(no subject)

[akisawana]

When the doorbell rang, Thundercracker set He Who Needs To Learn Some Patience on Skywarp’s lap. Skywarp was technically recharging, but he retained enough awareness to reach out and snag the moros' arm. “Nobody move,” Thundercracker told the sleeping moros, the red one staring at the ceiling, the twins curled around each other on the floor, and Skywarp who might not have been able to if he wanted.
Ratchet was on the other side of the door, followed by his assistant Drift with a large box and another mech, vaguely familiar, with a smaller box. Thundercracker regarded the last mech suspiciously -he was short but not quite a minibot, with lighted fins on the side of his head and no mouth. “Who are you?” Thundercracker asked, not caring if his tone was brusque.
Ratchet looked like he was going to protest, but the unfamiliar mech pushed past him, flicking a recognition scan over Thundercracker. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Wheeljack. I’m Ratchet’s sieziegos.”
Thundercracker flicked his own recognition scan over Wheeljack, a little deeper than strictly polite, but there were four mori and Skywarp to think of, and Jhiaxus’ reach was long. Wheeljack wasn’t carrying any weapons, though, and Thundercracker was fairly certain he could take the mech down if he had to.
With a sharp nod, Thundercracker stepped back. “We come bearing gifts!” Wheeljack chirped. He was a chipper little thing. Thundercracker wondered how Ratchet could stand him. Drift offered Thundercracker an apologetic smile as he trailed the other two inside.
Ratchet found the living room easily enough, and pointed Drift towards the kitchen. Wheeljack set down his box and made to follow, but Thundercracker stood in their way. “What are you doing?”
“We brought you a filter machine!” Wheeljack’s fins flashed a bright, cheery lavender.
“A wha?” Skywarp asked from the couch.
“A filter machine! To make moros bottles!”
“Those don’t exist,” Thundercracker said slowly, as Ratchet demanded Skywarp let him check out the Seeker. Mori were fed entirely by energon filtered through a grown mech’s body, and one moros would take in the supply of two or three adults. With four mori, and Skywarp unable to produce without risking his own health, they had been using donated energon to supplement what little Thundercracker had, and Starscream fed the fifth entirely on his own. But the donated stuff was in short supply, and they had no way of knowing what was in it ahead of time-the twins already had one bad reaction to alnico- and if there was any alternative, Thundercracker would have found out by now.
“That’s because I just invented it,” Wheeljack was far too happy about his invention. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise.”
Thundercracker looked at him, letting his face speak his feelings.
“It won’t explode! I tested it and everything.” Wheeljack set his box on the floor and rummaged around in it, finally producing a bottle. “Here,” he said, offering it to Thundercracker. “Try it.”
Thundercracker twisted the bottle open and sipped just a little of it, just enough for his chemoreceptors to analyze. It came back as ultra-filtered energon, vrefos grade, with a higher mineral density than mech-produced energon, but none of the nanites so essential to a vrefos’ survival.
“It’s not perfect,” Wheeljack said, flashing an apologetic blue, “but I’ve gotten it so you can supplement with all five yourself and, you know.”
“Thank you,” Thundercracker said, trying to sound properly grateful. It was hard. The mech kept flashing colors.
“You and Drift, go set it up in the kitchen,” Ratchet ordered, and Thundercracker had to fight to halt his vocalizer. Ratchet had invaded and conquered his house to help, he reminded himself, and a wise soldier never argued with a medic. “Well,” Ratchet continued to Skywarp, “you’re not going to die today. Probably. You’re at twenty-five percent, so if it was anyone but you I’d say you were two steps from the Well, but I know you by now. Let me see that moros.”
“Why?” Skywarp asked, not relinquishing the moros he held.
“To make sure he’s not going to die.”
Skywarp handed him over immediately, but Thundercracker glared at Ratchet, medic or Senator or not, some things were just uncalled for. “We’ve managed to keep them alive at home for three days,” he said, levelly as he could.
“I know.” Ratchet’s optics were distant as he scanned the data from the mercifully quiet vrefos. “But every new moros is inspected by a doctor three days after leaving the hospital. I thought,” and the sarcasm was thick enough in Ratchet’s voice for the moros to grab hold of and chew, “that you would appreciate a home visit, rather than hauling all five of these down to the office.”
“Thank you,” Thundercracker ground out. “Nobody told me about that.”
Ratchet made a noise that Thundercracker chose not to believe was a snort. Ratchet was going above and beyond the call of duty here, he’d earned a little irritation with Thundercracker’s ill-preparedness. “You did know you’d be bringing home mori?” the doctor asked, like he hadn’t been warning them to not get their hopes up for paracycles. He turned back to the moros in his arms, muttering under his breath about idiots who spent all their time planning for the birth with no thought to the tenkos.
Thundercracker retreated in the direction of the kitchen. Ratchet called after him, “Tell Wheeljack this one needs a paci.”
Wheeljack was cheerfully directing Drift in the construction of the machine, which seemed to involve a lot of tubing and a lot of Drift holding things up for Wheeljack to screw together. The secretary nodded gravely at Thundercracker, who nodded back. Drift was a good kid. He had a bad past, from what Thundercracker heard, but that didn’t make him any less of a good kid. Thundercracker respected anyone so committed to self-improvement. And who could spend so much time in Ratchet’s company without flinging himself out a window.
“All right, it’s ready!” Wheeljack said. “Do you have a bottle in here?”
“In the autoclave,” Thundercracker said. Drift was standing in front of the appliance, and he fetched one of the small silicate bottles.
