Baby Boom (or, Why you should always read the manual first) Chapter 4
Title: Baby Boom (or, Why you should always read the manual first) Chapter 4
'Verse: G1 Transformers
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing
The sparkling on the desk chirped at Red Alert. The Lamborghini frowned. “I asked for an explanation, Prowl.”
Patiently, with the air of one talking to a particularly sluggish processor, Prowl chirped again. At his feet, he registered giggles coming from a little Porsche, and noted that the jets were now awake, and staring warily at him. The security mech groaned. “Frag, this is going to be problematic if you can’t speak normally. I assume comms suffer from the same problem.”
The doorwinged sparkling nodded, then chirped once more, slowly and distinctly. Red Alert ran the pattern through his processors, and the resulting match made him smirk. The other sparklings made querying noises, wondering why they weren’t able to understand Prowl now. The red mech lifted the tiny Datsun off the desk (seeing the sparkling so high up had sent his spark into panicky flutters, regardless of what he knew) and settled on the ground to be at optic level with the rest of the sparklings.
“Long story short, our SIC and I shared a younglinghood. And much of that was spent in less than perfect behaviour. We developed a simple code to communicate with each other, in order to facilitate our activities. Prowl, I fail to see how that is going to let you communicate with me, the code was never meant for such a complex matter.”
More chirping, and Red Alert sighed.
“Fine, I’ll leave the seekers alone if you swear they’re not a risk.”
A satisfied coo, and out of the corner of an optic, the security director saw the seekerlings relax slightly. Further chirping regained his attention.
“No, I don’t think Ratchet will have sparkling language protocols.”
And yet more chirping.
“No, I don’t think Hoist will have them either. Nor Teletraan. We didn’t expect to have to deal with sparklings on the Ark. Look, you’ve gone to a lot of trouble concealing your mental state from the others; me asking for these protocols will raise questions. And I can’t find out why you’ve done so unless I get those protocols. Frag.”
Prowl sighed, then held out a data jack, and Red Alert stared, trying to comprehend this new action, before he snapped out his reply.
“No. I am not jacking in just to communicate with you. We have no idea how it might affect your processors and- will you stop that!”
The security director waved a hand at the pout the baby tactician was directing at him, but his resistance was already crumbling. More giggles came from the rest of the sparklings. Prowl clicked at them, and as Starscream reluctantly chirped back, Red Alert grumbled, accepted the jack and initiated the connection.
“Very well. But let it be known that I objected, not that it’s going to save my plating if Ratchet finds out. Especially since no one else seems to have realised you lot don’t have sparkling level minds.”
Prowl nodded, warbling contentedly as the link formed. Before Red Alert could do anything, data was shoved into his CPU at an alarming rate, and he was hard pressed to keep up. Then, the transfer abruptly ended and the little Datsun curled up and went offline right then and there.
The security mech immediately pulled out the jack and frantically started calling Prowl’s name. His panic was interrupted by a patting somewhere in the vicinity of his shin plating. Looking down, his optics met a gleaming visor and a knowing smirk.
Prowler’s fine, he warned us this might happen. He’s in recharge.
Red Alert sighed in relief. Then realised he’d understood Jazz.
“How?”
Wheeljack took over. “Prowl uploaded the sparkling language data to you.”
“That much was obvious, but how is it that you don’t sound like sparklings?”
“The average sparkling mind wouldn’t have developed to the point of complex verbal communication while this language set is the only one they know. We, obviously, do not have average sparkling minds.”
“Point. So, now the rest of you tell me what’s going on?”
Jazz’s helm tilted up in a listening manner. “Gonna have to wait, Prime’s on his way back.” The security mech didn’t bother to ask how the Porsche knew.
“Slag. And I still haven’t found out why you lot decided to keep this a secret!”
“Red.” Prowl, woken by his exclamation, protested sleepily as he cuddled into red chestplates. “Quiet.”
Wheeljack yawned as well, and Red Alert sighed (and kept his volume lowered. Prowl as a sparkling was too effective at getting his way for anyone’s good). “Oh, go on. I’m on duty more than Ratchet; he won’t leave you two with me. You’ll still be able to force him to nap with you.”
