POV: Misfire

Misfire probably wasn’t the first of the crew to notice the sound, but he was the first to speak up. “Grims, why is your armor crying?” 

Grimlock’s hand ( Primus, his hands are so big, Misfire thought) went to his chest—which was, in fact, crying. A reedy, thin wail, that was far different from the urgent beeps of a sparkling, but somehow tugged at Misfire’s spark in the same way. Even with his mask and visor up, Misfire knew a guilty look when he saw one. 

The lack of any vocal answer from Grimlock made the noise stand out even more. 

Fulcrum was the next to speak. “We did actually drop off the weird baby at Troja Major, right? … Right?” 

Grimlock opened his chest compartment. 

They had not, in fact, dropped off the Firstborn at Troja Major. 

The little creature stopped crying in favor of staring at the Scavengers (understandable, they were a feast for the optics, if you asked Misfire). That didn’t mean there was silence—far from it. 

From Fulcrum: “Okay, we’re turning around then, right? This is—We aren’t—”

Simultaneously, from Spinister: “Did it hide itself there? How intelligent is this thing; are we sure it isn’t acting maliciously?”

Krok tried to interject with something presumably reasonable about everyone letting him think for a moment, but he was cut off by Grimlock growling and Crankcase’s horn going off. Nickel was expressing shock that the techno-organic was even still alive. 

For once, Misfire was the only one not talking. Well, him and the baby. 

He waved at it—her? That sounded right. Her whole face, all soft and organic with big wet eyes and squishy cheeks, scrunched up into a smile. The glee in her expression stood out even more than the Decepticon emblem on her face as she waved back. Misfire’s spark flared, bright and hot in his chest as he and the baby looked at each other. 

Everyone else’s debates seemed to run out of steam (at least temporarily) just in time for Misfire to announce, “We’re keeping her.” 

The, uh, friendly discussions exploded into raucous life all over again, but Misfire paid it no mind. He was far too busy reaching to take the baby out of Grimlock’s chest brace. Grimlock chuffed at him, a gentle reminder of the concept of ‘ask before touch’ that Misfire was, yeah, aware he typically left in the shadowy corners of his processor along with things like targeting modules and table manners. 

Misfire chirped and flicked his wings apologetically. The edges of Grimlock’s visor gleamed in that way they did when he was happy, and he reached into his own armor to carefully remove the baby and hand her to Misfire. 

She didn’t seem to need a lot of support when being held—most sparklings didn’t, but he’d heard organics or mammals or whatever needed a lot of it. Something about their big heads and lack of metal spines. 

Sounded like a skill issue to him. 

The baby babbled enthusiastically and grabbed at any part of his kibble that came within reach. She even had a little baby electromagnetic field that sparked with joy as she talked! 

Misfire nodded sagely. “Yeah, we like to talk a lot here. I bet you’re narrating the awesome adventures you had with Grimlock, right? I’m usually a first-person inner narrative kind of guy, but I’ve been experimenting with limited third person these days. What do you think of that?”

The baby paused mid-sound, mouth open slightly. Misfire was gonna assume she was pondering his question. After a klik, she looked at Grimlock, then back at Misfire, finally declaring, adorably emphatically, “Bah!”

Misfire laughed. “Yeah, you’re gonna fit right in.” He set her on his hip so he could hold her with one arm and turned to face the rest of the Scavengers. “So, since this kid is gonna roll with us, clearly she needs a much cooler name than ‘the baby’ or ‘the Firstborn,’ or whatever. First thoughts, no bad ideas in brainstorming, Misfire Junior? Minifire?” 

Fulcrum pursed his lips, clearly trying not to laugh. “We aren’t naming her Minifire.” 

“Great, so you’re on board with keeping her, clearly!” Misfire said with a grin. “Here, come hold her, she’s real cute.” He didn’t wait for an answer, trotting over and holding out the baby, who eagerly reached out for Fulcrum. 

For his part, Fulcrum flinched back like the baby was a sparkeater or something. “I didn’t say I was on board with keeping her! Won’t she need to like, eat food, or something? Stuff that doesn’t keep like energon? And then after organics eat, it all becomes mucus that they get everywhere. I think. Right? Who’s gonna clean up the mucus, because it’s not going to be me,” he insisted, looking around to appeal to literally anyone other than the Firstborn or Misfire as they giggled at him. 

“We know that she has a spark,” Nickel mused. “So she probably needs—or at least can consume—certain nutrients from energon, at least, on top of whatever her organic frame requires.” 