“Now, you wanna put the bottle in here, obviously, and you hit the big button, and tada!” Wheeljack demonstrated, and the bottle filled with a single ounce of energon. “It’ll do one ounce at a time, so when they get bigger just hit the button as many times as you need. Once a day, pop out this chip and plug it into the cradles, the machine will calibrate itself.” Wheeljack tapped a protruding circle that was just slightly bigger than a cradle hookup.
“Where does the energon come from?” Thundercracker asked, curious despite himself. This machine changed everything. This machine would make this crazy idea workable.
“Just pour whatever you have in the hopper up here.” Wheeljack indicated a hatch on top of the machine. “It’ll filter out the vrefos stuff just as easy as your own systems. Uses the same kinda filter too, you’ll need to replace it every deca-cycle or so.” Wheeljack pulled a filter halfway out the side of the machine, the same kind of filter Thundercracker slotted into his own chest every couple of days to produce the ultra-rarified energon the vrefi needed. “Now it’s gonna take a few hours; I modelled it after Starscream since he’s who I could getta hold’ve, but it works about three times as slow as him. So you want to fill the reservoir and it’ll sit just fine. Half this bulk is climate-control.” And indeed, the machine took up nearly half the counter. “It’ll hold about a hundred ounces at a time, enough energon for you for a day. If I was designing this for mass-production, I’d give it a quarter of that capacity, but you have four.”
From the living room, He Who Needs to Learn Some Patience started crying, but since it was his “I am not actually hungry but I want to eat” cry and both Skywarp and Ratchet were in there, Thundercracker didn’t immediately run into the other room. Instead, he nodded along to Wheeljack’s explanation. It seemed simple enough. “Why aren’t you designing this for mass-production?”
Wheeljack flashed a complicated bit of ultraviolet. “Needed someone to use the prototype. Me an’ Ratch, we don’t know nobody with kids, an’ we’re done with them our own selves.” He picked up the box and headed back into the living room.
“That’s because Ratchet won’t have any more after what happened with their youngest,” Drift murmured, following Wheeljack.
“What happened?”
“He named himself Slag.” Drift’s face was perfectly straight, a little too straight, but Drift never lied.
Before Thundercracker could properly process that, he heard Ratchet say, “Who in the slagging nine pits of cold Neutrino hell fed you that line?”
Skywarp was clutching a wailing vrefos to himself, while Ratchet was simultaneously yelling at him and scanning He Who Insists On Sleeping Transformed. Wheeljack was digging through a box, unconcerned.
“What line?” Thundercracker interrupted, because a blind mech could see Skywarp would tell Ratchet anything to make him stop yelling, just didn’t know what the magic words were.
“That mori given pacis forget how to suck. Primus, I’ve seen Sykwhores better prepared for tekni than you three.”
Thundercracker gave Ratchet his best “what are you talking about, you crazy mech,” slow blink. “Sykwhores have better survival rates,” he said, calmly as he could. Sometimes words were far more effective weapons than rifles. “We’re quite prepared for recycling, on your recommendation.”
Ratchet gave him a look that would melt a lesser mech, but Thundercracker was right and they both knew it. “Here’s one!” Wheeljack flashed blinding-yellow and surfaced with what looked like a bottle top attached to a prisoner gag. He popped it into the mouth of He Who Really Needs To Stop Crying, and the large vrefi stopped immediately, sucking away contentedly. “Now as long as he quits before he starts school, that won’t hurt him a bit,” Wheeljack said to Thundercracker. “Let him suck on it as much as he wants. Kid’s got an oral fixation and that’ll make your life unbelievably easier.”
Skywarp stroked the vrefos’ back and opened his mouth to apologize. Ratchet rolled his optics and interrupted, “There is so much idiot propaganda floating around, I swear there’s an organized conspiracy to keep genei completely unable to participate in public life. To what end, I don’t know.” He looked at Thundercracker. “With these five, bad advice is a waste of time at best, so as long as their numbers are green, do whatever gets you through the night.”
Skywarp nodded dumbly, Thundercracker shrugged and took He Who Is Going to Roll Right out the Door from Ratchet. “The machine will help. Thank you.”
“Those two look good,” Ratchet said, sitting on the floor to check one of the twins. “Any major problem you’d be able to see, of course, though I wouldn’t trust just anyone to do it. I’m looking for small problems that will become major. You’re getting their joints greased?”
“We stick to a schedule.” Since the mori had neither the hardware nor the software to keep their moving parts properly lubricated, it was necessary to grease the joints every four hours. Now it was easy enough, if time-consuming with four of them, but as they grew old enough to fight, it would be more difficult, and Thundercracker was not looking forward to it. The procedure could be a bit messy, and until Skywarp could reliably walk to the station they’d set up and back without falling over it was Thundercracker’s duty alone.
But since he was managing to feed the mori fully half the time, and take care of his own basic needs, Thundercracker figured Skywarp would be able to help by the time the mori could run away. Starscream had worried that Skywarp would be another helpless person dependent on Thundercracker for everything, and First Aid hadn’t had much evidence to disabuse him of that notion, but as weak as Skywarp was these days, he was still light-years ahead of even the most optimistic projections.
“Welcome to your life for the next few paracycles,” Ratchet said. “You are getting help?”
Thundercracker shrugged, shifting the red nipio as he transformed to fall asleep. “Don’t really need it.”
Ratchet frowned, concentration turned inward. Wheeljack said, “Now’s the time to arrange for some. Get some friends, we’re always up for it, and get the kiddos used to them before you’re calling around looking for someone to keep an eye on them while you sit down and drink a whole cube at once to save your sanity.” He picked up Surprise, who stared at his flashing fins.
