggled again tight against her carrier's body armour. Still, she smiled a little, boldly, as she said finally, "maybe... neon green?"
"Well, that absolutely would not match your paint," Arcee laughed, with her arms around the little bot. But the youngling only smiled again, confidant regardless.
"So?" she said back, undeterred. She lay still and quiet for a moment then, before she looked up again at her creator, helpful all over again.
"Can I go home soon?" she asked him – her every hope of a fast impending discharge from the hospital still so obvious despite her still so weakened state.
Knockout, to Arcee's surprise, actually appeared to consider for a moment. And slowly he nodded his head, hesitant but confidant all at once – that was clear on his face-plate, both emotions were.
"Tomorrow?" Cybershock's hope-filled excitement was entirely obvious. And again her creator nodded slowly.
"Tomorrow," he answered at once.
'Knockout,' Arcee's voice was urgent though their shared telepathic connection. 'You know I want her home as much as you do... as much as she herself wants to be there. But, are you sure...?'
'I'm sure.' Her mate's answer was immediate, and along with it she felt every hint of his confidence about the matter. 'She'll be walking soon, at least a little bit, maybe even as early as this evening. Regardless, we both know full well we can take care of her there, as well as in here at this point. so... let's bring our baby girl home!'
'Okay.' Arcee's answer was as simple as that. And she smiled again.
With his tiny, newborn son wiggling non-stop – held with one arm to the best of his creator's ability – Soundwave used his one remaining hand to pull up the heavy soft covers of the recharge station, before tugging the top straight, against the edges of the pillows. He hurried then across the small recharge room – his right foot nearly smashing against the legs of the first-frame recharging basket in the corner, with uncharacteristic clumsiness – to pull open the curtains and yank open the window, before he hurried back out into the hallway.
He rocked the baby a little, clumsy in his efforts and with his uncertainly screaming through his head, as he stood now in the wash station, straightening the hanging towels and shining up the countertop with a cleaning rag. He found the youngling washtub then – still full of oily water from the morning, and sitting forgotten inside the shower. And with a sigh, he promptly dumped it out, propping it up to dry in the corner of the shower, and assuring himself with some hesitation, that Firestorm would never need to know he'd forgotten all about it.
Still balancing the tiny bot in a one-arm hold, he moved on fast to the living room – adjusting curtains and the sofa cover and an area rug he'd somehow kicked aside earlier, before he collected up a couple of the youngling's fueling bottles – which he tossed into the sanitizer by the energon dispenser. He might have moved on then to the storage cupboards and the task of sorting through them in his quest for near-perfect organization. But the noise of the buzzer, on the other side of the apartment door, made him pause instead, alarmed and confused, strangely startled – and Soundwave was not a bot to ever have been so easily startled.
"Soundwave," a voice called from outside the door. Bulkhead – he recognized the sound of it at once. "Ya home?"
Soundwave crossed the room in a few long hurried steps and opened the apartment door with the press of a button beside it.
"We still hittin' the gym today or what?" Bulkhead's question was immediate. And Soundwave watched then as his once-enemy-now-turned-friend chuckled – his optics on the still squirming newborn balanced on his left arm.
"I am..." Soundwave hesitated – unwilling to admit to having forgotten about the planned gym trip entirely, but sure all the same that Bulkhead knew it regardless. "I am running late, I fear."
He turned to a little white table in the corner – forgoing the cupboard tidying entirely and with his tiny son still balanced on one arm – to wipe at it carefully with another damp rag.
"I... promised Firestorm this place would not burn down while she is at her paint shop!" he explained, so uncharacteristically flustered – nearly kicking the leg of a matching white chair as he turned around again. Bulkhead, behind him, just chuckled under his intakes.
"You sound so much like a new creator," the big bot said, his chuckling becoming full-on laughter as he shook his head, amused. "I never thought I'd ever see the day, man." He held out his heavy hands toward the newborn bot. "Can I...?"
Soundwave was hesitant for a long moment, considering until he recalled so easily just how many bots Firestorm allowed to hold their child. 'It's good for him,' she said so often, of his comfort around others. And Bulkhead – huge and clunky though he was – had most certainly held his fair share of tiny newborn bots before, and perfectly well too. Soundwave handed him the youngling slowly, grateful at once for his newly freed hand, as he pulled open the closet door beside him, to retrieve the folded stroller. He unfolded quickly – understanding at once how it worked with only one quick looked at the hinges and release catch – and nodded his thanks when Bulkhead gently placed the now nearly recharging baby bot into it without even jostling him from his contentment.
