Piece of Cake
Wrote this as a gift to eerian_sadow for her birthday. Call it an early birthday prezzie from me, Eerian XD
Rating: Very safe G
Pairings: None
Characters: Rewind, Steeljaw, and assorted Autobots. Also, Frenzy and Ravage
Word Count: 3,306
Warnings: fluff, silly crack and birthday cake.
Summary: Sometimes Rewind really has trouble saying "No" when people ask him for favors.
Piece of Cake
The sound of the phone receiver being slammed back into its cradle in the otherwise quiet library startled Rewind into looking up from the counter he was standing behind.
“Everything okay, Cassie?” he asked the young woman beside him, who was frowning at the phone as if she had the power to grant wishes.
She looked at him. “No. No, Rewind. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
“Whoa there, easy.” Rewind gently patted her back. “Slow down. What’s happened, and is there anything I can do to help?” He guided her to sit on a chair.
“You know how Jen’s birthday is tomorrow? And we’d planned to throw her a surprise party here with all the kids from Story Time and everything?”
“Of course.” Rewind himself was a part of the surprise and had been helping with some of the set up. “So what’s gone wrong?”
“Susie’s down with the ‘flu. She can’t make the cake in time for tomorrow.”
“Oh no… is she going to be alright? How sick is she? Should we bring her something to make her feel better?” The Cassette looked concerned.
Cassie stared at him a moment, wondering what he was talking about before she realized what she’d said, and she looked away a bit sheepishly. “Susie said she’s alright. Having the ‘flu is common for us humans; it’s a virus that that our bodies… uh… clean up naturally, given some time and medicine.” She sighed. “It’s just that if she handles food right now, she could infect other people. She’s contagious at the moment.”
Rewind nodded. “I understand. So… we need a cake then. Can we just buy one?”
“We could I suppose, it’s just that this was a recipe Jen loved, and bakeries tend to charge quite a bit for a custom-made cake. Not to mention the short notice.” She shrugged. “I mean, you should know, you’re working with Susie these days with her catering business and… hang on!”
The Cassette took a cautious half-step back at the sudden change in the human’s mood and demeanour.
“You!” Cassie pointed at him.
“Me?” Rewind asked. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You work with Susie. You’ve been learning from her, right?”
“Well… yes, she’s been teaching me a little bit about… wait… no. Cassie, that’s not a good idea. I don’t have human sensors. I wouldn’t know if I was doing anything wrong!”
“Wouldn’t matter. You’d just have to follow the measurements and timing and everything else will be fine.” Cassie rolled her chair over to her computer and started to print out whatever was on the screen.
Rewind groaned. “Cassie…”
“Please, Rewind? You’re our last resort.”
“I’m quite sure I’m not. There are bakers - HUMAN bakers - more qualified for this.”
“That we can’t afford. And Jen’s so fond of you, think of what it would mean to her if you of all people - or robots - did this for her. It’d be the best birthday gift ever!” She held out the sheet of paper to him. “Please?”
==========
“The deal with you, Rewind, is that you really don’t know how to say “no” to people,” Streetwise said, as he drove the Cassette around the town to pick up supplies.
Rewind slumped in his seat. “I believe I said “no” quite a few times.”
“She guilt-tripped you, huh?”
A grunt told Streetwise that he was right and he sighed. “You’re too soft sometimes, ‘Wind.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t like to let someone down, and she was right. If we hired a baker to do it, we’d be blowing our budget… pull over here.” He had Streetwise stop in front of a grocery store. “I won’t be long.”
Streetwise let him out and watched him disappear inside the store, noting how most people barely batted an eye at the sight of the little Autobot amongst them. Was that what it was like for the Cassettes, he wondered, being so easily accepted because of their small size that people barely registered them as out of the norm anymore, as opposed to the larger Autobots that frequently tended to stop traffic at the very least?
No wonder Rewind’s so at home in the town, he thought. He didn’t have to keep looking up to talk to people, and the humans interacted with him so easily because they didn’t have to look up to him, in every sense of the word.
His thoughts were interrupted by Rewind getting back into the car. “That was fast.”
“Oh, the grocer knows me, sort of. Susie shops here a lot; sometimes I go with her to help carry the bags and they recognized me, just had to give them the list.”
