Baby Boom (or, Why you should always read the manual first) Chapter 3

Title (kindly provided by

newsy891): Baby Boom (or, Why you should always read the manual first)
'Verse: G1 Transformers
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing

Red Alert scanned his monitors, and frowned, contemplating the past two weeks. Ever since the six mechs had been turned into sparklings, the Ark had become a hive of activity. The little bots were a source of much curiosity (Perceptor had been thrilled, and was furiously working with Skyfire on a way to reverse the process), and the mechs the sparklings had imprinted on had no shortage of willing sparkling sitters, after the sparklings had adjusted to having to leave their ‘imprintees’ for periods of time, of course.

The acceptance of the baby jets had taken a little longer, as expected. But Sideswipe had been remarkably good with Skywarp (another astonishing event to be noted), even though the sparkling was easily the most mischievous of the six (his favourite game seemed to be ‘Tackle Sideswipe’). Red Alert suspected the red twin would have been run ragged by the first day if Sunstreaker had not stepped in to help.

By glaring the little scraplet into behaving. Whereupon Sideswipe had chewed out his brother for scaring the sparkling.

Sideswipe’s ability with Skywarp was aided by his jetpack, which helped him keep up with the small flier. As such he was often the first called upon to watch all three of the seekers, who seemed to retain their trine connection, preferring to be near each other when not with their caretakers, and Wheeljack, who would not be separated from Starscream. And since he was already watching four of the sparklings, he’d more often than not get saddled with the remaining two as well, necessitating Sunstreaker’s help.

This remarkable behaviour was never as evident as when some of the Aerialbots had come across the sparklings, being watched by the twins for the day. The weather had been pleasant, and the twins had all six of the sparklings outside and exploring under their watchful gaze, when Air Raid and Slingshot came in from patrol. Sideswipe had been gently teasing the baby seekers, hovering alongside the three, then going slightly higher than their inhibited thrusters could propel them.

The seekerlings had been trying to reach the frontliner, and Slingshot had laughed at their efforts. There had been much unhappy shrilling from Starscream, causing the bigger flier to snicker some more, and Skywarp had charged straight at him, only to be caught and held at arm’s length while he clicked furiously at the pair. Slingshot had then taken off, still holding the sparkling, rising quickly and eliciting a frightened cry from Skywarp.

As expected, Sideswipe sent Slingshot to the med bay soon after, and again as expected got sent to the brig himself (with a much lightened sentence due to circumstances). What no one expected was for Skywarp to show up in the brig, chirping as he clung to the surprised red Lamborghini, and then waving at the surprised yellow Lamborghini who’d come down to break the news that he’d lost the sparkling. Said sparkling was remarkably better behaved after his fright, sticking close to Sideswipe with a vengeance.

Red Alert sighed. Speaking of losing sparklings, sparkling proofing the Ark was a job and a half, even with all the willing hands available to him. And somehow the sparklings managed to thwart all of his safety measures just fine. Jazz, apparently, had been sparked to be head of Special Ops. Both Mirage and Bumblebee were driven to very extreme measures to keep track of their sparkling, going so far as to place a tracking device on the baby Porsche, and taking turns at keeping watch on him. Neither mech recharged at the same time now, one was always online, and keeping an optic on Jazz.

Not that it helped much. Jazz could be counted on to vanish from one or the other’s care regular as clockwork, only to turn up in the strangest of places. Most of the Autobots were getting used to this, and had started carrying the sparkling back to his caretakers whenever they spotted him (this was, of course, dependant on if they could catch him, a task made somewhat easier by the sparklings’ common need for a lot of recharge).

Mirage had noted, after a particularly long period of searching for Jazz only to find him in recharge on the spy’s very own berth, that it was as if their former superior was running them through a rather gruelling training program.

Things for the Spec Ops pair had improved once Spike and Carly (who’d wondered why Bumblebee had been incommunicado for so long) paid them a visit. Carly had laid eyes on the Porsche, who now came up to her waist when seated on the ground, and had proclaimed Jazz the cutest thing and proceeded to hug him, exclaiming all the while that the mech was finally ‘cuddle sized’.

She then proceeded to do the same to the other sparklings, and many image captures were taken of the bewildered looks on the seekerlings’ faces. Jazz gained an additional pair of watchers after that, and, being his size, they were much better at keeping track of him.