"I am..." Soundwave's words were hesitant again – considering carefully as he walked beside his friend, pushing the stroller in front of him as they walked slowly out onto the sidewalk. "Glad to see the city slowly becoming normal again after our recent attack..."
The state of the place, and the bots within it, were indeed returning to the way they had been – even if the process was slow and the people still uncertain. The roadways were busy with bots in alt-modes. And others, still in their bot modes walked in every direction on the sidewalks – all them of heading to... somewhere. Conversations were more common than they they had been in the several days before. And here and there laughter sprung up over the sounds of excited and chattering voices, and the whirring of engines.
"It's takin' a while," Bulk' muttered thoughtfully. "But we're gettin' there, yeah."
"Firestorm has been... eager to return to her work." Soundwave was hesitant again as he spoke. And even now, after years of simply being accepted as just another member of the Autobot team, he found it more than a little unnerving to speak openly to anyone besides his mate. "I was... nervous over watching her leave home alone today. But, she needs to 'get on with it' as well, as they say."
"I think I'll book a repainting appointment for myself sometime soon," Bulkhead mused. He held up his left arm – scuffed and dull as the rest of his body. And he chuckled again under his intakes. "I could sure use a new coat in a nice olive green! And I'm thinkin' about asking for a wrecker symbol, somewhere."
"Firestorm has... nice wax too," Soundwave said, smiling now – glad as surely anybot to simply be living his life at the moment, and chatting so idly with a bot he now called a friend. "Her own custom mix. And it smells... very good."
Bulkhead opened his mouth again, obviously about to say something in reply. But he didn't get a chance to say a thing – become somebot, leaping from the top of a single-story roof above, knocked him clear to the ground in one unexpected instant.
"Scrap!" Soundwave muttered the mild curse at once, He moved to pull tiny Stormwave quickly out of the stroller. But then he decided just as quickly against it – holding tightly to the handles instead, ready to make a move with just a second's warning.
"You have some bad taste in friends, Autobot, the bar-wielding bot – a still very young one, with his red and yellow paint scuffed and his body already sporting multiple large dents – growled.
Bulk' moved slowly – the intakes so clearly knocked clean out of him – to first sit up at the feet of the attacker and then to slowly stand up again. He barely made it to even halfway standing though, before the bully, likely still barely out of youngling-hood, kicked him hard enough in the side panel to send him falling down again.
"Frag off," Bulk' grumbled. And he raised a large and heavy fist in threat. But the attacker only laughed, snarling in his faceplate, as two more young bots jumped from the rooftop to join in on the brutality.
Soundwave was unsurprised when one of those two charged at him – a bent bar of his own in his hands. And Soundwave stepped aside at once, watching the young brute smash, gracelessly, into a directional signpost.
The second one though was still somewhere nearby – and Soundwave, in his uncharacteristic lack of judgment, had forgotten to account for him, while trying instead to assess any obvious damages to Bulkhead. And that bot sprung fast from behind, slamming his iron bar into the back of his head, knocking him onto his knees on the sidewalk, while all of the attackers laughed.
"Who'd have thought you could ever down Soundwave!" the red and yellow-painted fellow yelled. He turned his attention away from Bulkhead. And instead, he just waved his bar around in the air, laughing harder than the rest.
"I should place you under immediate arrest," Soundwave said, threatening – and entirely meaning it – over the sound of the mockery. But to little remaining surprise, all three just stood, glaring, bars in their hands and all of them now advancing forward – their intentions to quickly surround him obvious at once.
"You think you can come back to this world and just be some police-bot," one of the angry young bullies – a tall back and white one – snarled. His blue optics were filled with his rage. And his hand, still clutching tight to his makeshift weapon, trembled with emotion "You think your kind can ever be forgiven, now? It's because the 'cons got to go on living that we were attacked, on our own world.. because of 'cons that some kid could have died!"
Soundwave wanted for a moment to attack. And he knew he so easily could have. His electrified cables, still hidden away in his frame could have made quick work of it – knocking each one into power down in seconds flat. But he saw the pain in that young bot's optics – in the optics of all three of them, right along with their rage and their confusion... and their young and impulsive need to react to something they absolutely knew, was absolutely wrong in their world.