Thundercracker doubted it would ever get as bad as all that, but he filed away Wheeljack’s offer anyways. “Is everything alright?” he asked Ratchet.
“Yes,” Ratchet said, disengaging from the moros and swapping with Wheeljack. “There was something anomalous in his code, but I tracked it down and it was nothing.”
Thundercracker channeled Starscream's best “don’t lie to me” look.
“The amount of nanites showing up on a preliminary survey may have been a sign he’s not absorbing them properly,” Ratchet said, plugging in for the last check. “But his last few bottles must have been light on them since a deeper scan showed plenty in his reservoir. Perfectly normal variation. If you’re still worried, tonight plug him into a cradle and ask it for variable nineteen eighty-four, and as long as it’s above a hundred and thirteen, which it will be, he’s fine.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then check again at a decent klik tomorrow morning and if by some dark miracle it still isn’t, call me.” Wheeljack handed Thundercracker the moros in question. It was a little awkward still for Thundercracker to juggle two, especially when one was in alt-mode, but he wasn’t about to hand one off to Drift. The secretary had retreated so far back away from the mori he was trying to alloy himself with the wall. Nothing good ever came of handing a vrefos to someone who didn’t want to hold one.
Skywarp, showing signs of life for the first time in a while, held his hands out for Surprise. “But they’re all okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ratchet said, coiling up his cord. “They’re all just fine, by any metric. When your biggest problem is not giving one a paci enough, you’re doing a marvelous job.”
“There’s some more pacis in the box, and some bottles,” Wheeljack said. “And some extra sparangi. You can never have too many sparangi.”
“Thank you,” Skywarp said, Surprise tucked against his shoulder. Drift peeled himself off the wall at a look from Ratchet.
“You’re welcome,” Wheeljack flashed pink. “We’ll get out of your hair. Call if you need anything, yeah?”
“You’re leaving already?” Skywarp had that hiding surprise look on his face. Thundercracker wondered if he’d dozed off.
“Don’t want to throw them off schedule,” Ratchet said, and it wasn’t mocking thought it could have been.
And then they were gone, and Thundercracker was once again left alone with five helpless mechs. But at least now he had a way to feed them all. He set down the red one next to Skywarp, sat down on his other side, and started feeding He Who Needs More Nanites.
He wished Starscream was there.

Starscream looked up as the door opened. Drift was on the other side, and leaning on him was…Skywarp? Starscream opened his cockpit to unplug the moros, and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Ratchet wanted to talk to me,” Skywarp shrugged, making his way to the room’s other chair with Drift’s help. The secretary slipped out as soon as Skywarp was settled, and Starscream handed the vrefos over to his enkyos. “And how are you, little one?” Skywarp cooed.
Starscream stood, and stretched out kinked cables, and tried not to listen to Skywarp embarrassing himself all over the moros. “Ratchet wanted to talk to you here?”
“Yeah,” Skywarp confirmed, offering the little one a finger to gnaw on. “Sent Drift to come get me and everything.”
“And you left Thundercracker alone with four mori.” Starscream rubbed his hand over his face. “Why do you hate him?”
“He’ll do fine,” Skywarp said. “He’s got Wheeljack’s freq, and Novalight’s. Yes, your trefos will do just fine by himself, your nosoki won’t give him any trouble.”
Starscream highly doubted that. If nothing else, they were all the spawn of Skywarp. “Did Ratchet happen to mention what he wanted to talk about?”
“He wanted you to be here too,” Skywarp said, which was not what he asked and answered his question. “How many times today?”
Hooking his chair with a foot, Starscream sat back in it and waited for Ratchet, reveling in the chance to not be focused on the moros for a few minutes. He didn’t regret taking charge of the smallest and the weakest of the five, but just because he was the most suited didn’t mean Starscream had to like this deathwatch.
“Four,” he said. Four times this day the little one’s spark had surged and sped up in its chamber, spilling radiation and energy in crackling waves along the small body. His armor warped and cracked under the pressure, wires burnt out and what little self-repair any nipio his age would have was taxed to the limit. Worse, the surges took up an incredible amount of fuel and he was so small, so weak, it was hard to replace it. It would be impossible without the direct line to his tank, but that was only so big.
They were getting stronger, too. Eventually, one of them would hit so hard it would crack some internal component beyond repair, burn away too much fuel, dispel the cohesion of his very spark. Ratchet hadn’t even shown up for two days, sending instead Ambulon or First Aid to check the vrefos over after each episode. They were both very familiar with the case…but both their specialized training was for the period before the vrefi detached. A fully rogimed vrefos with such unique needs was far out of their comfort zone. Starscream tried to not read too much into that. This vrefos would live, would come home and be fine, if Starscream had to wrestle Mortilus himself into submission.
Actually, that might be easier.
Skywarp hummed a song Starscream didn’t recognize to the moros in his arms. Starscream twisted to face the door and waited. Ratchet appeared soon enough, and Starscream wondered if he had been waiting to give Skywarp some time with his tenkos. Ratchet’s face was grim.
“His spark is strong,” the medic began without preamble.
Starscream waited, very carefully not thinking about stars twice as bright. “That’s good, right?” Skywarp said.
Ratchet shook his head. “Too strong,” he said. “His frame can’t properly handle its power output. The excess builds up, until it overloads and then floods his systems.”
“Can you fix it?” Starscream asked, uninterested in the medical details. He didn’t need to hear how his little fighter was dying by millimeters right in front of him. Flashy, dramatic millimeters.