How casually he said it, Streetwise thought as he strapped the smaller bot to his seat and pulled back onto the road. Completely oblivious to the thought that the rest of them couldn’t even enter a lot of the human buildings to see what was inside, let alone write human-sized lists for grocers to read.
“Are you going to have any help later?”
“I’ll see if Eject’s free, though he’s my last resort. Maybe Beachcomber or Bumblebee if they can spare the time,” Rewind replied.
Streetwise knew he’d be doing it alone. “Hey, little buddy? Don’t overdo it okay?”
“I won’t.”
==========
Rewind scrutinized the list and instructions he’d been given for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. He’d laid out everything on the counter within the room the Autobots had converted into a kitchen of sorts for when their human friends stayed over, and now he wasn’t sure where to start.
“C’mon Rewind,” he scolded himself. “Jen’s counting on you and you are NOT going to let her down. You can do this.”
Just follow the steps. That was easy right? Step by step; he just had to stick to the formula and make sure everything was mixed well. Besides, the humans did it all the time - for fun even - so it couldn’t be that difficult for him, right?
He sighed and looked at the first step again. Sifted flour, sugar and baking powder went into a bowl. So far, so good. Now if he could only crack the eggs without crushing them.
“What are you doing?”
Rewind started and his fingers crushed the second egg he was about to break, bits off shell dripping into the bowl along with the rest of the gooey mess. “Thanks, Steeljaw,” he growled at his younger brother as he went to rinse his hands and look for a fork.
The lion Cassette stood on his hind legs to look at the counter, resting his forelegs on a stool. Rewind noticed a fresh repair on the left paw and remembered First Aid had been working on the injury the day before.
“Are you seriously going to bake this cake?” the Primitive asked.
“Shouldn’t you be resting that leg?” Rewind bent over the bowl trying to fish bits of shell out of the egg mixture.
“I’m allowed to walk around the base as long as I don’t overdo it.”
“Yes, I’m seriously going to bake this cake.”
“How? You can’t taste.”
Rewind sighed. “I know. I wish I could, but I know that. Maybe I’ll, I don’t know, swing by Carly’s place or something once it’s done and ask her to try a bit.” He tossed the fork in the sink and pored over the recipe again, trying to figure out what the next step meant.
“Maybe I can help?” Steeljaw offered. “I could let you know if it smells like the ones in the bakery we pass sometimes.”
“Thanks.” He started to add flavouring and eggs to the butter he had in another bowl.
“Why don’t you ask some of the others for help? I know Eject would be a disaster, but surely some of the Minibots could…”
“They’ve all got better things to do than bake a cake, ‘Jaw.” Rewind started to stir his mixture, wishing for the umpteenth time that they had better equipment for baking in this so-called kitchen.
Steeljaw frowned. “You haven’t even asked.”
“Can you honestly see the likes of Brawn or Cliffjumper mixing cake batter?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
Whatever Rewind had been going to say was suddenly cut off by a muffled thud and the room shaking for a brief moment. This was followed by the alarm klaxons blaring and Red Alert announcing over the comms that they were under attack by a small squadron of Decepticons.
“Megatron must be bored again,” Steeljaw quipped as they heard footsteps clang, engines rev and tires squeal as Autobots scrambled to their posts to retaliate.
No one so much as popped a head into the kitchen until Blaster, running past, came to a halt and backed up to look inside. “What’s going on?”
“Baking,” the two chorused.
“Right. Well, stay put. I gotta head out there and give Soundwave a hard time,” their guardian replied without as much as a flicker of his optics. “I mean it, ‘Jaw,” he said as the lion started to move. “You’re injured. Stay. I can manage one fight without you.”
Sulking, the Primitive let his head thunk onto the counter.
“Protect your brother,” Blaster ordered by way of consolation and ran off.
“But I don’t need protection,” Rewind mumbled, frowning, as he stirred the flour mix into the wet ingredients bit by bit.
Steeljaw only blew a puff of loose flour at him.
==========
As the battle raged on outside, Rewind waged his own personal battle inside, judging the quality of the cake simply by relying on the consistency of the batter and Steeljaw’s nose. His younger brother had given up sulking and now lay curled up by the counter listening to him curse under his breath whenever he ran into a snag.