She craned up on the tips of her pedes to reach one of the baby’s little hands, gently pressing at the base of each chubby finger. “I can’t tell if she’s got a sentiometallic skeleton beneath the organic protoform or something like calcium or keratin without a deeper scan. … Actually, I’m not sure we have scanners appropriate for her proteins.” The baby grabbed at Nickel’s fingers, and Nickel made no move to pull her hand away. 

“That’s right, you’ve got a different kind of cellular layer on the outside than me,” she said instead, as direct as she’d be with any of her fully-grown charges, if a bit less fiery. “It’s softer than our armor, but clearly not too fragile. Do you think the medbay scanners will be safe for you, hm? Maybe you and I can—” Nickel paused mid-sentence. “I… Alright, admittedly the little thing’s growing on me already.” 

Misfire cheered, settling the baby back onto his hip so he could punch the air with his free hand in celebration. The baby copied him with a joyful squeal. “That’s three in favor!” 

“Four, counting me,” Grimlock added. 

“Hold on, am I being counted as in favor—?” Fulcrum tried to interject, but he accidentally came too close to Misfire and the accompanying baby, and got a tiny fist waved in his face for it. “Look, we have to figure out what she eats, first, at minimum!” 

“Fulcrum’s right,” Krok said. “... But Misfire and Nickel aren’t wrong,” he allowed. “Look, why don’t we see if we have any filtered energon from the last batch we scavenged, since I know we’re out of fresh stuff. We can at least feed her before we take her back to Agonizer on Troja Major.” 

While Krok spoke, Spinister crept up to Misfire (for a helicopter, the guy was real quiet) and narrowed his optics to glare at the child. She squinted right back at him for a long moment before settling on sticking out her tongue. It was purple, much like the emblem on her face. 

… That was probably normal for a Firstborn. 

Hardly a klik later, Spinister stumbled back, spluttering. “Oh, Primus, the inside of my mask tastes horrible!” 

Misfire snickered. “Someone tried to stick their glossa out at a baby, huh? I think that’s Mini-Miss one, Spinister, zero.” 

“As long as I’m not in charge of cleaning up her messes, it doesn’t make a difference to me,” Crankcase grumbled. “Are we boarding now, or do we need to argue for another ten kliks?” 

“Time to board!” Misfire declared. “Come on, Mini-Miss. Let’s rise up, or roll out, you know, whatever sounds cooler in the moment.”

Fulcrum followed, though he attempted to keep a cool metron or so between himself and the organic. It wasn’t like her arms were even that long! … Well, Misfire’s arms were pretty long, and it was really funny to see Fulcrum jump back when he held out the baby, so the distance was probably a good idea. 

“Mini-Miss isn’t a good permanent name either, I think. What if she grows bigger than us?” Fulcrum pointed out.

Misfire shrugged. “Then it’d be hilariously ironic. And come on, pinhead, it’s not like you’ve suggested any better ideas! What would you call a Fulcrum Junior, anyway? Half-crum? Ful-crumb?”

It was possible Misfire was too busy guffawing at his own jokes to hear whatever comeback Fulcrum came up with. When he got his vents back under control, though, Fulcrum was laughing too, even if his cheeks were creased like he was trying not to.

“You’re ridiculous, and this kid is going to be ridiculous, too,” Fulcrum groaned through his laughter. “You’ve gotta get better jokes before she learns how to talk.” He winced at the recognition of what he’d accidentally implied. “Not that I think we’re going to keep her that long! If we don’t have anything she can eat, we have to go straight back to Troja Major.” 

“Sure, Trojan Magic,” Misfire said glibly, with all the confidence of a mechanism who was absolutely going to feed a baby rust sticks if they didn’t have any real fuel. 

… As long as she had teeth. She probably had teeth. Organics were probably forged (born?) with them, like sparklings. Probably. 

He’d figure it out. 

If he had to use one of the W.A.P.’s dubiously-functional escape pods himself to get to the nearest planet with organic-suitable foods, he’d do it. The Firstborn, the baby, the little sparked organic creature, whatever she was scientifically—she was relying on them, on him.  

Misfire wouldn’t— couldn’t let her down. 

POV: Spinister

Rolling with the Scavengers was, if nothing else, exciting. It was a lot of other things too, of course, but exciting was a good way to sum it all up. You figured out to expect the unexpected basically immediately.

Spinister had seen a lot of shit, to put it gently . He’d seen (and shot) his fair share of organics. Even the ones that weren’t too much smaller than him generally knew not to mess with him. 

This little not-mechling did not seem to have any reasonable qualms about his capacity to target her littlest digit from 120 metrons away. 