“We can jump start his next upgrade,” Ratchet answered, looking at Skywarp. “His spark is more than strong enough. With a specialized case and an extra power sink, he should be okay.”
A vrefos’ growth happened in leaps and pauses, new components integrated and new code written during long periods of no physical change, new parts installed by a medic using eons of research and well-intentioned mistakes. Or the new parts were built by self-repair nanites from the vrefos’ enkyos, slowly and imperfectly, with whatever components were dissolved in energon, without regard to the state of the tenkos’ processor or spark. Too slow, and the spark would overheat and extinguish, the code would stagnate and corrupt. Too fast and the processor wouldn’t keep up, the spark would slow its rotation, parts would not be recognized by the systems and grey out. Starscream imagined a death-grey glider with the moros' golden face and dark optics.
Skywarp was nodding along like that was a brilliant idea, though, and Starscream kicked his chair. “What sort of specialized case?” Skywarp asked, misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the kick.
“A stellite alloy,” Ratchet said. “I ordered one two days ago. It just came in this morning.”
Skywarp nodded, and looked back down at the moros. “Okay. When can you do it?”
Ratchet’s optics flickered as he powercycled his sensory suite. Starscream watched himself stand up, walk over behind Skywarp, and only just keep himself from slapping his fool head right off his neck. “Now you suddenly can make decisions?” someone demanded in a slightly hysterical tone. Starscream almost didn’t recognize his own voice.
Skywarp shrugged, not looking up from his fingers against the moros' wings. “Not really a decision, though,” he said. “Either do it and he probably dies, or don’t and he definitely dies, right? So all I decide is if I trust Ratchet, and I do.”
“Yes,” Ratchet said. “That’s about the shape of it.”
“When?” Starscream asked. Skywarp’s logic was sound, now Starscream had seen everything, but it was.
“The sooner the better,” Ratchet said. “I can have the room ready in a cycle.”
“A cycle then,” Skywarp said, head still down. The moros was dozing against his chest.
“I’ll call Thundercracker,” Starscream murmured, stroking over Skywarp’s wing as he followed Ratchet out.

The cycle passed far too quickly.
Skywarp curled around the vrefos he held, humming softly. The moros stared sightlessly up at him, face serious and still. Skywarp traced the soft curves of his faux-wings, memorizing their span and their flex, committing to his deepest core the strength of his legs and the red and blue stripes so thin on white plating. There were so many memories in that folder already; Skywarp backed up in triplicate every moment he had with this too-bright ember. They might have to last him a lifetime.
Starscream came in at one point, and Skywarp thought, distantly, that he might ask to hold the moros. He’d hand him over to Starscream, if asked, but if he didn’t…
Skywarp had been taught there was something sacred about a maridos’ first form, and while he wasn’t quite sure where the lies ended and the truth began, he wanted to remember the shells of all his kori. This one was losing his first, of course Skywarp was following the stripes the same color as Starscream, and wasn’t that a funny coincidence? The two black vrefi, well, Skywarp himself was black, that only made sense. And the yellow that popped up now and again, Skywarp didn’t know who the trefos of his nipii was and he didn’t worry too much about it. But the bronze was the same color as Starscream’s, elemental and pure. Not many mechs had it.
Funny coincidence.
Starscream didn’t ask, though. He paced around the room, left once and came back with a cube of energon he didn’t drink. Skywarp was flagging badly by then, still not near recovered from their birth. This was the longest he’d been awake since he’d been discharged from the hospital himself, with four of his tenki. He fought the static creeping around the edges of his mind, turning off everything non-essential to sitting there awake holding his koros. Starscream would want him back eventually, and Skywarp had four others to take care of. He simply couldn’t divide himself into five parts to hold them all at once.
“Skywarp,” Starscream said, very quietly, “it’s time.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Skywarp made his reply part of the song he was humming. This one liked the vibration or the sound, much like the twins. He looked close to recharge, hands in tiny fists and legs limp.
“You have to give him to Ambulon now.”
Skywarp tried, he honestly did. Not as hard as he could have, but he did. His arms had other ideas, though, and he told Starscream “If I stop holding him, I’m going to hit someone.”
“No, you won’t,” Starscream scoffed. “You’re going to hand him over so he can get upgraded and not die. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”
“I haven’t,” Skywarp said, and he wasn’t lying. He wanted his moros to be upgraded, to live. But he wanted that to happen without letting go. He wanted Thundercracker to be there. He wanted to take his koros, all his kori, and flee to Luna-1, where everything would be okay. “I don’t want to hit anyone,” he offered, somewhat lamely even to his own audials.
“Hand him over before I hit you,” Starscream growled.
Skywarp thought about that for a klik. Ambulon certainly didn’t seem impatient, and Starscream was a paperpusher. How hard could he hit, anyways?
But the moros had his own ideas, crying out as he spasmed. Skywarp nearly dropped him, the radiation washing over him and making what was left of his spark ache in its too-large casing. Starscream grabbed his elbows and pulled the two of them against his chest, using his own body as a ground for what was a trivial amount of electricity for a healthy adult -but Skywarp wasn’t healthy and the moros wasn’t an adult.
And then it was over as quickly as it started, with only the trembling of wingtips in its wake. Skywarp made himself let go of the vrefos, and Starscream handed him off to Ambulon without hesitation.
“You can wait here,” Ambulon said, leaving swiftly, before the shock wore off.
And then they were alone.

