It was the weekend much to Ratchet's dismay. It meant that the humans were around, and of course they would find a way to disrupt his silence and his work as they always did. But this was a strange one, and if it was just a stupid way to bug him then he didn't find it funny in the slightest. It was a sick joke in his opinion.
"Jack! Miko! Raf! Come out right now!" he called throughout the base earning himself some odd looks from his Autobot companions.
"What's going on with the kids, Ratch?" Bulkhead asked.
Ratchet shot him a sharp look and placed his finger to his lip plating as a silent way of telling him to shut up. The medic was trying to listen for any of the children and if they'd accidentally give away their position. There was no giggling or whispering, no signs of tiny feet running or shuffling around at the call of their names. Nothing.
Ratchet scoffed and turned back to where he had found this prank that the humans had set up.
"Pesky humans, I didn't even know they knew about this aspect of Cybertronian life," he mumbled to himself but loud enough for everyone else to hear.
"What is it that they have done, Ratchet?" came the rumbling voice of Optimus who was typing away on a computer terminal.
The medic turned around to look at his leader and caught the enquiring and curious gazes of Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead too. He sighed realising that this probably wasn't a prank and he might have a spark attack pretty soon. Oh boy.
"At this point, I don't think I can even explain what they've done. Just come and see, quickly and quietly," he sighed rubbing a hand down his face plates.
Together the four warriors followed their medic to where the children had conducted their prank and found none other than three sleeping sparklings. Three sleeping sparklings that were incredibly cute. There were audible gasps, a little squeal from Arcee and mumbling and then everyone went silent as they realised the situation.
"So... are they real?" Bumblebee kneeled down and poked one of the sparklings that looked suspiciously like Raf.
Needless to say, the scout got his answer as the sparkling's optics immediately shot open. It smiled and begun making little clicking and squeaking noises.
"Hey Bee, sorry I didn't know I'd even fallen asleep," Raf laughed slightly as he attempted to lift his body into a sitting position having noticed he was surrounded by all of the bots.
But something was wrong. Very wrong in fact. His body felt so heavy and it was an extremely scary feeling.
"Bee?" Raf whimpered. He was beginning to panic, and his "eyes" quickly begun to fill with tears.
"No crying, you're okay," Ratchet said softly as he took over from the scout. He gently picked up the teary sparkling and cradled him to his chest.
Raf hiccupped a little bit but calmed down immediately, his little body registered Ratchet's spark in close proximity to his and it was a weird feeling to the once young boy. But all of this was wrong. Something had happened and all he had to do to find out what had occurred was turn his head to look at his friends and then down at himself.
No sound left him, and he froze up allowing shock to completely override him.
"Hold on a fragging minute, you're not telling me these sparklings are Jack, Miko and Raf,"
Arcee raised an eyebrow at Ratchet and placed a hand on her hip.
"Who else would they be?" Bulkhead responded as he watched Optimus carefully pick up the other two sparklings, supposedly Jack and Miko, and cradle them.
"Ratchet, what could have caused this?" Prime enquired keeping his voice low so he didn't disturb the sleeping sparklings in his arms.
"Honestly, I have not the faintest of ideas. This should never have been able to happen in the first place," Ratchet sighed.
Ratchet hated weekends.
.....
The three sparklings had been passed around the Autobots as everyone was very eager to see them after years of not seeing any due to the all spark not being around and, you know, the destruction of their planet.
During this, Miko and Jack had woken up and were very confused to say the least.
"What's happening?" Miko had whispered.
"I don't know," Jack whispered in response. His face was scrunched into a position that screamed that he didn't know what to do with himself at this moment in time.
And that's where everything blew up. Miko had whipped her head around to face the direction Jack's voice had come from and had obviously noticed that he was in fact a robot baby and he was being cradled lovingly by Arcee. She had slowly turned her head away and told herself she was tripping balls on acid, this was not real.
She'd almost screamed when she looked down at her body and realised that she too was a robot baby, but she was in the arms of Bulkhead who gave her a rather uncomfortable smile when she looked up at him with wide optics.
"Oh Kami, I should've believed those stories about after effects..." she groaned.
"Miko, I don't think that's it," Raf had stuttered.
Raf was the smart one, so he must be right... right?
She looked at him and oh, what a surprise, he's being hugged by Bumblebee and wow look at that, he's a robot baby too. That was all the confirmation she needed to have a complete meltdown in Bulkhead's arms.
"Miko, it's okay," Bulkhead had no clue what to do with the panicking sparkling but luckily for him Ratchet had stepped in and taken her from him.
Miko found herself held to Ratchet's chest as he stroked the back of her head. She calmed down slowly but still had tears streaming down her face. Bulkhead, Arcee, Optimus and Bumblebee looked at her with warm expressions seeing that she had begun to feel much better from Ratchet's quick thinking.