Ratchet was not faring much better, what with having two of the little mechs attached to him. Actually, the security director amended, the medic was, actually getting a proper amount of recharge for once. Wheeljack was proving to be the very clingy sort at recharge time, and would only settle if Ratchet was there beside him. Wheeljack fussing often led to Starscream wailing, and in the interests of the audios of all concerned it was agreed that Ratchet should just suck it up and take as many naps as his sparklings demanded.

Skyfire too, was doing very well with Thundercracker. That seekerling was content to watch Skyfire in his lab, listening to the shuttle talk out loud about his research and things in general to entertain the sparkling, and Skyfire had confessed that he kind of liked having the sparkling to talk to, even if the tiny mech couldn’t understand him. He also mentioned that at times, Thundercracker had even seemed to respond at the appropriate intervals in the one sided conversations.

Their final sparkling, Prowl, had thankfully been one of the first to tolerate being separated from Optimus. Before, however, the unfortunate mechs could not leave their sparkling’s sight without an audible protest, or, in the case of Prowl, being subjected to the most spark-rending of abandoned looks. The Prime, like all the imprinted upon mechs, had to keep Prowl with him constantly at first, taking him everywhere. As the leader of the Autobot forces, this made for a few funny incidents when meeting with human dignitaries and officials.

Red Alert stifled a laugh. It had been joked that Optimus was the one who couldn’t take being separated from Prowl, especially after the little Datsun applied the ‘look’. It had been very entertaining to see Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and bearer of the Matrix, fold like a deck of cards each time he was subjected to that expression. Even as a sparkling, Prowl could cow even the unruliest mech with a glance, ensuring that the rest of the crew were perfectly behaved around the small mechs.

But Prowl’s behaviour concerned him the most. The sparkling was not acting like he’d expected from their shared younglinghood. Prowl was well behaved, and ate and napped without fuss. The other mechs had looked at him strangely when he mentioned how oddly Prowl was acting, and he’d given up on convincing them. But it was odd, and as he considered the matter, more unusual details started to stand out.

The. Fraggers.

The security director shot up from his chair and stalked out in the direction of the Prime’s office, where the sparklings were all gathered today. Being one of the most secure and thus non-sparkling-escapable rooms in the Ark, Optimus’s office was the next best choice for a sparkling holding area when their caretakers all had duties or desperately needed recharge. And, since their Commanding Officer didn’t have any bureaucrats or suchlike to deal with today (or rather, had cleared his schedule of those meetings using the excuse), he’d volunteered for sparkling watch.

Rapping on the mech’s office door, he was told to enter carefully. Teasing the door open a crack, he blocked Jazz’s escape attempt with a pede, and nudged the smaller mech gently back until he could slip past and shut the door. A disappointed chirp sounded from the little Spec Ops mech, and Red Alert dealt Jazz a look, noticing a turbopuppy pile of offline seekerlings at the foot of the desk, and Wheeljack with them, visibly fighting the need to join them in recharge. He might have to run the sparkling to Ratchet in a short while (although, if his suspicions were correct...).

Turning to Optimus, he had to stop and stare as another small black and white mech peered back at him from atop the Prime’s desk, holding on to a datapad nearly half his height.

Prowl blinked at him, doorwings perking curiously, then proceeded to gnaw on a corner of the datapad.

“Good afternoon, Red Alert. What can I do for you?” Optimus’s query drew the Lamborghini’s attention back to the matter at hand.

“You can go get refuelled. You’ve been in here all day, and if you work yourself into offlining again Ratchet will rebuild you as a trash compactor.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’ll get some energon after I’m done with the requisitions for Ratchet. Speaking of which, can you help me locate the file? I seem to have misplaced the datapad.”

At the word ‘datapad’, the sparkling on the Prime’s desk chirped, holding out the one he’d been chewing on. Smiling at the baby SIC, Optimus took it from him.

“Thank you, Prowl. Still doing your job, aren’t you?” The Prime glanced at the pad he now held, expression going thoughtful.

“Huh. Never mind, Red Alert. Seems like I’ve found it.”

“Imagine that.” The security mech’s reply was dry, though Optimus didn’t seem to notice as he scanned the datapad and signed off on it.

“Well, you’re done with it, now go. I’ll watch the sparklings.”

Red Alert chivvied his commander out the door, again keeping Jazz from escaping, then turned to glare at Prowl, still perched on the desk. At his feet, he heard the Porsche click in amusement, and from the Special Ops mech a sound clip of a human child’s voice sounded. “Busted.”

“Indeed. Now, explain.”