They sat together on the floor. Starscream wasn’t thrilled about playing backrest for Skywarp, but he was doing a lot of things lately he wasn’t thrilled about. He set the energon next to Skywarp’s hand, and after a few minutes Skywarp picked it up automatically, drank half of it before slumping further into Starscream’s shoulder. “You should recharge,” Starscream said.
“Don’t wanna,” Skywarp said, but his voice was flat and his eyes were dull.
“I’ll wake you up if anything happens,” Starscream promised. Skywarp was close to the edge either way, but it was healthier for him to shut down manually rather than have a failsafe kick in. “You want to be conscious when he comes back, don’t you?”
“I guess,” Skywarp said, but his optics went dark and the humming of his systems died down a few minutes later, too slow to be automatic shutdown.
Starscream settled in for the wait. He had no idea how long a first upgrade was supposed to take, and considering the circumstances it was pointless to ask for an estimate. Ambulon had wanted them to stay, so it couldn’t be expected to take too long, could it?
For a while, Starscream sat and simply did nothing. Did not move, did not think, did not plan. At first it felt good, and then it was merely boring. After so many exciting days, boring was a relief in and of itself, and as the minutes ticked by he found it hard to want to do anything but exist. He could. He could have started in on paperwork, or comm’ed Thundercracker, or finished Skywarp’s cube. But he didn’t, just let time slip by. The upgrade wouldn’t take long enough to get anything done if he didn’t do anything.
The door opened, and First Aid came in with a small box. “Ambulon said Skywarp would want this?” the nurse asked, and Starscream nudged Skywarp awake.
“Wha-?” Skywarp said, quite intelligently, and Starscream stopped him from getting up.
“He’s doing really good,” First Aid enthused, kneeling in front of the two Seekers. “We’re not quite half done yet, but Ambulon wanted you to have this.” He set the box down on Skywarp’s lap and stood back up. “I really need to get back there. You should get some rest while you can.” The nurse flitted out as lightly as he came, and Starscream cycled his vents. The moros was still alive.
Skywarp peeked in the box, and his plating went cold. “His wings,” he said, very quietly, touching the useless parts with a finger.
Starscream didn’t understand why Skywarp went still, or why he tucked the box away like the most precious of jewels. It didn’t really matter. “Finish your energon and go back down,” Starscream ordered.
“Don’t you want up?” Skywarp asked.
“I’m used to sitting still,” Starscream said. He wanted to go back to that no-time, that let it be only five minutes or so since he’d handed over the moros, plus or minus an eternity.
Skywarp sipped his energon and said, “You should name him.”
“He’s your Pitspawn,” Starscream pointed out.
“I can’t name him!” Skywarp sounded a little panicky, like nipios names actually mattered. “You do it. He needs one in case…”
“In case we all get terribly confused?” Starscream said. “You’re not letting Thundercracker name them, are you?”
Skywarp grinned at that, weakly but definitively. “That’s why you need to do it. He’s already started, and he keeps changing them.”
“I’m not naming your tekni,” Starscream said, though truthfully he didn’t mind the idea.
“This one, he’s not really mine though.” Skywarp drained the last of the cube. “He’s ours. Mine and yours.”
“Fine,” Starscream sighed, forestalling a conversation he didn’t even want to think about wanting to have. “I’ll name him if you can’t. Even though I already named Surprise.”
“It’s what we’ll call him for ages,” Skywarp said. “When he’s trying to figure out who he is and what his proper name should be. Who decided I was qualified to do it? My genei called me number four.”
“And I’m qualified because?” Starscream asked.
“Because you’re the smartest guy I know,” Skywarp smiled. “You’ll think of a good one. That isn’t He Who Needs Constant Physical Contact.”
“That is quite a mouthful,” Starscream agreed. “If you’ll go back down, I’ll think of one.”
“Good,” Skywarp agreed, making himself comfortable against Starscream. “Make it awesome.”
Starscream thought about it, and about how Skywarp was probably going to live and so Starscream really didn’t have to put up with all this slag, and how he never meant to steal the moros, he just did what needed to be done. When Ratchet came in, exhaustion and triumph palpable around him and a vrefos hooked up to a single monitor in his arms, Starscream had a name.
But first he nudged Skywarp awake. Skywarp bounced up, a shadow of his old self, and took the bundle from Ratchet. “How is he?”
“Let me guess,” Starscream said, trying to hide the stiffness of his legs after so long on the floor. “We almost lost him, but your skill saved the day.”
“Far from it,” Ratchet said, looking far too damn smug. “He did just beautifully. We had time to go through and adjust everything to optimal specs, and repair a good bit of damage from the seizures. His self-repair can take care of the rest.”
“He’s so small still,” Skywarp marveled, dropping into one of the chairs.
“Yes,” Ratchet said. “Even though he’s technically a second-stager, he’s only the size of a newspark. It will keep his somatosensors from going haywire. His processor was more than adequate for second stage code upgrades, though I’d expect them to be slower than normal still. If any of them are an outlier, my money’s on him.”
“So he’s magically all better now, praise Primus and pass the high grade?” Starscream asked, even though he knew the answer. That was just too good to be true.
“He’s still blind,” Ratchet said. “Still small, and I don’t know how much this upgrade will affect anything other than the spark surges. All I will definitely say is that he’s out of immediate danger. We’ll monitor him for a bit, to make sure everything is settling in.”
“How long is a bit?” Starscream asked. He was fairly certain Skywarp wasn’t hearing a word Ratchet said. But that was because all his attention was focused on the tiny vrefos in his arms, and the painstaking process of feeding him.
“Long enough to make sure he doesn’t need a direct tank line anymore. Three days off of it, minimum. Then you can take him home.”