She was making faces at him over Nickel’s shoulder and pounding her tiny fists on said shoulder when he didn’t respond to her expressions. Surely there was something more than met the optic with a being like this—it couldn’t actually be that squishy and helpless. Maybe there was some emotional plot there? She certainly seemed to have some sort of telepathic control over Misfire; he was rarely this eager to follow Spinister into the medbay even when he was actually wounded.  

If they hadn’t had the Firstborn to scan, Spinister might have taken advantage of the uncharacteristic presence of Misfire in the medbay to scan him. He kept avoiding his annual check-ups, and there was something about his electromagnetic field that had felt jittery and different all day. 

It was probably just worries about the Scavengers’ new tagalong. Or her psychic influence infecting him. 

After all, it had taken Grimlock and Crankcase combined to hold Misfire back long enough for Krok to explain that Misfire’s presence would not make the medbay any safer for the Firstborn. That hadn’t been enough either—in the end, Fulcrum had mentioned that the rest of the W.A.P. desperately needed to be baby-proofed, and where would the thing even sleep, anyway? Misfire had whirled into action with a dedication he typically only displayed when committing to a comedy bit. 

“It could explode when we try to scan it,” Spinister suggested as he wedged the medbay door shut behind himself and Nickel. (The sliding door track was not a mission-critical repair. And also not a fun repair.) 

He knew he was hiking up his rotor blades defensively as he and the baby stared at each other, but no amount of internal H.U.D. pop-ups reminding him that such a display of vulnerable fear was exploitable by his enemies seemed enough to get them to lower. 

Then the tiny organic lifted her shoulders, as though trying to imitate Spinister’s pose. 

Despite himself, he tipped his helm to one side in curiosity; she copied that too. 

“It—she’s no more likely to explode than we are at any given moment,” Nickel said with enough confidence for the both of them. “Now here, hold her for a klik while I look through our imaging tech and see what might work for her.”

Most of Nickel’s words beyond ‘hold her’ were entirely lost on Spinister’s audials as the warm, soft baby was shoved into his arms. He trilled a little in surprise, unable to deactivate his internal alarms in time to stop himself from making any sound at all.

To his further shock, she trilled right back at him. That was not a sound organics usually made, right? As a test, Spinister beeped softly, a wholly electronic noise. 

The baby beeped. 

How was she doing that? 

He shifted the baby into the crook of one arm, freeing his other to carefully press at the smooth sides of her neck and the fuzzier spots along her jaw and cheeks. It didn’t feel like she had the rectangular modulators that gave most Cybertronians their own voices. “How do you make sound?” he asked, craning his neck to try and see into her mouth without actually touching it. 

“Og ah. Eem,” the baby said, eyes all round and serious. Then she beeped again—her mouth opened when she did, so whatever was generating sound probably was located in her throat, at least—and fearlessly reached up to pat Spinister’s mask. 

“Let’s make a deal,” Spinister suggested, just as serious as the baby. “I will open my mask and you can inspect my intake, and I will look at your mouth to see if there’s a vocalizer hidden in there. We can both satisfy our scientific curiosity.” 

A quick glance across the room assured him that Nickel had her entire top half buried in their box of miscellaneous medical scanners in a variety of dubious working conditions, so no one other than the Firstborn would see him so unguarded. 

He hoisted the child up so their faces were level. 

Spinister’s face mask did not want to open. 

If this being tried to betray him, he could just drop her, he reasoned. She would have proved herself capable of such forethought and thus capable of landing on her feet. Probably. 

“Don’t rush me,” he grumbled, even though the child had done no such thing. She just kept looking at him with those large, dark eyes, seemingly taking up much more space on her head than was physically probable. Her electromagnetic field was smooth, far calmer than his own (justifiably!) paranoid aura.

Spinister had to run a full vent cycle before his systems let him access the command to transform back his face mask. 

The medbay’s air was cool, if a touch stale, on the mesh of his lips. He pursed them; the baby copied him. 

“I have lips, teeth, and a glossal component,” he explained, briefly opening his mouth to point to his silvery fangs and tongue in order. “They modulate the vibrations from my vocalizer to create speech. I saw your glossa and lips; do you have teeth?” 

The baby opened her own mouth as he did his, revealing her violet tongue and the matching purple palate—as well as at least two pearly white nubs visible on her lower jaw. Teeth! Her accompanying gesture toward her mouth, though, was far less specific than Spinister’s (it was possible she was just sucking her thumb). 

“This has been a valuable exchange of knowledge,” Spinister informed her. “I do not think you are planning to attack me. Yet.” He slid his mask closed just in time for Nickel to dig herself out of the storage bin, triumphantly waving a corded transducer wand. 

“Got it! I think our best bet is some kind of ultrasonic scanner, something we can use in gentle pulses that won’t disturb organic tissue,” Nickel explained. 