“G’point. Starscream, Red’s safe, ‘kay?” A tired murmur, and the engineer shuttered optics and fell into recharge on his lap. The seekerling glared suspiciously at the red mech, placing himself between his trinemates and Red Alert. The Lamborghini wondered if the Decepticons’ wariness had something to do with the sparklings hiding their retention of their adult minds from everyone else. Seeking to reassure them, he reached out a hand, murmuring softly.
“Autobots do not harm sparklings. Even if they’re adult bots in sparkling frames.”
Jazz piped up right then. “S’what we told them.”
“Red Alert, I never knew you were such a deft hand with sparklings.”
Optimus Prime had walked in to see his security director clicking and warbling to three seekerlings and a baby Porsche, with another two sparklings recharging against him. Rebooting his optics had not modified the (rather adorable) scene one bit, and he didn’t bother hiding his amusement. As Red Alert looked up at him from the ground, mortified but unable to move without dislodging Wheeljack, Optimus crouched down to stroke one of the recharging Lancia’s headfins.
“You’ve even got Wheeljack to recharge without Ratchet. A minor miracle.”
Red Alert clicked at him. Optimus shuttered optics briefly in curiosity as the security mech realised what he’d done, and quickly cleared his vocaliser. “Sir, I…”
The Prime took pity on the mech, and gently removed a sleeping Prowl from his arms (no, he was not jealous), freeing Red Alert to move the engineer sparkling so that he could stand without waking him.
“Why don’t you take Wheeljack and Starscream back to Ratchet? The others will be in to pick up their sparklings soon anyway-” Optimus paused, doing a quick head count of the little mechs, then sighed.
“I’ll comm. Mirage and Bumblebee. It seems Jazz has managed to escape. Again.”
= = =
Alone with his monitors once more, Red Alert groaned, his glitch and programming fighting for attention, insisting that the Decepticon sparklings were a security risk, while his processors insisted that they weren’t. He needed more information, and the very mechs who could give him that information were all blissfully in recharge.
… Make that most of the mechs.
Jazz grinned at him, waving cheekily as he groaned again and thumped his forehead onto the console in front of him.
“How did you- Nevermind. I don’t want to know.” Having the little mech sneak into his haven prodded his glitch into greater fury, and he just knew his helm was sparking like a mad thing. The Spec Ops mech seemed fascinated by the light show, and took advantage of Red Alert’s position to grab hold of one of his horns to get a closer look.
“Ack! Don’t do that!” He dislodged Jazz from his helm, then settled the sparkling onto his lap. The visored sparkling giggled at his longsuffering look.
“Sorry, sparkling instincts are a pain sometimes.”
“Instincts?” Automatically, the security mech fell into the clicking and chirping language of the sparklings. Jazz wondered if the mech realised it, even as he replied, dryly.
“Red, you think we wanted to imprint on the others? We’ve had to listen to Starscream bitch about that forever.”
Alright, Red Alert could admit the sparkling had a point. “I can’t help but think that the choice of imprintees were not as random as Ratchet seems to think.”
“‘Jack’s wasn’t intentional. Nor Prowl's. And neither was ‘Screamer’s. S'funny, actually. When Wheeljack told us we were going to imprint on the first bots we saw, he shot up to throw a fit, caught sight of Ratch’ and bam! Imprinted too. But the others were planned. Starscream wanted someone with Skyfire, and since ‘Warp don’t like him for some reason, Thundercracker volunteered. Skywarp took Sideswipe to put him through the Pit to see if what we said about Autobots not harming sparklings was true.”
“That was dangerous! None of us expected Sideswipe to be such a decent caretaker.”
“Nah, we knew Siders would be able to handle it. Besides, what better test of our word could there be? And, Starscream’s reactivated ‘Warp’s teleport thingy. In case things really went all pear shaped and the jet had to bug out.”
The Lamborghini stared, the breach in security being perpetuated by the very mechs in command (at least, when they weren’t sparklings) setting off nearly every warning bell in his CPU.