"Please," Soundwave said, appealing to reason in a way he'd once never would have come close to considering before simply using murderous force. "I... know that unfortunate youngling... the one that was injured. Don't think for a moment I'm not as angry as anyone..."
"My brother was on the racetrack that day the bomb dropped from the sky," the furious young bot growled. "He competed against her, laughed and trashed talked with her. And then one day he watched her nearly offline. It could have been him! And my sister was in the stands too! She'll remember that day for the rest of her life. Frag you... you and your kind!"
There was chaos all around them then – a fourth young bot appearing from somewhere in another direction... Bulkhead giving chase at once, yelling over the horrified gasps of bystanders about how he'd like to kick his tailpipe... the noise of each of the original three taunting each other to be the first to smash Soundwave's face-plate in. There were blows then – painful, and and from every direction at once... and somewhere close by, a tiny youngling started crying loudly.
"Stormwave!" Soundwave screamed over the madness, and with little thought of himself anymore. "Please..." he was pleading and he knew it. But he didn't care. "I need to get my son!"
"He's better off without you," one young bot hissed, his voice filled with venom and his optics blazing blue. "Better off dead too, with a 'con for a creator!"
"Frag you!" Soundwave growled. And his every wish then was that he had not been so kind just moments before, as one bar, then another smashed against his faceplate without a hint of the mercy he had tried to show to his attackers.
The street was silent when Soundwave snapped back into awareness. And he wondered for barely a second, how long he'd laid there, bleeding and injured, before he sat up, frantically and painfully – searching around for his newborn as energon ran into his optics.
"Storm...wave..." his voice was weak and shaky. And he knew at once, he was injured badly, as he tried to stand, failed at once, and fell to the sidewalk in a crumpled and trembling heap. Bulkhead was gone too – Soundwave understood that in the next second, looking around once again, frantically. He recalled slowly that he'd gone after the fourth of their attackers... the world around him spun fast, and he saw energon pooling on the sidewalk. Still, he tried again to get to his feet – his processor screaming only that he had to find the baby. But he fell right back down again, crashing to the ground before he'd even reached his knees. And in that second he could only cry helplessly and terrified... every bit of his spark frantic for his tiny son, whose cries he now longed to hear but didn't.
"Sir..." the voice suddenly behind him was quiet, uncertain, and just as shaky as his own. And he felt the metal fingers of a small hand, as it tapped him lightly on the shoulder panel. There were cries then too – the soft whimpers of a tiny youngling in the final stages of calming himself down after being jarred awake mercilessly.
"Sir... I have your baby..."
Soundwave turned, halfway to his knees again, to look at this new bot. And to his shock, dismay, and near horror, he found himself – with energon still flowing into his optics – looking at a very small predacon... One that held Stormwave carefully, in small and trembling sharp-clawed hands.
The predacon youngling shoved Stormwave quickly back into his creator's arms. And for a moment he just stood there, watching with as much uncertainty as before, as Soundwave held his tiny son tight, fighting back a wave of coolant tears, and gesturing silently, trying to say something more as he struggled with a now glitching voice box.
"Inquiry-" he said finally, defaulting to the formal shorthand speech he hadn't used in years, and realizing only after the fact that he'd done so at all. "Who... are you?"
"I am, Ironforge..." The little predacon was hesitant as he spoke, answering the question with his head down and staring at the sidewalk under his metal-taloned feet. He looked around him nervously, with optics darting one way, then another quickly – so clearly outside of any environment in which he could truly have felt comfortable.
"I cannot ever thank you enough," Soundwave answered, as a hundred questions raced through his processor, right alongside his relief and the fast-growing pain from his injuries. Where in Primus' name had that young predacon even come from?
He couldn't ask a thing about that though – because the little one was gone then, transforming at once into a perfectly formed, miniature beast-mode, that quickly flew off into the sky on fast-flapping wings. And Soundwave fell back to the sidewalk then, fighting for his last shreds of consciousness, while he held his now wailing baby in his bleeding, dented arms.
"Well..." Ratchet sighed, tired and in fast-increasing need of refueling – but confidant all the same. "Soundwave is alright. Granted, it will likely be a while, days at least, until he's back on his feet. But he'll certainly live, and he's functional."
Firestorm – sitting in a waiting room chair, and hugged tightly by Speedbreaker, while she held her tiny newborn son in her arms – jumped up at once, gently shaking off her friend's concerned hold, to stand, facing the medi-bot with her optics filled with coolant.