Spinister nodded. “We should try the magno-scanner too, because she has to be at least a little conductive to have an E.M. field. Not the radiography x-ray stuff, though, that’s bad for organics.” Something within Spinister balked at the idea of losing out on knowledge about a potential combatant, but a larger part of him refused to entertain the idea of anything that could injure the little bundle of life in his arms. They could learn about her in other ways. 

The baby did not enjoy being set down for the scan; she seemed to have trouble sitting upright, chubby arms flailing until she was flopped partially sideways with both hands on the tabletop. She looked up at Spinister and Nickel, lifted one arm as if to reach toward them, then immediately thought better of it and dropped it to steady herself once more. 

Spinister hadn’t thought that hatchlings held much emotional appeal to him personally, but the little trill the baby made was so helpless that before he knew it, he was reaching for her to pick her up again. 

His arms bumped into Nickel’s; she’d apparently had the same reaction to the sound.

“She’s of such a different substance to us that I think we can make the scans work with one of us holding her,” Nickel said, collecting the baby into her arms. She grinned at the Firstborn as she continued, “You’re going to be the most spoiled youngling in the galaxy at this rate.” 

Spinister offered the kid one of his fingers to grab. It took her a moment, tiny face scrunched with concentration as she convinced all of her little digits to curl at the same time around his own. “Well, she is the best youngling in the galaxy,” he said decisively. Yeah, sure, Spinister-of-five-kliks-ago had been worried she was some sort of double agent, but Spinister-of-five-kliks-ago could suck a citron. Spinister of the now knew the truth. 

By the time they’d finished the scans—which were reassuring, all told. Sure, she was organic enough that she couldn’t go through a transmat portal, but she was Cybertronian enough that energon would fuel her spark, which would fuel her organic side in turn. Still, she’d probably be healthier with something more solid, if the presence of teeth that didn’t look particularly weaponizable was any indication. 

The important thing was that they could take care of her. 

And that she could bite people. 

Hopefully Fulcrum, that would be hilarious. 

POV: Krok

Everyone had agreed that the baby, much like regular sparklings, needed more recharge than an adult mechanism. Naptime was a necessity for all younglings, even ones that were the first of their kind. 

The baby herself, though, frequently had different ideas. 

Even Misfire’s seemingly endless energy couldn’t keep up with the Firstborn when she was overtired and cranky and refusing to lay in the barrel they’d converted into a bed for her. Krok was pretty sure it was closer to the nest set-up flighted creators did for sparklings than it was to any organic sleep methods, but it seemed to work most of the time.

Some of the time. 

“Well, honestly, she usually just sleeps in my berth,” Misfire admitted. “My creator said he did that with me before he laid me, and when I was an egg and after I hatched, and he never rolled over on me in his recharge or anything. Said it was a seeker thing so everyone could rest safely.” 

Judging from the way Misfire’s wings kept sagging and how his typical laidback grin was edging into manic, Krok felt fairly certain that Misfire was not actually recharging as much as he claimed he was. “Look,” he said, carefully scooping the baby from Misfire’s arms, “I will handle naptime today.” Before Misfire could object, Krok suggested, “I think Crankcase found a new movie in that ‘splatstick’ genre you like—I bet if you guys get to the rec room first, you can get it started before anyone complains it isn’t your turn to pick the movie.” 

Misfire perked up. “Fuck yeah! Alright, well—you’re sure you don’t want me to get Spinister, or something? The last time she successfully napped, I kinda just… flew her around in my cockpit the whole time, so maybe he could do that too.” 

“I’ll make it work,” Krok assured him. “We all agreed to take care of the baby, so we’re all going to participate.” 

Despite his confident words, a part of Krok wished he still had Radar’s digit with him to click and soothe himself. Then, though, Misfire smiled, wide and trusting, and that did a lot to reassure Krok’s lingering nerves. He wasn’t alone—if he needed help with the child, he’d be able to get it in no time. 

For her part, the Firstborn seemed calm enough in his arms. 

Surely naptime wouldn’t be that difficult. 

The last of the worry in Krok’s spark was vanquished when Misfire leaned forward to kiss the side of his helmet. “Thanks, Krok.” His sweet smile gained some fangs when he continued, “I’m gonna go see if Cranky-case is up for some splatstick and chill, if you know—” A yawn interrupted his innuendo, and he rubbed at one cheek sheepishly. “Or maybe a nap. And a flight, after that, I’ve been itching for extra airtime for like a deca-orn. Is that hangar still big enough for me to fly around, or did we fill it with the—”

“Misfire, get out of here,” Krok sighed with faux exasperation. “We’ll survive on our own, I promise. And you can ask about the hangar after you nap.” 