The word hit Starscream like a punch to the airbrake. Take him home. He’d never thought he would. Starscream nodded. To take the vrefos home, let Thundercracker hold him, let him see his adelfi. Starscream hadn’t even considered those things.
“I’ll be back to check on him later,” Ratchet said. Starscream barely registered him leaving.
“So what’s his name,” Skywarp asked. “You did think of a name, right?”
Starscream stood up, and walked over, and cupped his hand around the precious fragile head of his otokos. “Iridium.”

Skywarp sat with Roller in his lap, the vrefos sleeping in alt-mode with his wings spread wide. Skywarp was tracing them as he recharged, helping the moros build a somatic map. One day, he would need to register tiny changes in wind and air pressure on the wing or crash, and Skywarp’s fingers on his plating helped his processor understand that these particular inputs took priority. In recharge, the moros was still, so still that if he wasn’t so warm Skywarp would fear him dead. He was warm though, nearly hot, and Skywarp had forgotten how hot newsparks ran. It had surprised Thundercracker too, but he had glided with it, as he had with so many things.
The big one was laying on his back on the floor, freshly greased limbs stretching as he practiced moving under Skywarp’s watchful optics. He could roll onto his front if he wanted, but the nipio was content to press his hands together in front of his face and stare at them. From the times Skywarp had plugged him into his cockpit, he knew the moros kept counting his fingers and checking the number he could see against the number he could feel. His hands were perfectly formed, and his processor was receiving all the proper data from his haptics and his optics. But his processor was very young, and very simple still, and this was how he would learn to correlate the data between two separate sensory systems. The moros was mercifully quiet at the moment; when he dropped a thread and forgot a finger or two, or forgot he had feet until one grew cold, frustration would transform him into a terrifying demon-mask of anger. Skywarp wished there was a way to prevent it, but there was no better way for him to learn to keep track of all his body parts. Thundercracker thought it was adorable, and would console the moros with promises of enlisting him as a fierce defender of their planet. Thundercracker would accept only the best in the army alongside him, and it wasn’t a hope for the vrefos’ future so much as a promise he could accomplish anything, one day.
Surprise was lying in the rolling cradle, lights blinking as he intergrated what he’d learned that day, as the nanites from when Thundercracker nursed him worked their nanite magic. They would supply little extra bits of code, smoothing out the rough edges and using Thundercracker’s meta-cycles of experience with not dying to teach the fragile tenkos’ body how to function more efficiently. Surprise hated to be confined to a cockpit, so he spent all his recharge in the cradle at Skywarp’s side. He more than made up for it when he was awake, always happy to be on somebody’s lap or cuddled up to his twin.
His twin was just the opposite. That vrefos was the most easygoing of the bunch, content and quiet -as long as he was being held. The second he wasn’t in physical contact with someone, he would cry, sparkbreaking sobs rather than his nosokos’ energon curdling shrieks. But he would accept a adelfos’ hug as easily as a geneos’, one of the few ways having five mori was easier than having one. Right now, he was safely tucked in Thundercracker’s cockpit.
Starscream was at the hospital with Iridium still. He’d sent Skywarp and Thundercracker a picture of Iridium nursing enthusiastically, the lights on the back of his neck a strong steady green for the first time in his life. If he made it through the night without a crisis, Ratchet promised he could come home. Thundercracker had already reworked the schedule, fitting in time for Iridium to be held and cuddled by all three of his enkyos, for him to spend time nestled next to each of his adelfi in every combination. Starscream though planning ahead each greasing and feeding and bath was a little excessive, but Skywarp, fourth nipio of nine, knew that was the only way to have so many mori at once and take care of their needs.
And indeed, once the routine was set, Thundercracker moved through it easily, giving each vrefos an equal measure of love and attention. He brought them to Skywarp as well, to lavish affection on, and kept the autoclave and the energon filter running with military efficiency. Skywarp was in awe of how Thundercracker never missed a meal or a nap, never failed to bring Skywarp a cube almost before he knew he was hungry and always had all four mori asleep so they could shower. They had to shower together to be done and dry before the little ones awoke, but that just made it easier with Seekerwings.
The most amazing thing to Skywarp, who had missed Starscream’s joining to help Novalight and her sieziegos with their single one, was that Thundercracker did everything by himself. Skywarp still couldn’t walk very far without his vision going green, or stand without his feet going numb, or feed the mori except with a bottle. He could only hold one in his cockpit at a time and another on his lap, and greasing them was out of the question. Simply walking from the berth to the couch and back was exhausting. He supposed it was normal, considering how much of his spark was housed in the fragile casings of his tenki, but he still hated that Thundercracker nearly had to wait on him hand and foot, had to take care of their otoki all by himself.
Thundercracker was just finished loading the autoclave with bottles and sparangi in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” he said, as if Skywarp could have answered it without crashing in the hallway. “Don’t make Roller get up.”
Skywarp traced the edges of Roller’s wings, where nanites from his and Thundercracker’s bodies were building control surfaces, molecule by molecule. Would he have Thundercracker’s thick armour, or Skywarp’s lighter plating? Only time would tell, thought Skywarp wouldn’t mind either.
Thundercracker stalked in, heavy wings unhappy, face a polite mask of false happiness, followed by a large shadow on the wall and footsteps not nearly heavy enough to match. Was it Skyfire? Starscream’s adelfos was big enough, light enough on his feet, but as far as Skywarp knew, Thundercracker liked him. And then the mech came into view, and what was left of Skywarp’s spark spun faster in its casing.