Arcee smirked slightly at the idea of Ratchet passing out if she ever told him that right now, he looked like a loving grandparent.
Raf had already gotten over the shock of it but it didn't mean he wasn't worried. So Miko's outburst made him think that this situation was definitely more serious that he'd first thought it to be. After all, they'd completely changed species.
Jack just lay there in Arcee's arms. And then he started shaking uncontrollably. He was having a panic attack and he didn't know what to do. Everything was going blurry, he felt sick and he was extremely uncomfortable in his body.
"Jack?!" Arcee was about to start panicking alongside the sparklings but luckily for her Ratchet was about to swoop in and save another sparkling with his loving grandparent powers.
"Optimus, take Miko," Ratchet quickly passed over the sparkling as he ran over to Jack to see if he was okay.
Soon enough, everyone had calmed down and Ratchet was finally able to give the sparklings a full medical examination. Overall, they were very healthy and seemed to be overcoming their earlier moods. The idea that Jack, Miko and Raf still had their normal minds didn't even occur to Ratchet. He simply thought that they were acting normally for young sparklings that didn't have their creators nearby.
Unfortunately for Ratchet, Miko was getting impatient and started to kick up a fuss over being held to a medical berth and scanned multiple times. It got incredibly boring after a while and her little sparkling body alongside her possible ADHD willed her to continuously move until the bots gave up and let her run around... or crawl.
Thus, the medic was forced to put Miko down on the floor so that she could crawl around, and surprisingly she was quite fast. Optimus kept an optic on the speedy sparkling, apparently intrigued by the sparkling version of Miko.
"So, if Miko can actually move around, how old do you reckon they are?" Bulkhead asked the medic.
"I can't be precisely sure, but my guess is Jack and Miko are both around 1 vorn whilst Raf is about half a vorn. Still fairly young but not newborns," he trailed off.
"So, who's gonna look after them?" Bumblebee asked capturing the attention of Optimus.
"Dibs on Miko!"
"Jack's mine!"
"I want Raf"
Ratchet smirked at the original guardians and their enthusiastic requests for their charges but knew that Optimus was about to propose something completely different. He's known Optimus the longest after all, and Ratchet knew that his leader would end up being quite possessive over these sparklings.
"I do not believe it would be the most appropriate decision for the sparklings to be separated on their first night," Optimus began.
'Here he goes...' Ratchet rolled his optics.
"I believe the best option for them would be for them to stay with either Ratchet or myself for tonight so we can check up on them regularly," he explained.
The medic instantly scoffed at this and waved a hand dismissively
"They're all yours, Optimus. I don't particularly want to be woken up from my recharge after the events today," Ratchet explained, "and on that note, goodnight."
The four Autobots and the three sparklings watched as Ratchet trailed off to his quarters after announcing he was retiring for the night.
"Well, I think what you're saying is reasonable, Optimus. Do you want me to bring Jack to your quarters or...?"
"Yeah, I think Raf would be happier with Jack and Miko tonight... he seemed really scared earlier," Bee's doorwings drooped slightly.
"I'm gonna be honest, I don't know if I could even get Miko to go into recharge..."
Optimus nodded at his soldiers and had them pass Jack and Raf over to him so he could gently hold them alongside Miko.
"Alright, I'll do monitor duty tonight then," Arcee volunteered to which Optimus gave a slight nod of thanks and approval.
With that, everyone had bid each other goodnight and made their way to their individual quarters.
Optimus was in luck, the sparklings had fallen asleep in his arms so going to his quarters and putting them to berth was the easiest thing he had done in a while. He laid them in his berth and pulled a warm cover over them before joining them on his berth. The Prime gave them one last look to make sure they were definitely settled and then allowed himself to slip into recharge.
That lasted about five minutes. The leader felt shuffling next to him and then some small squeaks indicating that two of them were awake. He opened his optics just on time to get front seats to a sparkling MMA match.
"You're so stuck up, Jack!" Miko shouted angrily as she pushed him away from her.
"Hey!" Jack's optics widened as he tumbled off of Optimus' berth.
Now, for a sparkling it was quite a high drop and Optimus felt his spark leap in its chamber when he saw Jack get dropped. He was going to grab him, honestly, he was, but Raf had been woken up by Jack's screech and had let out an annoyed shout in response which acted as an effective way to temporarily divert the Prime's attention from the falling sparkling. And thus, Jack landed on his little robot butt.
Everyone in the room was silent and Optimus got up from his berth and quickly scooped up Jack before he could start crying. He was placed against a big red shoulder and currently had a large hand rubbing his back to comfort him.