“Red. Prowl okayed it. Which was why he took so long to wake up. And hey, we’re telling you about this.”
“Only now!”
Jazz shrugged. “ The jets decided they wanted to feel safe first. They’re not going back to Megatron, so we agreed.”
“You’re sparklings! You’re in no danger from us!”
“Mechs spent a long time being the enemy. And we really didn’t want a snooping cassetticon to find out and tell Megsy. ‘Cons might get ideas about wringing info from us.”
“But… you’re sparklings!” The repeat of his exclamation got a sombre look in return.
“Some bots might not care about that. We’re adults in mind. The frames just make us easier to break.”
Red Alert shuddered slightly, both at the implications and at the unexpectedly dark comment, then tightened his hold on the tiny Porsche, unconsciously protective. For his part, Jazz didn’t protest, seeming to welcome (if not want) the gesture. The tense air in the monitor room was broken by a comm. from Mirage.
//Red Alert, sorry to bother you, but can you see Jazz on your screens? No one seems to be able to find him, and his locator is giving us strange readings.//
Clearing his vocaliser (and making sure he wasn’t still clicking, doing so in front of Prime was enough embarrassment for one day, thank you very much), the Lamborghini replied. //Let me check. I’ll comm. you back.//
//Thank you.//
The spy sounded anxious, and Red Alert glanced down at the sparkling on his lap. Jazz beamed, usual bouncy mood seemingly restored.
“Best. Fun. Ever.”
“I bet both Mirage and Bumblebee would beg to differ.” The security director sighed, shaking his head before he commed Mirage.
//Found him. He’s in here with me.//
While waiting for the mech to arrive, the Lamborghini realised something.
"Prowl didn't intend to imprint on Prime?"
"Nope. Mech wanted to imprint on you, so he could tell you 'bout us as soon as he felt he could, but Prime kinda got into the picture. Then Prowl's battle computer got all caught up trying to work around the new development that he conked out before he got a look at you." Here the visored sparkling snickered.
"He was rather annoyed about that, but then he said at least he gets to check that the paperwork's getting done properly."
Red Alert laughed.
'Verse: G1 Transformers
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing
The sparkling on the desk chirped at Red Alert. The Lamborghini frowned. “I asked for an explanation, Prowl.”
Patiently, with the air of one talking to a particularly sluggish processor, Prowl chirped again. At his feet, he registered giggles coming from a little Porsche, and noted that the jets were now awake, and staring warily at him. The security mech groaned. “Frag, this is going to be problematic if you can’t speak normally. I assume comms suffer from the same problem.”
The doorwinged sparkling nodded, then chirped once more, slowly and distinctly. Red Alert ran the pattern through his processors, and the resulting match made him smirk. The other sparklings made querying noises, wondering why they weren’t able to understand Prowl now. The red mech lifted the tiny Datsun off the desk (seeing the sparkling so high up had sent his spark into panicky flutters, regardless of what he knew) and settled on the ground to be at optic level with the rest of the sparklings.
“Long story short, our SIC and I shared a younglinghood. And much of that was spent in less than perfect behaviour. We developed a simple code to communicate with each other, in order to facilitate our activities. Prowl, I fail to see how that is going to let you communicate with me, the code was never meant for such a complex matter.”
More chirping, and Red Alert sighed.
“Fine, I’ll leave the seekers alone if you swear they’re not a risk.”
A satisfied coo, and out of the corner of an optic, the security director saw the seekerlings relax slightly. Further chirping regained his attention.
“No, I don’t think Ratchet will have sparkling language protocols.”
And yet more chirping.
“No, I don’t think Hoist will have them either. Nor Teletraan. We didn’t expect to have to deal with sparklings on the Ark. Look, you’ve gone to a lot of trouble concealing your mental state from the others; me asking for these protocols will raise questions. And I can’t find out why you’ve done so unless I get those protocols. Frag.”
Prowl sighed, then held out a data jack, and Red Alert stared, trying to comprehend this new action, before he snapped out his reply.
“No. I am not jacking in just to communicate with you. We have no idea how it might affect your processors and- will you stop that!”