Finally he poured the cake batter into a baking tray and popped it into the oven, setting the temperature and the timer as instructed. Saying a quiet prayer to whatever cooking gods were listening, he turned to start on the icing.
“I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” Steeljaw mumbled from his spot on the floor.
“You’re starting to sound like Streets.” Rewind ripped open a pack of icing sugar more forcefully than he needed to.
Steeljaw sneezed as some of the fine powder landed on his head. “We could have chipped in the money to help you buy a cake.”
“That’s not the point. Besides, store-made cakes just don’t taste as good as homemade ones since the ingredients are not as fresh.”
“Like you would know the difference.”
“Well, as a matter of fact-.” Rewind began before Steeljaw hushed him.
“Shh.” The lion sat up, ears flicking forward as he sniffed the air around him, and let out a low snarl. “Cons.” He got to his feet and crept towards the door as best he could with his injured paw. “Stay here and hide. I’m going to check things out.”
“Absolutely not!” Rewind exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “You’re hurt. Last thing you’re going to do is fight Decepticons.”
“I won’t engage. I want to see what they’re up to.” Steeljaw slipped out before Rewind could stop him.
The black-and-white cursed, torn between going after his feline brother and taking cover somewhere because there was no way he could come out on the winning side of an encounter with a much larger Decepticon. While he weighed the pros and cons of his current situation, Steeljaw snuck back inside.
“Frenzy and Ravage,” he whispered, making his brother jump again.
“You have GOT to stop sneaking up behind me like that.”
“Habit,” the lion replied with a shrug.
Rewind snorted. “So, what about Frenzy and Ravage?”
“They’re further up the hall, around the corner. Frenzy’s carrying something - blueprints I think - and I think they’re taking this route to avoid being detected along the main hallyways. Probably think no one’s down here.”
“We can’t let them get out with the blueprints. They could be for something important, but what can we do. I’m not much of a fighter, and you’re injured; and they’ll get away by the time we raise an alarm for someone outside to come help us.” Rewind frowned and looked around. “I think I have an idea. Listen…”
==========
“This is just too easy,” Frenzy said to Ravage as they walked down the rarely-used hallway. “All those Auto-fools are so busy fighting outside; they don’t guard what’s inside their base.”
Ravage only grunted in response. He could smell Autobots in this corridor, but it was hard to tell if it was because there was someone there or because some of them may have used it to get outside. Nonetheless, he kept his optics alert on the few doors that stood on either side in case someone tried to surprise them.
“Imagine the look on Megatron’s face when- YIPE!”
The black cat only had a second to turn his head before Frenzy crashed into him and took them both down. Ravage snarled, trying to get up so he could claw his fellow Cassette, but neither his paws nor Frenzy’s feet could find purchase on the suddenly slippery patch of floor.
“What the frag is this?!” Frenzy yelled. “Fraggin’ Autobot scum!!”
Something struck him on the forehead and the next thing he knew a slimy, gooey substance was running over his optics. He reached up and pulled away what looked to be a brown shell that crumbled in his fingers.
“Gross.”
Ravage growled at him, trying to find purchase on the slippery floor. The substance smelled like grease, but he couldn’t be sure. He had just managed to get his legs under him when something went splat against his head, then another, and another. The next thing he knew, the two of them were dripping head to foot with translucent slime that smelled absolutely terrible.
“I’m gonna kill those rust-buckets!” Frenzy swore, and then the air turned white.
Fine white powder exploded and settled on and around them, sticking to just about everything that was already covered in the slippery and/or slimy substance, which included the two of them.
“Frag it! It’s on my optics!” He tried to clean it off, but given that his fingers were just as coated in the substance, he only succeeded in smearing it further. “Ravage, do something!”
The noises Ravage was making told him that the cat was having difficulties, too. It sounded like the white powder had got into his vents. Frenzy cursed more, flailing and tossing aside the canister that held the blueprints at the same time.
“I hate this place!”
==========
“It’s not too bad,” Rewind said as he swirled the mop around the floor of the hallway just outside the kitchen. “Just needs a good amount of dishwashing liquid to clean it all up.”
“You are so domestic sometimes, it’s not funny,” Steeljaw replied as he sat nearby, guarding the canister of blueprints till someone came by to retrieve it.