"Little one..." Optimus rumbled, not really knowing what to say as he sat down on his berth.
"Jack, are you okay?" Raf squeaked nervously.
Jack didn't answer. Not because he was upset, but because he was definitely, absolutely, 100% furious and it didn't help when Miko took one look at him and began laughing her aft off.
"That's what you get for trying to play your sneaky little 'I know better than you' card!" she taunted.
Again, no answer from Jack. The little dude just lay there against the Autobot leader's shoulder and frowned hardcore.
"Miko," Optimus began, "you are not to push other people. And you most definitely do not laugh at them when they are hurt."
The femmeling looked Optimus dead in the optic for a couple seconds and Raf winced knowing what would follow as he'd seen her do it to the teachers at their school when she got in trouble. In fact, he'd almost fallen back from his sitting position, it was actually quite difficult balancing himself, but he was just about managing.
She laughed straight in his face even as the Prime's face remained in a completely unimpressed expression.
"Dude, he just fell. It's really not that big a deal," she was almost in tears at this point and didn't notice Optimus sit Jack back down on the berth.
Miko continued to laugh even as she was then picked up by the Prime, apparently, she hadn't realised yet and it only really hit home when she was held up to his face where he completely stared her down.
Optimus admittedly felt really strange about doing this to a sparkling, but he didn't know what else to do. Miko seemed to be a sparkling that would easily get herself into trouble and he wanted to nip this in the bud as soon as possible. Yes, she was cheeky and energetic as a human child, but this sparkling behaviour was on another level; he had never seen her raise a hand against her friends and this really got to him. He had wanted to have a positive influence on the children when they were humans, but now that they were sparklings he planned on doing that and more as he decided he would take more of a sire role whilst they were sparklings. The Prime really wanted to guide and nurture these young sparks, so he was quick to sort Miko out.
Miko soon stopped laughing and looked Optimus in the optics and shuffled awkwardly in his grip as if she'd just realised that she was actually in trouble for pushing Jack. She gave in and averted her optics from the Prime guiltily which resulted in him sitting her in the crook of one of his arms.
"Jack is your friend, Miko, and a close one at that. You do not harm him, or anyone for that matter, you must appreciate that you have friends of this nature," he rumbled softly to her.
"Of course, it's my fault," she muttered, "everyone loves Jack, he's a goodie-two-shoes."
"That goes for you both as well, Jack and Raf."
They squeaked and squealed in response, but Optimus got nothing from Miko. He looked down to where he had her in his arms and noticed the annoyed scowl on her face, and it was aimed directly at Jack. Optimus exhaled, sparkling Miko was just as stubborn as human Miko.
"What were you two fighting about anyway?" he asked quietly, it was more to himself rather than aimed at the sparklings because naturally, they couldn't speak.
"That's actually a pretty good question," Raf said nervously. He'd never seen his friends like this, and it worried him. Was it being turned into sparklings that was impacting them or was there some form of tension he hadn't been aware of prior to this?
Whatever it was, he didn't like it and he highly doubted there was tension before this happened. The youngest frowned, what if this was the transformation that was affecting them and making them more childlike?
He quickly shook the thought from his head and looked at his friends as he waited patiently for an answer from them.
"I asked Miko what she was doing before we all woke up like this," Jack said coldly.
"Oh..." Raf understood.
Jack had immediately gone to blame Miko for the situation and she had in turn given a knee jerk reaction to his accusations.
"Right, and I reminded Jack that he's not as amazing as he thinks he is. You're too caught up on the idea that you're like the librarian version of Optimus," she huffed.
"Sorry."
"Whatever."
"We're all good though right, guys? We'll get through this together, it won't be long until Ratchet finds a way to turn us back to normal," Raf tried.
"I guess so," came a tired response from Jack.
"I believe it is time for recharge now, little ones," Prime said gently as he watched Raf let out a little yawn.
And boom, they were all back in their original positions again before Jack and Miko had woken up. The Prime subconsciously knew that this was the three sparklings' first night with him and he was prepared for any outbursts as they weren't with their creators.
Miko was sprawled out comfortably on his chest, Raf was curled into his side and Jack lay next to him as if trying to declare independence and that he was in fact a big boy. He soon joined them in recharge.
.....
About four hours later, Optimus was awoken by a sparkling squeaking in his audio receptors and patting his helm. He online his optics and saw the youngest sparkling sucking his thumb. Quickly, he glanced at Jack and Miko and was relieved to see they were still deep in recharge.
Optimus was no sparkling whisperer but from the way the sparkling was sucking his thumb, something told him that it was because he was hungry.