Megatron.
“Don’t get up,” Thundercracker said. “It’ll wake the mori. I’ll get some energon.”
“This is not Starscream,” Megatron said, very quietly. Skywarp probably wasn’t supposed to hear it.
“I’m sorry, you said you wanted to see ‘him.’ Forgive me for assuming you meant your pallakos.” Thundercracker didn’t sound the least bit sorry. At all. Skywarp didn’t really care. Megatron was here.
Megatron came forward, hesitantly, giving the big one a wide berth. “I did not know you were home,” he said.
Skywarp, hands still moving automatically over Roller’s wings, shrugged. “It’s really busy with four of them.” And with Skywarp himself too drained to take care of anything but whichever moros Thundercracker placed in his arms.
“Four?”
“Starscream’s with the other one at the hospital still. They won’t let him home until he can eat by himself.” Skywarp didn’t mention the other three, the avegi Megatron had seen rogime, the vrefi that didn’t survive. It was obvious enough that they hadn’t made it, and the grief was too fresh, too raw. He couldn’t bear anyone, even his pallakos, even his adelfi to touch the wound.
“Ah.” Megatron sat on the couch next to Skywarp. “You have named them?”
“Iridium’s with Starscream. Starscream named him,” Skywarp said. “Thundercracker has Twin, and Surprise is in the cradle. He doesn’t like cockpits. This is Roller.”
“Roller? Like Optimus’..?”
Skywarp shook his head. “He likes to transform and roll when he’s asleep.”
“Ah.” Megatron shifted his weight. “And that one?” he asked, pointing to the one on the floor.
“We don’t have a name for him yet,” Skywarp shrugged. “It’s hard.”
“It is not forever. He will only use it until he comes of age and chooses his permanent designation,” Megatron reminded him.
Skywarp shrugged again. “But the other ones, Surprise and Twin, were easy. And Roller let us know right away, and Starscream named Iridium. This one is harder. Thundercracker keeps trying out new ones but nothing much sounds right.”
“It will come,” Megatron said. The vrefos on the floor stared up at the Lord High Protector.
“You can pick him up, if you want,” Skywarp said, cuddling Roller close. He couldn’t quite remember what was next on the schedule. He hoped it was a nap.
“No, I must be going,” Megatron stood up so fast, Skywarp feared he’d scare the mori. But the vrefos on the floor just wiggled sideways, to keep Megatron in his view. “I only came by to discuss something with Starscream of great importance.”
“Oh, okay.” Skywarp tried to keep his disappointment out of his voice.
Megatron bent and kissed the top of his helm. “Only the imminent invasion of our home planet itself keeps me from you,” he promised.
“I know.” Skywarp tilted his face up and received another kiss, chaste in front of tenki. “Thank you for keeping us safe.”
“My most precious star,” Megatron cupped his hand around Skywarp’s head. “I keep this planet safe for your sake, yours alone.”
Skywarp watched him go, spark swelling with an emotion he could not name. But he was tired, and had nipii to take care of, and Megatron had made time to come see him. That would have to be good enough.
And then Thundercracker brought him a cube, and told him it was time for everyone to nap, and while he was lulling the big one to sleep with his engine’s purr, Skywarp couldn’t help leaning against his shoulder and taking a nap of his own.

Skywarp did not run down the hallway. He was very proud of that. He also physically couldn’t, not yet, and teleporting was sadly out of the question. So he walked, down the hospital hallway, and sort-of listened to see if Starscream was nattering on about anything important.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t, and there was the door, and when he went inside, Ambulon was holding his precious tiniest koros. Ambulon held him out and Skywarp took him and held him and let Starscream deal with the rest.
Skywarp found the chair and sat in it, cradling his nipio close. “You’re coming home today,” he said. The vrefos looked past his left shoulder, unimpressed, but he clutched the finger Skywarp tried to poke him with. It was a little scary and a lot cool how good the moros was at reaching for things he couldn’t even see.
“And you’ll get to see your nosoki again, do you miss them?” Skywarp asked. “I think they’ve missed you.” Primus below, he was so small, but Ratchet said he could come home and Skywarp trusted him. “I’ve missed you.”
With him over Skywarp’s spark, one of the bands constricting it eased. He repeated to himself that despite his size, his son was ready to come home. That he had received his first upgrade, that he could eat and regulate his own temperature and his spark would stop overloading now.
“Thundercracker misses you too,” Skywarp continued. The dark optics were pretty cute, too, once he got used to them. They looked to be red, unlike the others who were all blue-eyed. He hadn’t gotten a chance to look, really look at this one like the others.
“Shiny Cybertron, I’ve missed you,” Skywarp repeated, marveling at how he looked so much like the red one, like both twins, like the biggest and like none of them. The maridos was perfectly formed despite his size, shiny white and gold with small wings, with red and blue stripes, his plating tight against his chassis and no sparklight leaking out. No more wires, no more tubes, no gaps where he didn’t have quite enough protoform. For a few minutes, Skywarp lost himself in the clean lines of the moros, committing his angles to memory all over again. He found the direction the moros liked his back rubbed, the reflexes of his hands and feet. The vrefos reached for Skywarp, and Skywarp couldn’t deny him, propped him up against his shoulder.
“Everything’s gonna be awesome now,” he promised. “I’ll make it work somehow.” And then he simply held the moros, for as long as he wanted, without worrying about fuel lines or fragile plating, and listened to the strong steady spin of integrating systems.
“You should feed him before we go,” Starscream said, startling Skywarp and plonking a bottle on his lap. Going, right, they were taking him home, where he belonged, with his other adelfi. “Once he’s ready, we can leave.”