“Well, chemicals in the detergent break up all the lipid particles and-.”
Rewind broke off when he heard footsteps, and Blaster rounded the corner with Jazz and Prowl in tow. The three mechs eyed the two Cassettes and the mop in Rewind’s hand suspiciously and Jazz’s lips threatened to break into one of his trademark grins as he put a few things together in his head and came up with the obvious answer.
An answer that Prowl had also reached, given the wry look on the tactician’s expression.
Blaster took a bit longer. “What exactly happened here?”
Steeljaw replied with a perfectly straight face and voice, “Rewind spilled a bottle of cooking oil on the floor. Then he dropped a carton of eggs, and a packet of flour burst open.”
Jazz lost it.
“Compose yourself,” Prowl chided him, though he himself was on the verge of an amused smile.
Blaster only sighed. “That would explain Hoist towing out Frenzy and Ravage.”
“We can only hope the Decepticons are as domestic as Rewind, here,” Steeljaw replied.
Rewind swatted at his brother with the mop.
Prowl accepted the canister the lion passed him, careful not to step on the area they hadn’t gotten round to mopping up. “So you never fired a single shot?”
“Not really,” Rewind replied.
“Strange,” Prowl said. “I could have sworn I smelled something burning.”
Each of them would swear later that they had never seen a mech move faster than Rewind in that moment as he dropped his mop and dashed back into the kitchen to save the cake he’d put into the oven some time ago.
They joined the little mech in the kitchen as he looked mournfully at the blackened husk that had once been a cake and then sank to his knees.
“I’m fragged. What am I going to do? I don’t have the time to make another.”
“Whoa, hang on. What’s this about exactly?” Blaster asked.
“Rewind’s trying to bake a cake for a friend’s birthday tomorrow because the original baker is sick, and they can’t afford the time and funds to go to the local bakery in town,” Steeljaw explained.
Jazz knelt and placed a hand on the smaller mech’s shoulder. “Hey now, don’t despair just yet. We’re all here. We’ll help ya, if it’s that important to ya. Just tell us what y’need.”
Rewind looked at them. “You’d really help me?”
“Do you know what’s on these blueprints?” Prowl asked. “They are plans for a new energy generator we plan to install in the volcano to harness the natural geothermal energy of the volcano to make us a little more self-sufficient in producing our own energon. If they had fallen into Megatron’s hands, what’s to stop him from, say, trying to tap into Yellowstone or some more active volcano and setting off an untimely eruption that could put many lives at risk.”
“In other words, we owe ya one,” Jazz said, activating his comm. “Bee, get down to kitchen quarters, bring Beachy with ya. ‘Jack, we could use some of your magic clean-up liquid down in Hall G. Ironhide, mind if we borrow some of y’liquid nitrogen? Sunny, if you ain’t in medical, we could use some of your artistry. Hound, see if any of your farm friends nearby can spare us some eggs and flour. Let’s move, boys, we got us a li’l project that needs doin’ pronto!”
Steeljaw nudged his brother who looked a bit shell-shocked. “I told you.”
Blaster knelt and wrapped an arm around his Cassette. “We’d never leave ya hanging, little buddy. Now, tell us what to do.”
==========
“And then Sunstreaker helped to pipe the icing design. He used to be an artist before the war y’know.” Rewind finished his tale to Jen.
“I can tell. Thank you, Rewind. I appreciate you doing this for me.”
The Cassette ducked his head sheepishly. “You do a lot for this place, Jen, it was the least I could do in return. I hope it’s good.”
Jen laughed and gestured to the large two-tier chocolate fudge cake that was almost half gone. “Given that people keep coming back for seconds, I’d say you have nothing to worry about… and it’s impressive for life-forms that don’t have a human sense of taste. It must have been a challenge.”
“Ah, well I had a lot of help.”
The young woman smiled. “They must really like you if they were willing to go through all the trouble of making a cake for a human they don’t really know.”
“I don’t know… it was a favour.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Rewind. You do a lot of good for them, though you don’t know it.”
“Thanks Jen.”
She wrapped an arm around the Cassette’s waist and gave him a quick hug. “Anytime.”