Begrudgingly, he began to get up from his berth by carefully manoeuvring Miko off of his chest and next to Jack and the he took Raf into his arms and stood up. The big bot looked at the two sparklings still asleep on his berth and deemed it would be okay to leave them for a couple of minutes to quickly get some sparkling grade energon for Raf and so he left his quarters and set out towards the energon storage vault with Raf held against his chest.
Unfortunately for him, Jack and Miko had been woken up by his heavy footsteps and the sound of his door opening and closing. They were both shocked and relieved to find that Optimus wasn't around, they'd gathered that he must have taken Raf with him too.
"Look, Miko. I'm sorry about earlier, really I am," he looked at her with soft optics.
"Apology accepted," she rolled her optics, "and I guess I'm sorry for pushing you off the bed."
"Apology accepted," he gave a slight nod of acceptance.
And suddenly energetic, bouncy Miko had returned.
"So, what're we gonna do whilst Boss Bot is away?" she grinned.
"Uh, stay put?" Jack smiled knowing that wasn't the answer she was looking for.
"When are we ever in his quarters? I wonder if he does actually have a sock drawer, or maybe he has a picture of someone he has a crush on somewhere... if it's Ratchet, I will actually throw myself off a cliff," she laughed.
"Ouch that was harsh," Jack joined her laughter.
"Oh my god what if it's Arcee?"
"Ew, stop it," Jack cringed at the thought of his partner and Optimus practically eating each other's faces, "definitely wouldn't be Bumblebee, so what if it's Bulkhead?"
They both had tears leaking from their optics at that one.
"Oh man," Miko wiped tears from her face and allowed herself to take a breather before beginning to climb off the berth.
Jack followed her and once they were off of it, the first thing they noticed that by the side of the berth was a pot of grease. Aw, Optimus was trying to avoid his old gears from getting all squeaky. Cute.
Without any warning, Jack crawled towards the large pot of grease and began trying to pull it open. Miko smirked and then crawled over to help her friend pull the cap off, and once they had the fun would commence.
"Right, so I have this insane idea," Miko began excitedly, her golden optics flashing mischievously.
"Go on," Jack encouraged just as excited as she was.
"Let's smear this all over the berth and turn it into a slip and slide, but here's the catch; we have to try and push the other person off the edge of the berth, last person standing wins," she was practically vibrating with excitement and Jack couldn't find it in him to say no even though he knew precisely what it felt like to be dropped off of that berth.
What did he have to lose? This sounded incredibly fun and his friend had just provided him with an opportunity to get his revenge on her.
"I'm in," he grinned.
Both of them managed to climb back up onto the berth with the large pot and began their mission of smearing it all over poor Optimus' berth.
Meanwhile, Optimus had gotten Raf some energon, put it in a cute little sparkling bottle and was on his way back to his quarters. The youngest of the three sparklings was cradled comfortably in the Prime's strong arms and was falling back into recharge as Optimus fed him. The combination of being held, rocked from Optimus walking and food, he was ready to fall into a great sleep.
But somehow, he'd found himself being pulled out of this comfort by Ratchet and didn't know why. He thought he was going back to Jack and Miko with Optimus but apparently the big bot had other plans. Little did he know that he'd napped through Optimus stepping back into his quarters to find Jack and Miko wide awake and sliding around in grease all over his berth.
The red and blue bot had deposited him with Ratchet after apologising for waking him and briefly explained why he needed the old medic to watch over Raf. It was because he had two messy sparklings and his berth to clean up, for spark's sake. He wanted nothing more than to go back into recharge but these sparklings were dead set on him not getting there.
He'd walked back into his quarters with both arms completely free and got ready to react quickly as both sparklings stopped giggling and froze when they saw him. Optimus knew they'd try to bolt so he managed to scoop them both up as they tried crawling away.
As he carried the squeaking, wiggling duo towards the wash racks, he noted that it was exceptionally difficult to keep a hold on two sparklings covered from helm to pede in grease.
"Sparklings, why must you be so difficult?" he sighed tiredly as he placed them into a sink and began running warm water into it.
Exhausted, the mech began to gently massage them with soap and water in an attempt to strip the layers of grease off of them and this had the effect of cleaning them and putting them to sleep again.
Soon enough Jack was sat in the sink yawning and struggling to keep his optics open, and Miko was flopped over Optimus' servo as he rubbed at her back. Optimus sighed in relief at how quickly they had gone into recharge and thanked Primus that at least he could just dry them, drop some solution on her berth and then go into recharge himself. Oh boy, had it been a long night for the poor dude.
The sparklings stayed asleep as Optimus lifted them out of the sink and into a warm towel to dry them both and as he walked back to his room and held them whilst he wiped his berth down with cleaning solution to get the grease off easier.
Eventually, the red and blue bot was able to land his tired frame into his berth with Jack and Miko held against him.