New Life

Soldiers or Professional Playmates?

There was a squeak of surprise and a clang sound and all four adult bots turned to look at the sparkling that had tumbled off of the berth that Ratchet had left him on.

"Optimus doesn't trust me either, he said Ratchet would be a better guardian for Raf," Bee buzzed sarcastically as they all watched the medic run over to the crying sparkling.

Optimus' optics onlined slowly and the big mech couldn't help but marvel at the perfect recharge he had just awoken from. He figured it wouldn't hurt to sleep in another few minutes, so he let his optics offline with a small smile.

The mech's optics shot open as he realised that Miko should have woken him up by now, whether it was screeching, laughing or tapping him, he knew there was something not quite right. Slowly, he got up from his berth, careful in case said sparkling were to roll out from somewhere.

"Miko?" Optimus called as he took in the sight of his empty berth. It was very clear that the sparkling had escaped his room during the night and gone on some weird little adventure.

The Prime left his quarters after thoroughly searching every corner of it and began walking slowly towards the main room, keeping his optics peeled for any sight of the seekerling running freely around base.

Arcee was sat peacefully on a crate with Jack consuming his morning energon, Bumblebee had Raf in his arms, both with their own energon, Ratchet was tapping away on the monitors for energon signals and Bulkhead was reading a data pad, apparently the big wrecker liked to try and educate himself when he had the time.

"Good morning, Autobots. I'm afraid Miko has gone missing during the night, and I require your assistance finding her."

All of his Autobots turned upon hearing their leader and the news he had to bring them.

"Good morning, Opti-"

Ratchet sputtered, unable to complete his sentence. Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Arcee felt their jaws almost fall off their hinges at the sight of their leader.

Optimus raised an optic ridge at his team, "Is something wrong?" he enquired.

"Optimus kinda looks good in pink," Jack shrugged as Raf giggled.

"Have you perhaps wondered why Miko might have disappeared?" Ratchet asked with a smirk.

Optimus looked at him blankly, waiting for an explanation.

"Yeah, she must have realised you wouldn't be too happy with her little project," Bulkhead laughed before he could stop himself.

"...Project?" Optimus was confused now.

"Look in the monitor, Optimus," Bee held a cheeky glint in his optics. His leader definitely couldn't point digits at him being incapable of looking after a sparkling. Raf squirmed slightly in his arms and let out some babbling when he noticed Bumblebee hadn't used the shortcuts that he had installed for the bots a few weeks after they had first arrived on base.

Optimus watched the monitor as Bumblebee pulled up the security camera view of the main room. The Prime remained externally stoic as he saw the state of himself on the monitors before looking down at himself.

Pink. Bright pink paint. All over him.

Internally, Optimus wasn't necessarily angry, he was disappointed in himself; a sparkling, practically a newspark had outsmarted him during his recharge and then run away to hide. How had he not found any spot of the paint on him or in his quarters?

It seemed that he needed to keep an optic on their rambunctious little seekerling. Apparently, she was just as curious, if not more, that human Miko.