Rewind gently hugged her back. “Happy Birthday, Jen.”
~END.
Enjoy!
Rating: Very safe G
Pairings: None
Characters: Rewind, Steeljaw, and assorted Autobots. Also, Frenzy and Ravage
Word Count: 3,306
Warnings: fluff, silly crack and birthday cake.
Summary: Sometimes Rewind really has trouble saying "No" when people ask him for favors.
Piece of Cake
The sound of the phone receiver being slammed back into its cradle in the otherwise quiet library startled Rewind into looking up from the counter he was standing behind.
“Everything okay, Cassie?” he asked the young woman beside him, who was frowning at the phone as if she had the power to grant wishes.
She looked at him. “No. No, Rewind. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
“Whoa there, easy.” Rewind gently patted her back. “Slow down. What’s happened, and is there anything I can do to help?” He guided her to sit on a chair.
“You know how Jen’s birthday is tomorrow? And we’d planned to throw her a surprise party here with all the kids from Story Time and everything?”
“Of course.” Rewind himself was a part of the surprise and had been helping with some of the set up. “So what’s gone wrong?”
“Susie’s down with the ‘flu. She can’t make the cake in time for tomorrow.”
“Oh no… is she going to be alright? How sick is she? Should we bring her something to make her feel better?” The Cassette looked concerned.
Cassie stared at him a moment, wondering what he was talking about before she realized what she’d said, and she looked away a bit sheepishly. “Susie said she’s alright. Having the ‘flu is common for us humans; it’s a virus that that our bodies… uh… clean up naturally, given some time and medicine.” She sighed. “It’s just that if she handles food right now, she could infect other people. She’s contagious at the moment.”
Rewind nodded. “I understand. So… we need a cake then. Can we just buy one?”
“We could I suppose, it’s just that this was a recipe Jen loved, and bakeries tend to charge quite a bit for a custom-made cake. Not to mention the short notice.” She shrugged. “I mean, you should know, you’re working with Susie these days with her catering business and… hang on!”
The Cassette took a cautious half-step back at the sudden change in the human’s mood and demeanour.
“You!” Cassie pointed at him.
“Me?” Rewind asked. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You work with Susie. You’ve been learning from her, right?”
“Well… yes, she’s been teaching me a little bit about… wait… no. Cassie, that’s not a good idea. I don’t have human sensors. I wouldn’t know if I was doing anything wrong!”
“Wouldn’t matter. You’d just have to follow the measurements and timing and everything else will be fine.” Cassie rolled her chair over to her computer and started to print out whatever was on the screen.
Rewind groaned. “Cassie…”
“Please, Rewind? You’re our last resort.”
“I’m quite sure I’m not. There are bakers - HUMAN bakers - more qualified for this.”
“That we can’t afford. And Jen’s so fond of you, think of what it would mean to her if you of all people - or robots - did this for her. It’d be the best birthday gift ever!” She held out the sheet of paper to him. “Please?”
==========
“The deal with you, Rewind, is that you really don’t know how to say “no” to people,” Streetwise said, as he drove the Cassette around the town to pick up supplies.
Rewind slumped in his seat. “I believe I said “no” quite a few times.”
“She guilt-tripped you, huh?”
A grunt told Streetwise that he was right and he sighed. “You’re too soft sometimes, ‘Wind.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t like to let someone down, and she was right. If we hired a baker to do it, we’d be blowing our budget… pull over here.” He had Streetwise stop in front of a grocery store. “I won’t be long.”
Streetwise let him out and watched him disappear inside the store, noting how most people barely batted an eye at the sight of the little Autobot amongst them. Was that what it was like for the Cassettes, he wondered, being so easily accepted because of their small size that people barely registered them as out of the norm anymore, as opposed to the larger Autobots that frequently tended to stop traffic at the very least?
No wonder Rewind’s so at home in the town, he thought. He didn’t have to keep looking up to talk to people, and the humans interacted with him so easily because they didn’t have to look up to him, in every sense of the word.
His thoughts were interrupted by Rewind getting back into the car. “That was fast.”
“Oh, the grocer knows me, sort of. Susie shops here a lot; sometimes I go with her to help carry the bags and they recognized me, just had to give them the list.”