The security director waved a hand at the pout the baby tactician was directing at him, but his resistance was already crumbling. More giggles came from the rest of the sparklings. Prowl clicked at them, and as Starscream reluctantly chirped back, Red Alert grumbled, accepted the jack and initiated the connection.
“Very well. But let it be known that I objected, not that it’s going to save my plating if Ratchet finds out. Especially since no one else seems to have realised you lot don’t have sparkling level minds.”
Prowl nodded, warbling contentedly as the link formed. Before Red Alert could do anything, data was shoved into his CPU at an alarming rate, and he was hard pressed to keep up. Then, the transfer abruptly ended and the little Datsun curled up and went offline right then and there.
The security mech immediately pulled out the jack and frantically started calling Prowl’s name. His panic was interrupted by a patting somewhere in the vicinity of his shin plating. Looking down, his optics met a gleaming visor and a knowing smirk.
Prowler’s fine, he warned us this might happen. He’s in recharge.
Red Alert sighed in relief. Then realised he’d understood Jazz.
“How?”
Wheeljack took over. “Prowl uploaded the sparkling language data to you.”
“That much was obvious, but how is it that you don’t sound like sparklings?”
“The average sparkling mind wouldn’t have developed to the point of complex verbal communication while this language set is the only one they know. We, obviously, do not have average sparkling minds.”
“Point. So, now the rest of you tell me what’s going on?”
Jazz’s helm tilted up in a listening manner. “Gonna have to wait, Prime’s on his way back.” The security mech didn’t bother to ask how the Porsche knew.
“Slag. And I still haven’t found out why you lot decided to keep this a secret!”
“Red.” Prowl, woken by his exclamation, protested sleepily as he cuddled into red chestplates. “Quiet.”
Wheeljack yawned as well, and Red Alert sighed (and kept his volume lowered. Prowl as a sparkling was too effective at getting his way for anyone’s good). “Oh, go on. I’m on duty more than Ratchet; he won’t leave you two with me. You’ll still be able to force him to nap with you.”
“G’point. Starscream, Red’s safe, ‘kay?” A tired murmur, and the engineer shuttered optics and fell into recharge on his lap. The seekerling glared suspiciously at the red mech, placing himself between his trinemates and Red Alert. The Lamborghini wondered if the Decepticons’ wariness had something to do with the sparklings hiding their retention of their adult minds from everyone else. Seeking to reassure them, he reached out a hand, murmuring softly.
“Autobots do not harm sparklings. Even if they’re adult bots in sparkling frames.”
Jazz piped up right then. “S’what we told them.”
“Red Alert, I never knew you were such a deft hand with sparklings.”
Optimus Prime had walked in to see his security director clicking and warbling to three seekerlings and a baby Porsche, with another two sparklings recharging against him. Rebooting his optics had not modified the (rather adorable) scene one bit, and he didn’t bother hiding his amusement. As Red Alert looked up at him from the ground, mortified but unable to move without dislodging Wheeljack, Optimus crouched down to stroke one of the recharging Lancia’s headfins.
“You’ve even got Wheeljack to recharge without Ratchet. A minor miracle.”
Red Alert clicked at him. Optimus shuttered optics briefly in curiosity as the security mech realised what he’d done, and quickly cleared his vocaliser. “Sir, I…”
The Prime took pity on the mech, and gently removed a sleeping Prowl from his arms (no, he was not jealous), freeing Red Alert to move the engineer sparkling so that he could stand without waking him.
“Why don’t you take Wheeljack and Starscream back to Ratchet? The others will be in to pick up their sparklings soon anyway-” Optimus paused, doing a quick head count of the little mechs, then sighed.
“I’ll comm. Mirage and Bumblebee. It seems Jazz has managed to escape. Again.”
= = =
Alone with his monitors once more, Red Alert groaned, his glitch and programming fighting for attention, insisting that the Decepticon sparklings were a security risk, while his processors insisted that they weren’t. He needed more information, and the very mechs who could give him that information were all blissfully in recharge.
… Make that most of the mechs.