Misfire snickered. “If you say so!” He bent to press a quick kiss to the baby’s forehead. “Alright, mini-me, be nice to Daddy Krok, okay? I’ll be back soon!” And with that, he was trotting out the door and down the hall. 

“Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” Krok said to the infant. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to let Misfire name you after himself. At least not without a vote.”

(Krok made no comments and chose to have no thoughts about Misfire ever again calling anyone onboard Daddy. )

It was easy enough to distract himself from that line of thought by prepping the Firstborn to go down for her nap. She didn’t need a clean onesie yet, thankfully, as they didn’t have a ton of them—fabric wasn’t exactly common in deep space, and their first trip to a market with any options at all had revealed that the baby had powerful opinions on fabric textures. Focusing on quality over quantity (and doing a lot of laundry) had worked so far, at least. 

Krok couldn’t imagine having to change his armor as frequently as the baby needed her clothing changed.

She was suspiciously active throughout the whole routine—kicking her feet and waving her arms as he wrapped her in the only blanket she seemed to enjoy being swaddled in, playing with her sippy cube rather than drinking from it, giggling as he rocked her while playing one of the songs from the naptime playlist—generally acting very, very awake. 

Still. Krok had told Misfire he could handle it, so he’d handle it. 

The crying started when he tried to lay the Firstborn down in her cradle. 

Krok was good at doing what needed to be done. 

He wasn’t afraid to make hard choices on behalf of a team. 

His processor wasn’t perfect, but no one’s was, and he liked to think he was pretty level-headed these days. 

… Nope, he could not stand here and let the baby cry it out.

“It’s alright, don’t cry, I’ve got you,” he soothed, scooping the baby back out of her barrel and tucking her against his chassis. Her chest hitched as a few more hiccuping sobs escaped her, but snuggled close to his spark, she calmed down soon enough. “Maybe you just still have a little too much energy,” Krok reasoned. “How about we get the ball rolling with some catch?” He winced internally at the unintentional pun. 

The baby had taken some time to figure out sitting upright—she still preferred to be braced against something rather than rely on her internal gyroscopes, and she hadn’t yet grasped the whole standing thing for longer than a moment at a time. None of the Scavengers were sure if this was normal or not, but she didn’t seem upset by it, so they weren’t worrying about it. 

All this to say: Krok was well aware he’d be doing most of the work in this game.

He settled himself and the baby down on a bit of the floor that had warped at some point or another, leaving them at the base of a very slight incline. Add in his old mecha-soccer ball, and there was great fun to be had in gently shoving it to roll up the floor and back down to himself and the baby. 

Her pushes never sent the ball very far, but there was no way he was going to stop her from trying. It was almost as big as she was, and it was all she could do to catch it with both arms (and Krok’s help, ensuring it never hit her face or bowled her as it rolled down from one of his stronger nudges). 

Watching her little face screw up with concentration as it rolled back to her reminded him of himself. He’d spent so long lining up and kicking and chasing a mecha-soccer ball again and again as he tried to improve his accuracy, but it had never gotten old. This ball was newer than that, but it still smelled like all the balls did—oil and turf and sealant, a heady pre-competition cocktail. 

A sharp tug on one of his shoulder spurs pulled him out of the memories of games gone by. “Bah!” the baby insisted as she pulled herself almost totally upright. One little fist was wrapped securely around his shoulders, while the other waved in the loose direction of the ball. It had escaped the bent floor and come to a stop just out of reach. 

“Hold on, bitlet, I’ll get it,” he promised, and started readjusting to stand. 

Before he could, the Firstborn had let go of his shoulder. 

Just like that, she was standing. A little wobbly, sure, but more stable than he’d ever seen her before. The Decepticon symbol on her face was creased with fiery determination as she alternated between watching her own feet and the ball. She shifted as if to lift one pudgy foot off the ground, but nearly overbalanced and had to remain standing still.

Krok was frozen in place. 

The baby beeped frustratedly, giving the ball the most baleful glare to ever come out of a child of any species. 

She wobbled once more and Krok lurched forward, certain she was falling for real, but then her feet caught up to her body and she was toddling forward with surprising speed. Once she reached the ball, she nearly collapsed onto it (with Krok shuffling on his knees close behind). 

“Ook!” she declared triumphantly, arms wrapped as far around the ball as she could get them. 

“You did it!” Krok agreed. He grinned at her, as proud as a creator whose sparkling had just shot the winning goal. “Great job, kiddo. Next stop, the all-star league, for sure. Now, how about that nap?”

Walking must have been tiring—the baby was recharging basically as soon as Krok scooped her into his arms. It was only after he’d safely tucked her into her bed that he realized he’d made a crucial mistake. 