"Th... thank you," she said, stammering a little with her emotions. She held Stormwave closer to her paneling – her fear for him every bit as great as her fear for her bondmate, and her relief at losing neither one of them intense enough to make her knees close to giving out beneath her.
"Please... may I see him?"
"Of course you may." Ratchet rested a strong hand on her small shoulder panel, and through it he could feel her steady trembling. "He's awake at the moment. Or at least he was before I left to speak with you. He will most certainly fall back into recharge though soon enough. I can't lie. That beating he took was the worst I've seen in this new post-war world..." he balled up the hand not still resting on the mini-bot's shoulder into a tight fist. And for a brief second, he resisted the urge to punch the nearest wall. "I will never understand what in the name of the all spark possessed multiple young bots to gang up on one like that... what will it ever accomplish, but more energon spilled in our streets, and a poor youngling who could have all to easily been without a creator."
"Was it really that bad?" Firestorm asked, her tears falling again, and her hold on the baby still firmer, until as he began to wiggle in her arms in the first hints of slight distress. She loosened her hold then, at once. And instead, she just stood, holding him and crying harder.
Ratchet nodded slowly, hesitant, before he gently pushed her in the direction of the closed door to a room across the hall.
"Go on, and talk to him for a bit," the medi-bot said. He needs to see you as much as you need to see him. And he needs to see his son too... needs to be sure, with his own optics that the baby is truly alright."
"Ratchet...?"
Bulkhead's voice, suddenly behind him, made the old medi-bot turn around quickly. And in the next second, he faced the green-pained bot and the end of the corridor in which he stood – hands balled into fists of his own and a baffled, lost, and overwhelmed look on his face plate.
"We were on our way to the gym when those bots came out of nowhere," he said. And Ratchet took a confused moment to understand that he was simply speaking of his intended plans with Soundwave. The green bot sighed, looking at the floor for a moment before he clenched his fists tighter – surely in his own inborn need to punch things, and with nothing currently around to punch. "What the frag is Cybertron coming to when a couple of bots can't even go and work out without someone getting jumped?"
"Ultra Magnus tells me you caught one of the attackers down the block," Ratchet said. He smacked Bulk' lightly across the backs of his shoulders, before letting his hand rest for a moment on his shoulder panel, proudly. "He said you managed to make a perfectly efficient citizen's arrest..."
"Yeah." Bulkhead nodded, his expression thoughtful, if not still entirely troubled. "That bot had Soundwave and Firestorm's baby. That's why I chased him, instead of fighting off the other three. But still..."
"You made the right call, Bulk," Ratchet said, assuring as he clapped his teammate lightly on the back – knowing full well that the green bot would only question himself repeatedly in the coming days regardless of a single thing he said because he couldn't help it. "It's the one I think any bot would, and should have made."
"I never expected in a million years I'd see that little youngling in the claws of a predacon, by the time I got to him." The big bot shrugged – a nervous and uncertain kind of shrug, of his big shoulders. And then he chuckled just a little – a nervous sort of chuckle. "I mighta chased right on after him too. But he was headin' straight back toward Soundwave. Hardly a real good reason to trust a fragging beast, and I know that much. But, he was surely no older than Switch. I didn't see a threat. I just saw some kid mostly... a kid who shouldn't have been in that mess any more than any other one."
Ratchet huffed then under his intakes – thinking it over, and no less baffled and uneasy than he'd been at the first hints of the incident, as heard from Ultra Magnus via comms, while he'd repaired Soundwave. He resisted every growing urge to lean, for just a moment, against the wall behind him – exhausted though he was from his work. Instead, he forced himself to stand up straighter, shaking his head to shake off his unease.
"A predacon, downtown," he muttered. "And simply wandering around in the middle of the day... I fear more is changing now on Cybertron than just a still-growing number of angry bots around here. That attack against Soundwave today was certainly bad enough. I hate to even think of what could happen if predacons make a habit of wandering into the city, and they start slugging it out with our people."
"For what it's worth..." Speedbreaker – who Ratchet had, much to his own regret, forgotten all about while she sat, silent on a waiting room chair – muttered thoughtfully, "'Bee talks so much about the former Prime. Even now, after so many years... I almost feel like I knew the bot myself because of it. Optimus himself believed so strongly in a world where more than one race can peacefully exist, together. And we've never had a violent incident yet."