Jazz grinned at him, waving cheekily as he groaned again and thumped his forehead onto the console in front of him.
“How did you- Nevermind. I don’t want to know.” Having the little mech sneak into his haven prodded his glitch into greater fury, and he just knew his helm was sparking like a mad thing. The Spec Ops mech seemed fascinated by the light show, and took advantage of Red Alert’s position to grab hold of one of his horns to get a closer look.
“Ack! Don’t do that!” He dislodged Jazz from his helm, then settled the sparkling onto his lap. The visored sparkling giggled at his longsuffering look.
“Sorry, sparkling instincts are a pain sometimes.”
“Instincts?” Automatically, the security mech fell into the clicking and chirping language of the sparklings. Jazz wondered if the mech realised it, even as he replied, dryly.
“Red, you think we wanted to imprint on the others? We’ve had to listen to Starscream bitch about that forever.”
Alright, Red Alert could admit the sparkling had a point. “I can’t help but think that the choice of imprintees were not as random as Ratchet seems to think.”
“‘Jack’s wasn’t intentional. Nor Prowl's. And neither was ‘Screamer’s. S'funny, actually. When Wheeljack told us we were going to imprint on the first bots we saw, he shot up to throw a fit, caught sight of Ratch’ and bam! Imprinted too. But the others were planned. Starscream wanted someone with Skyfire, and since ‘Warp don’t like him for some reason, Thundercracker volunteered. Skywarp took Sideswipe to put him through the Pit to see if what we said about Autobots not harming sparklings was true.”
“That was dangerous! None of us expected Sideswipe to be such a decent caretaker.”
“Nah, we knew Siders would be able to handle it. Besides, what better test of our word could there be? And, Starscream’s reactivated ‘Warp’s teleport thingy. In case things really went all pear shaped and the jet had to bug out.”
The Lamborghini stared, the breach in security being perpetuated by the very mechs in command (at least, when they weren’t sparklings) setting off nearly every warning bell in his CPU.
“Red. Prowl okayed it. Which was why he took so long to wake up. And hey, we’re telling you about this.”
“Only now!”
Jazz shrugged. “ The jets decided they wanted to feel safe first. They’re not going back to Megatron, so we agreed.”
“You’re sparklings! You’re in no danger from us!”
“Mechs spent a long time being the enemy. And we really didn’t want a snooping cassetticon to find out and tell Megsy. ‘Cons might get ideas about wringing info from us.”
“But… you’re sparklings!” The repeat of his exclamation got a sombre look in return.
“Some bots might not care about that. We’re adults in mind. The frames just make us easier to break.”
Red Alert shuddered slightly, both at the implications and at the unexpectedly dark comment, then tightened his hold on the tiny Porsche, unconsciously protective. For his part, Jazz didn’t protest, seeming to welcome (if not want) the gesture. The tense air in the monitor room was broken by a comm. from Mirage.
//Red Alert, sorry to bother you, but can you see Jazz on your screens? No one seems to be able to find him, and his locator is giving us strange readings.//
Clearing his vocaliser (and making sure he wasn’t still clicking, doing so in front of Prime was enough embarrassment for one day, thank you very much), the Lamborghini replied. //Let me check. I’ll comm. you back.//
//Thank you.//
The spy sounded anxious, and Red Alert glanced down at the sparkling on his lap. Jazz beamed, usual bouncy mood seemingly restored.
“Best. Fun. Ever.”
“I bet both Mirage and Bumblebee would beg to differ.” The security director sighed, shaking his head before he commed Mirage.
//Found him. He’s in here with me.//
While waiting for the mech to arrive, the Lamborghini realised something.
"Prowl didn't intend to imprint on Prime?"
"Nope. Mech wanted to imprint on you, so he could tell you 'bout us as soon as he felt he could, but Prime kinda got into the picture. Then Prowl's battle computer got all caught up trying to work around the new development that he conked out before he got a look at you." Here the visored sparkling snickered.
"He was rather annoyed about that, but then he said at least he gets to check that the paperwork's getting done properly."
Red Alert laughed.