How casually he said it, Streetwise thought as he strapped the smaller bot to his seat and pulled back onto the road. Completely oblivious to the thought that the rest of them couldn’t even enter a lot of the human buildings to see what was inside, let alone write human-sized lists for grocers to read.
“Are you going to have any help later?”
“I’ll see if Eject’s free, though he’s my last resort. Maybe Beachcomber or Bumblebee if they can spare the time,” Rewind replied.
Streetwise knew he’d be doing it alone. “Hey, little buddy? Don’t overdo it okay?”
“I won’t.”
==========
Rewind scrutinized the list and instructions he’d been given for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. He’d laid out everything on the counter within the room the Autobots had converted into a kitchen of sorts for when their human friends stayed over, and now he wasn’t sure where to start.
“C’mon Rewind,” he scolded himself. “Jen’s counting on you and you are NOT going to let her down. You can do this.”
Just follow the steps. That was easy right? Step by step; he just had to stick to the formula and make sure everything was mixed well. Besides, the humans did it all the time - for fun even - so it couldn’t be that difficult for him, right?
He sighed and looked at the first step again. Sifted flour, sugar and baking powder went into a bowl. So far, so good. Now if he could only crack the eggs without crushing them.
“What are you doing?”
Rewind started and his fingers crushed the second egg he was about to break, bits off shell dripping into the bowl along with the rest of the gooey mess. “Thanks, Steeljaw,” he growled at his younger brother as he went to rinse his hands and look for a fork.
The lion Cassette stood on his hind legs to look at the counter, resting his forelegs on a stool. Rewind noticed a fresh repair on the left paw and remembered First Aid had been working on the injury the day before.
“Are you seriously going to bake this cake?” the Primitive asked.
“Shouldn’t you be resting that leg?” Rewind bent over the bowl trying to fish bits of shell out of the egg mixture.
“I’m allowed to walk around the base as long as I don’t overdo it.”
“Yes, I’m seriously going to bake this cake.”
“How? You can’t taste.”
Rewind sighed. “I know. I wish I could, but I know that. Maybe I’ll, I don’t know, swing by Carly’s place or something once it’s done and ask her to try a bit.” He tossed the fork in the sink and pored over the recipe again, trying to figure out what the next step meant.
“Maybe I can help?” Steeljaw offered. “I could let you know if it smells like the ones in the bakery we pass sometimes.”
“Thanks.” He started to add flavouring and eggs to the butter he had in another bowl.
“Why don’t you ask some of the others for help? I know Eject would be a disaster, but surely some of the Minibots could…”
“They’ve all got better things to do than bake a cake, ‘Jaw.” Rewind started to stir his mixture, wishing for the umpteenth time that they had better equipment for baking in this so-called kitchen.
Steeljaw frowned. “You haven’t even asked.”
“Can you honestly see the likes of Brawn or Cliffjumper mixing cake batter?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
Whatever Rewind had been going to say was suddenly cut off by a muffled thud and the room shaking for a brief moment. This was followed by the alarm klaxons blaring and Red Alert announcing over the comms that they were under attack by a small squadron of Decepticons.
“Megatron must be bored again,” Steeljaw quipped as they heard footsteps clang, engines rev and tires squeal as Autobots scrambled to their posts to retaliate.
No one so much as popped a head into the kitchen until Blaster, running past, came to a halt and backed up to look inside. “What’s going on?”
“Baking,” the two chorused.
“Right. Well, stay put. I gotta head out there and give Soundwave a hard time,” their guardian replied without as much as a flicker of his optics. “I mean it, ‘Jaw,” he said as the lion started to move. “You’re injured. Stay. I can manage one fight without you.”
Sulking, the Primitive let his head thunk onto the counter.
“Protect your brother,” Blaster ordered by way of consolation and ran off.
“But I don’t need protection,” Rewind mumbled, frowning, as he stirred the flour mix into the wet ingredients bit by bit.
Steeljaw only blew a puff of loose flour at him.
==========
As the battle raged on outside, Rewind waged his own personal battle inside, judging the quality of the cake simply by relying on the consistency of the batter and Steeljaw’s nose. His younger brother had given up sulking and now lay curled up by the counter listening to him curse under his breath whenever he ran into a snag.