Skywarp nodded, and shifted the moros around. The little one took the bottle readily, suckling at it with a vengeance. Starscream had taught him how, patiently feeding him energon one drop at a time, until he got the hang of swallowing, and then of sucking it from the bottle himself. It was a small miracle, something Ratchet said not to count on, but Starscream was awesome like that and this moros was a stubborn one. Stubborn, and helped by the extra feeding tube Ratchet had installed, to ensure he got enough fuel.
Still, the bottle was a special low-flow one, to keep him from drowning in it, and his fuel tank was only big enough for half the energon. All too soon, he was turning his head away, fists coming up to fold across his chest. Skywarp pulled out a sparangos and wiped away a few stray drops on the vrefos’ chin.
Skywarp popped open his cockpit and tucked the nipio in. He connected the port, and he could feel the vrefos’ contentment, joy, recognition of his spark. And Skywarp spread his hand over the tiny body, lost in the sacred moment where his code curled around the otokos’, when they were as close as two mechs could get, when his spark sped up to pulse in sync with the fragile ember he carried. The vrefos drifted into recharge, and Skywarp could feel little bits of data float up as he defragged; the sound of Starscream’s humming, Ambulon’s heavy steps shaking the floor, Ratchet’s fingers, deft and gentle. He could feel the pull on his systems as his body took over what it could from the moros', giving his fresh components a rest.
Then Starscream was talking to him, tugging on his arm, and Skywarp came back down to Cybertron reluctantly. “Let’s go,” Starscream said, and it sounded like he was sick of repeating it even if it was the first time Skywarp had heard. Skywarp stood up.
And then his vision went grey, and his tactile net blinked, and he didn’t sit back down so much as collapse like his legs had been cut out from under him. Starscream whirled around, and Skywarp saw how bright his optics were, and with strength he hadn’t known he had, Skywarp snagged Starscream’s wrist.
“I’m okay,” he promised, using his grip to lever himself back up again, slower. “I just stood up too fast.”
Starscream glared at him, and shook his hand off, and for a moment Skywarp was afraid he was going to argue. But he just turned for the door, and harrumphed, and said, “If you pass out in the taxi, I’m leaving you.”
Getting downstairs and into the taxi took far more of Skywarp’s reserves than he thought it would. He offered Starscream a rueful smile as he slumped in the seat, and Starscream covered his face with his hand in a gesture Skywarp usually got from Thundercracker. “Upgrade means he drains more,” Starscream said, knowing what Skywarp was thinking in his creepy borderline psychic way.
Skywarp nodded, and let his head fall back, and the next thing he knew Starscream was towing him inside by the arm. Skywarp let himself be manhandled through the door and passed off to a much gentler Thundercracker, let himself be led to the couch and pushed down. Only when he felt the first twitches against the inside of his cockpit did he pull himself out of standby-fog.
The little one wanted out, and Skywarp was happy to oblige. Thundercracker was standing there with a bottle, and as Skywarp took it from him, he remembered that Thundercracker had not actually held this one yet.
“Do you want to feed him?” Skywarp asked. The mori were, after all, as much Thundercracker’s as Starscream’s, almost as much as Skywarp’s own.
But Thundercracker shook his head, saying, “There will be time. I have to feed He Who Insists On Sleeping In Alt-Mode anyways.”
“You are not allowed to name them,” Starscream yelled from the kitchen. “He’s Roller, deal with it.”
“What’s the big one’s name now?” Skywarp asked with a grin. The little one wasn’t turning down the bottle, but he wasn’t starving. Though he was mostly playing with the spout, it was preferable to if he had been desperate and easily frustrated.
“The big one’s He Who Needs To Upgrade His Patience Module. And that one’s He Who Flies Over The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death.”
“His name is Iridium, don’t listen to him,” Starscream said, nodding at the little one while he handed Roller and a bottle to Thundercracker. The blue mech sat next to Skywarp and began to feed the moros.
“Iridium is easier to say,” Skywarp said. “What’s it mean?”
“It sounds scientific.” Thundercracker lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Starscream didn’t explain it?”
“It’s not my fault you two are uneducated buffons.” Starscream set the twins on Skywarp’s lap, around Iridium. Twin immediately rolled over and flopped an arm across Iridium’s legs. “Name the big one, Skywarp, please,” Starscream added as he left.
Skywarp couldn’t. How could he give his vrefos a name, even one that would only last until he reached his maturity? How could he sum up everything about his wonderful tiny stranger when he barely knew him? Starscream returned with the last vrefos in one hand and a cube in the other. “Hey,” he said, tucking the vrefos between Skywarp’s arm and his wing. “I didn’t mean right now this nanoklik.”
Skywarp looked down at the moros, drifting in and out of standby. He’d kept Skywarp alive, given him a reason to stay alive in the lab and after, when he thought he’d never be clean again, and after that, when he realized the world expected him to just keep flying. How could he ever impose a name on his little hero?
Instead, he eased the bottle from Iridium’s mouth and sat him up. Thundercracker plonked Roller against his other wing. Then both Seekers stood back and looked at the little group. Starscream smirked, but Thundercracker took his hand where Skywarp wasn’t supposed to be able to see.
And then Skywarp realized he had all his kori, was holding all his kori, for the first time. And they were all healthy and happy and alive, not something he’d ever take for granted again.
He looked up at the couple, and reached out with his free hand, just a little, enough to ignore if he was being weird. But he wanted his whole family with him, together at last.

THE END
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