"Speedy's right." Bulkhead's response was both immediate and confidant. "That little predacon gave me no reason at all to think he had any want or need to hurt anyone. I'm no expert, but I think he was lost.. like he got turned around flyin' and was trying to get right back out of town again."
"That was just a predacon youngling." Ratchet huffed loudly, still just as uneasy as ever. "We don;t know where he came from exactly. Because we don't know anymore where the predacons even live, other than somewhere, fully unspecific, in the mountains to the North. We don't know how many younglings there are, now – or for that matter how many predacons in general, though we've known for years that they are clearly reproducing! We don't know much anymore, because I haven't perused finding out. I left them alone because they left us alone – as per the agreement with Predaking and Shockwave. But now, with one – even a little one – finding his way into our city, I fear that simply leaving them to it, was a bad mistake on my part."
"So," Bulk' gave another shrug of his shoulders, before he stood up straighter again. "Let's go pay Shockwave a visit. It's been months since anyone's even seen him in town for supplies. I'd say it's time we had a chat."
"Mama?" Cybershock's optics were half closed, as she half-sat and half-laid on the padded bench outside on her family's small apartment balcony.
Arcee considered bringing her back inside the apartment – she'd considered it a few times in the past while. But the youngling was so clearly happy there, outside, in the evening air. And so she sighed her resignation, deciding to leave her like that for a while longer still. And instead, she simply pulled the light black and while checked blanket higher up over her little one's chest panel, and moved herself carefully to sit closer to her on the comfortable bench.
"Yes?" she asked, calmly and quietly.
"I want to tell you about something," Cybershock said. He optics were fully open now. And she sat up just a little more – with some obvious effort to do so – on the bench. For a good moment, she just stayed like that, silent, and looking out over the city around them. Finally, she turned back to her carrier again, and spoke, hesitantly. "I... thought at first I might have just dreamed it. And maybe I did. But it seemed so... real! And... and..." She began to talk faster then, stumbling over her words just a bit in the youngling excitement she was still fully capable of even then. "And, you were there too. We traveled to... somewhere...?" She hesitated for a second, her optics slowly blinking as she searched her little processor for a way to explain it any better than that. Then she began to speak again, faster and excited all over again, smiling as she did so. "We... we met the last of the Primes. You... and he talked about old times. And... and he talked to me too..."
Arcee sat for a long moment then herself, just staring out over the city, and watching as lights slowly came on in the windows of apartments in every direction as the sun went down. She looked back at her child then – every bit of little bot's expression assuring her that she was anything but horrified, even given the otherworldly nature of the event of which she spoke. Arcee smiled then, sighing. But she neither confirmed nor denied the reality of any of it – unsure though was was what to make of it herself.
"He said..." Cybershock was looking back at her carrier then, intently and staring. "He said you are carrying a newspark, Mama!"
The youngling bot lay on the bench, her head resting against her carrier's side panels, and her un-injured leg swinging idly over the edge and out from under her blanket. She blinked her optics again, slowly, considering.
"It is true, Mama?" She asked the question, slowly. And Arcee, seizing the unexpected opportunity in an instant just nodded, smiling brighter.
"I... wanted to tell you all about it when you're better," she said – startled when her youngling daughter burst immediately into shaking cries in her arms.
"I know you and Daddy tried so hard.. for so long," the little bot said – her faceplate hidden against her carrier's armour, and her small voice muffled as a result. "I saw you crying so many times while you sorted through my old first-frame things... and... and you cried at the racetrack... tired not to in the marketplace... You look... happy now. And that makes me happy too!"
"You know of course that we will still love you, just as much as we love the newspark..." Arcee said, hesitant at once, and stopping before she'd fully finished speaking. Of course, her youngling knew that! Cybershock had never had one single reason to ever have believed otherwise... Sure enough, the little bot smiled brightly, her happy tears – and indeed they were now undeniably happy ones – stopping again as she looked up.
"I can help you with anything you need, Mama," she said so easily – speaking with excitement again as her optics began to dim, sleepily. "And someday I'll teach him to race..."
Notes/ Yeah this is definitely a short one. But this chapter just feels, 'done' to me, and I don't want to force length. I'll be starting the next one quickly though, and hopefully have it up soon enough!
Yeah... the predacons are definitely playing a bigger role now (I certainly never forgot about those guys.) And their role will become even more significant, because... prehistoric metal dragons? Heck yeah!