Finally he poured the cake batter into a baking tray and popped it into the oven, setting the temperature and the timer as instructed. Saying a quiet prayer to whatever cooking gods were listening, he turned to start on the icing.
“I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” Steeljaw mumbled from his spot on the floor.
“You’re starting to sound like Streets.” Rewind ripped open a pack of icing sugar more forcefully than he needed to.
Steeljaw sneezed as some of the fine powder landed on his head. “We could have chipped in the money to help you buy a cake.”
“That’s not the point. Besides, store-made cakes just don’t taste as good as homemade ones since the ingredients are not as fresh.”
“Like you would know the difference.”
“Well, as a matter of fact-.” Rewind began before Steeljaw hushed him.
“Shh.” The lion sat up, ears flicking forward as he sniffed the air around him, and let out a low snarl. “Cons.” He got to his feet and crept towards the door as best he could with his injured paw. “Stay here and hide. I’m going to check things out.”
“Absolutely not!” Rewind exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “You’re hurt. Last thing you’re going to do is fight Decepticons.”
“I won’t engage. I want to see what they’re up to.” Steeljaw slipped out before Rewind could stop him.
The black-and-white cursed, torn between going after his feline brother and taking cover somewhere because there was no way he could come out on the winning side of an encounter with a much larger Decepticon. While he weighed the pros and cons of his current situation, Steeljaw snuck back inside.
“Frenzy and Ravage,” he whispered, making his brother jump again.
“You have GOT to stop sneaking up behind me like that.”
“Habit,” the lion replied with a shrug.
Rewind snorted. “So, what about Frenzy and Ravage?”
“They’re further up the hall, around the corner. Frenzy’s carrying something - blueprints I think - and I think they’re taking this route to avoid being detected along the main hallyways. Probably think no one’s down here.”
“We can’t let them get out with the blueprints. They could be for something important, but what can we do. I’m not much of a fighter, and you’re injured; and they’ll get away by the time we raise an alarm for someone outside to come help us.” Rewind frowned and looked around. “I think I have an idea. Listen…”
==========
“This is just too easy,” Frenzy said to Ravage as they walked down the rarely-used hallway. “All those Auto-fools are so busy fighting outside; they don’t guard what’s inside their base.”
Ravage only grunted in response. He could smell Autobots in this corridor, but it was hard to tell if it was because there was someone there or because some of them may have used it to get outside. Nonetheless, he kept his optics alert on the few doors that stood on either side in case someone tried to surprise them.
“Imagine the look on Megatron’s face when- YIPE!”
The black cat only had a second to turn his head before Frenzy crashed into him and took them both down. Ravage snarled, trying to get up so he could claw his fellow Cassette, but neither his paws nor Frenzy’s feet could find purchase on the suddenly slippery patch of floor.
“What the frag is this?!” Frenzy yelled. “Fraggin’ Autobot scum!!”
Something struck him on the forehead and the next thing he knew a slimy, gooey substance was running over his optics. He reached up and pulled away what looked to be a brown shell that crumbled in his fingers.
“Gross.”
Ravage growled at him, trying to find purchase on the slippery floor. The substance smelled like grease, but he couldn’t be sure. He had just managed to get his legs under him when something went splat against his head, then another, and another. The next thing he knew, the two of them were dripping head to foot with translucent slime that smelled absolutely terrible.
“I’m gonna kill those rust-buckets!” Frenzy swore, and then the air turned white.
Fine white powder exploded and settled on and around them, sticking to just about everything that was already covered in the slippery and/or slimy substance, which included the two of them.
“Frag it! It’s on my optics!” He tried to clean it off, but given that his fingers were just as coated in the substance, he only succeeded in smearing it further. “Ravage, do something!”
The noises Ravage was making told him that the cat was having difficulties, too. It sounded like the white powder had got into his vents. Frenzy cursed more, flailing and tossing aside the canister that held the blueprints at the same time.
“I hate this place!”
==========
“It’s not too bad,” Rewind said as he swirled the mop around the floor of the hallway just outside the kitchen. “Just needs a good amount of dishwashing liquid to clean it all up.”
“You are so domestic sometimes, it’s not funny,” Steeljaw replied as he sat nearby, guarding the canister of blueprints till someone came by to retrieve it.