He hadn’t recorded any of her first steps in anything other than his own memories. 

Misfire was gonna kill him if they couldn’t convert those files into viewable holos. 

POV: Crankcase

Crankcase was the only one who could take care of the little human-robot-technorganic thing right now, so it was up to him to keep her alive. 

Alright, so technically only Grimlock, Spinister, and Nickel were actually busy—Fulcrum, Misfire, and Krok were only ‘busy’ having some messy fun with each other, and Crankcase had been a little worn out after being ‘busy’ with Misfire all morning. (Misfire had always had a lot of energy for interfacing, but lately, the mech was basically insatiable unless he was napping or playing with the Firstborn.)

All that aside, it was possible that Crankcase had insisted they go have that fun and he would take care of the baby this afternoon. Misfire had her basically all the time, anyway. It was definitely not because he was jealous of the bonds the others were forming with her, or anything. That would be stupid. 

“I’m not that stupid,” he grumbled aloud. 

The baby just looked at him. Her eyes were big and round and expressive. He didn’t know why she’d be looking at him when they were on the bridge—sure, the W.A.P.’s viewports weren’t exactly clean, but you could still see real stars and slag outside of them. 

“Look, why don’t you help me pilot,” he said, turning her around in his arms so she could lean on the dash and look out the window. 

“Aa!” she exclaimed, pointing at who-knew-what out the window. Or maybe a smear on the window itself. 

“Those are stars,” Crankcase agreed. “Probably. That smudge might be one of those space jellyfish that tried to eat the ship that one time.” 

Was it okay to tell sparklings (or human babies, or whatever the Firstborn counted as) about space roadkill? 

Probably. 

A ping lit up the periphery of his HUD. 

    CONS4EVA: grumpybox, you up?

Crankcase’s face froze, save for the mauve flush he could feel warming his cheek struts. He didn’t think too hard about it, just snapped a screenshot of his current view—the back of the baby’s fuzzy head, her arms blurry as she waved at a streak of light that could have been a comet or a distant life form—and sent it back. 

    grumpybox: [Screenshot-40890602-359_HUD.jpg]
    grumpybox: sort of.
    CONS4EVA: IS THAT A HUMAN BABY? ARE THEY THAT BIG NORMALLY??? that’s like a whole sparkling size!! 
    grumpybox: in order: i dont think so and i dont know but probably not unless humans get smaller as they age.
    CONS4EVA: boxy. you have to know i need more details. 
    grumpybox: its a long story, lots of high jinks and shenanigans. 
    CONS4EVA: promise?? 👀

Even though Crankcase’s face was still stuck, enough happiness swirled in his spark that he might as well have been beaming. Actually, this was a suspicious amount of joy. Just in case, he did a quick scan of the W.A.P. bridge and viewports to ensure the universe wasn’t about to manifest an asteroid belt or some other emergency to rain on his parade. 

When lightning didn’t spontaneously strike him down for daring to feel slightly more bright-sparked than usual, he decided to risk further fun.

    grumpybox: ill let her tell it.

He started recording his visuals as he shifted the baby back around to face him. “Hello, baby,” he began. “My—my uh, CONS4EVA, he wants to know your intricate backstory. You were supposed to change the universe, I think. But we fracked that right up, didn’t we?”

The baby gleefully babbled in response. She favored big gestures, waving her arms and bending her wrists, though Crankcase wasn’t sure if the movements were meant to correspond with her speech or she just liked doing them. 

“Sounds kind of like a pain, if you ask me,” Crankcase said when she paused long enough for him to get a word in. “You’d need, I dunno, six orbital cycles worth of comics plot to build up to it, probably.” 

“Bah!” she insisted, forcefully bringing down her tiny fist onto his arm.

Crankcase couldn’t hold back a chuff of laughter. “There’s no need to shoot the messenger, you little monster. Save that for your first game of Shoot Shoot Bang Bang, which, as owner of the copyright, I will graciously allow you to say.” 

Primus, he was being ridiculous. He couldn’t believe he had to send this blackmail material to any other being. (Sure, no one was forcing him to send it. But he was gonna.) 

    grumpybox: [Vid-40890602-360.mp4]
    grumpybox: when do u think shell be able to play ssbb™ with us? i think next week. shes just gotta get better at running. and holding things.
    CONS4EVA: hello??? her little BAH??? she’s like a mini-you!!! i am engraving this video on my metaphorical hard drive forever. 

Crankcase wasn’t sure if his face was smiling, but he sure felt like smiling. 

    grumpybox: what are wraith sparklings like? do they hatch with all their teeth? the baby arrived with two teeth, but now shes got at least six. 
    CONS4EVA: not half as cute, I’ll tell you, unless you find cannabalistic ooze clouds cute. parenting is very hands-off. unless you want your hands to Come Off. 
    CONS4EVA: *cannibalistic 
    grumpybox: and here i thought last week’s Diaper Incident was the worst thing that could happen to anyone caring for a youngling
    CONS4EVA: i’m gonna guess i don’t want the details to that 😬 
    CONS4EVA: oh slag i just realized im gonna be lte for my transport, gotta run. give the baby a kiss for me!!! and show her how to use a dart gunfor me too!! bye!! 
    grumpybox: talk to you later, cons

Sometimes Crankcase liked the low stress nature of being able to talk over messages more than in person, but others… he wished their goodbyes didn’t have to be so abrupt. And that he could show Cons4eva things that didn’t translate to video, like the soft talcum scent of the baby, or how fuzzy her little tufts of hair were.

He groaned. “Ugh, this is embarrassing. I might as well break off the rest of my helmet and let everyone see exactly how soppy the insides of my brain circuits are.” 

The baby waved her arms and babbled, unphased by Crankcase’s complaints. 

“Oh, and you’re a paragon of social virtue, I presume,” he grumbled, more out of habit than any real irritation. “I suppose when you get carried everywhere like a little Emperor Prime, everyone’s problems seem pretty petty.” 

Her giggles weren’t quite infectious, but they did a lot more to brighten Crankcase’s mood than he’d like to admit. 

Maybe he didn’t want to wallow in misery—that wasn’t the kind of slag the baby needed to see. “How about we distract ourselves with guns?” he suggested. Even if she couldn’t quite hold it straight yet, that didn’t mean she couldn’t familiarize herself with the nature of a dart gun. 

“Guhz,” the baby repeated solemnly. 

So, as you see, that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the primed dart gun in his hands when Krok appeared at the doorway. 

“Ock!” the Firstborn declared. She clapped her hands together on each side of the dart gun, jostling it slightly. 

On instinct, nothing else, Crankcase steadied his aim to keep it trained on Krok’s chest.

Krok raised a brow-ridge. “I was going to say that I think it’s my turn to hold her, but something tells me you don’t want to hear that right now.” 

“The little bit and I were just practicing,” Crankcase explained, trusting his facial paralysis to work in his favor for once. 

But, of course, the universe refused to be on his side for too long. 

“I see the way your cheek is twitching, Crankcase,” Krok warned. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed bystander, would you?”

Crankcase scoffed. “There are no bystanders in Shoot Shoot Bang Bang. It’s not Sit Sit Nap Nap.” 

The baby hiccuped, jolting slightly in his arms. The moment of distraction that caused was long enough for Krok to pull out his own dart gun from behind his back, the liar, and aim it at Crankcase. 

“So much for unarmed bystander,” Crankcase groaned. “And you, bit, who’s side are you on?” 

The Firstborn just laughed, unhelpful but still adorable. 

Krok shrugged. “It’s possible our little uh, team meeting, earlier, devolved into some shenanigans. You know how we get. Misfire’s not out yet, by the way, and you know he’s going to steal the little one the moment he realizes she’s fair game as a fellow combatant. That warning’s the only mercy you’ll get from me.” 

It was Crankcase’s turn to snicker. “Good thing the baby and I don’t need anything else to win.”

His dramatic statement was somewhat undercut by a teal blur zooming past him and sending his gyroscopes spinning so fast it was all he could do to stay standing. 

POV: Nickel

Nickel cackled with glee as she unlocked her wheel heels to skate down the hallways at top speed, a sentiment clearly matched by the Firstborn, if the glittering delight in her EM field and matching laughter as Nickel scooped her from Crankcase’s grasp was any indication. “I thought you didn’t play Shoot Shoot Bang Bang!” he hollered after her (though that didn’t stop him from aiming and firing his dart gun in her direction).

It was true; something had held Nickel back from fully participating in Shoot Shoot Bang Bang before; she’d told herself it was too dangerous and silly in equal measures. 

But something about the faux drama of the stand-off she’d witnessed between Krok and Crankcase over the Firstborn had grabbed at her fuel pump, pulling her into the fray. She had not put much strategic thought into her actions, but the element of surprise was on her side, and sometimes that was all you needed.

Crankcase’s parting shots in her direction went wild—this was clearly a mech used to much taller opponents. 

After checking to make sure the hallway ahead of her was clear, Nickel spun to skate backwards and make an obscene gesture at her pursuers. “You shoot like Misfire!” she called back to them. 