“Well, chemicals in the detergent break up all the lipid particles and-.”
Rewind broke off when he heard footsteps, and Blaster rounded the corner with Jazz and Prowl in tow. The three mechs eyed the two Cassettes and the mop in Rewind’s hand suspiciously and Jazz’s lips threatened to break into one of his trademark grins as he put a few things together in his head and came up with the obvious answer.
An answer that Prowl had also reached, given the wry look on the tactician’s expression.
Blaster took a bit longer. “What exactly happened here?”
Steeljaw replied with a perfectly straight face and voice, “Rewind spilled a bottle of cooking oil on the floor. Then he dropped a carton of eggs, and a packet of flour burst open.”
Jazz lost it.
“Compose yourself,” Prowl chided him, though he himself was on the verge of an amused smile.
Blaster only sighed. “That would explain Hoist towing out Frenzy and Ravage.”
“We can only hope the Decepticons are as domestic as Rewind, here,” Steeljaw replied.
Rewind swatted at his brother with the mop.
Prowl accepted the canister the lion passed him, careful not to step on the area they hadn’t gotten round to mopping up. “So you never fired a single shot?”
“Not really,” Rewind replied.
“Strange,” Prowl said. “I could have sworn I smelled something burning.”
Each of them would swear later that they had never seen a mech move faster than Rewind in that moment as he dropped his mop and dashed back into the kitchen to save the cake he’d put into the oven some time ago.
They joined the little mech in the kitchen as he looked mournfully at the blackened husk that had once been a cake and then sank to his knees.
“I’m fragged. What am I going to do? I don’t have the time to make another.”
“Whoa, hang on. What’s this about exactly?” Blaster asked.
“Rewind’s trying to bake a cake for a friend’s birthday tomorrow because the original baker is sick, and they can’t afford the time and funds to go to the local bakery in town,” Steeljaw explained.
Jazz knelt and placed a hand on the smaller mech’s shoulder. “Hey now, don’t despair just yet. We’re all here. We’ll help ya, if it’s that important to ya. Just tell us what y’need.”
Rewind looked at them. “You’d really help me?”
“Do you know what’s on these blueprints?” Prowl asked. “They are plans for a new energy generator we plan to install in the volcano to harness the natural geothermal energy of the volcano to make us a little more self-sufficient in producing our own energon. If they had fallen into Megatron’s hands, what’s to stop him from, say, trying to tap into Yellowstone or some more active volcano and setting off an untimely eruption that could put many lives at risk.”
“In other words, we owe ya one,” Jazz said, activating his comm. “Bee, get down to kitchen quarters, bring Beachy with ya. ‘Jack, we could use some of your magic clean-up liquid down in Hall G. Ironhide, mind if we borrow some of y’liquid nitrogen? Sunny, if you ain’t in medical, we could use some of your artistry. Hound, see if any of your farm friends nearby can spare us some eggs and flour. Let’s move, boys, we got us a li’l project that needs doin’ pronto!”
Steeljaw nudged his brother who looked a bit shell-shocked. “I told you.”
Blaster knelt and wrapped an arm around his Cassette. “We’d never leave ya hanging, little buddy. Now, tell us what to do.”
==========
“And then Sunstreaker helped to pipe the icing design. He used to be an artist before the war y’know.” Rewind finished his tale to Jen.
“I can tell. Thank you, Rewind. I appreciate you doing this for me.”
The Cassette ducked his head sheepishly. “You do a lot for this place, Jen, it was the least I could do in return. I hope it’s good.”
Jen laughed and gestured to the large two-tier chocolate fudge cake that was almost half gone. “Given that people keep coming back for seconds, I’d say you have nothing to worry about… and it’s impressive for life-forms that don’t have a human sense of taste. It must have been a challenge.”
“Ah, well I had a lot of help.”
The young woman smiled. “They must really like you if they were willing to go through all the trouble of making a cake for a human they don’t really know.”
“I don’t know… it was a favour.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Rewind. You do a lot of good for them, though you don’t know it.”
“Thanks Jen.”
She wrapped an arm around the Cassette’s waist and gave him a quick hug. “Anytime.”
Rewind gently hugged her back. “Happy Birthday, Jen.”
~END.
Enjoy!