“Woo!” the baby shouted in support, flapping one little hand in what Nickel was going to presume was meant to be an obscene gesture like her own. She couldn’t wait until the kid had the dexterity to exactly copy her. 

From a branching hallway, Misfire squawked in offense. “Hey, I resemble that remark—oh, slag, I was hiding, you didn’t hear me!” 

But it was too late for him. Nickel had spun around on one wheel, aiming and firing in the same motion. It wasn’t her best shot, and Misfire was typically one of the more agile Scavengers. Today, though, he took a split-klik longer to move than usual. Not long enough for her to be suspicious he was letting her win on purpose, but just long enough that her shot struck true.

With a dart stuck right between his optics, Misfire was down for the count. 

She took another moment to send a few darts in the direction of Crankcase and Krok before wheeling back around to handle the upcoming curves. Okay, you saw Krok nail Grimlock on his way to the bridge, where he must have failed to ambush Crankcase. That shout from earlier sounded like Spinister being offended someone shot him, so if you’re lucky, he’s out, and Krok and Crankcase will take each other out, leaving…

“Fulcrum,” Nickel said, sliding to a stop so quickly that her tires stung with friction burn. Fulcrum stood, casual as anything, in the hallway, with a, uh, something held in front of him in one hand. She squinted at the loosely-held together sphere of scrap in his outstretched hand. “I assume that’s meant to intimidate me. It might need a better label if you want to make that kind of impact.” 

“Nickel,” he greeted. Then, with a separate nod, “Firstborn. I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you—wait, wait, don’t shoot!” he interrupted himself when he saw Nickel raise her dart gun. “This is a dart grenade! If you shoot at me, I’ll pull the pin before you make impact and then we’ll all go down!” 

The clatter of footsteps announced Krok’s arrival to the scene, wielding Crankcase’s pistol in one hand and his own in the other. Nickel immediately redirected to target him. Fulcrum wasn’t holding another gun, after all, and she didn’t want Krok getting any ideas about shooting her and dealing with Fulcrum himself. 

Nickel had to think fast—she wasn’t about to let her first time participating in Shoot Shoot Bang Bang also be her first time losing. She had always been one to smash any learning curve in front of her. “Are you sure that grenade is safe around our littlest combatant?” she asked innocently. “I know the dart guns don’t have enough force to injure her, but that looks untested, to be polite.” 

Fulcrum’s optics darted between his two—two and a half? three? the baby couldn’t hold a gun, but she was proving to be a valuable ally—assailants. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, a thread of uncertainty in his field.

Krok must have picked up on it, because he leaned right in. “I don’t know, what if the baby gets startled by the noise of it exploding? I hear some humanoids sweat when they’re nervous. Have you ever looked up what sweat is, Ful—”

“Do not tell me what sweat is!” Fulcrum blurted somewhat hysterically. “I am not letting a hypothetical organic fluid ruin my moment!” 

Nickel carefully, without ever taking her gun off Krok, knelt to set the baby down on the floor. “Why don’t you go say hi to Fulcrum, little one,” she suggested. It took a moment before the Firstborn was steady enough to take steps, but she could walk mostly unassisted once she got going. And, unfortunately for Fulcrum, she loved the color orange. 

“No!” Fulcrum hissed, stumbling back but unwilling to actually look away from any of his enemies. “Don’t—I can’t—What if she leaks on me!”

The Firstborn was less good at stopping than she was at starting. She frowned at Fulcrum’s panic, wavering on her feet. 

“Guys, we can’t let her fall over,” Fulcrum said weakly. “You’re gonna catch her, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, tucking his makeshift grenade into subspace and dropping to the floor to offer his arm to the baby. She stumbled into him with more eagerness than skill, giggling and probably drooling over his armor. Fulcrum looked… decidedly less than thrilled, all things considered.

But that might have had something to do with the two darts suctioned to either side of his helm like supplemental antennae. 

“Come on, guys, really?” he complained. 

The baby reached up to bat at the darts and giggled, her face lighting up with a grin as wide as a shuttle’s wingspan.

Nickel wasn’t made of ice, she thought the baby’s antics were just as cute as the other two did. Or at least as cute as Krok did and as distracting as Fulcrum did. Either way, when you were small and round and brightly-colored, you figured out fast how to use cuteness as a weapon—and not just your own .

While Krok was helplessly smiling back at the baby, Nickel nailed him with a dart straight to the chest.

She wasted no time jogging over to scoop the little one back into her arms and coo at her, now free to appreciate how damn cute they both were as victors. “That’s right, little bit, we won!” Nickel couldn’t resist dipping her helm to nuzzle the baby as one might any sparkling. And the Firstborn couldn’t have been too different from the rest of them, because she chirped and nuzzled right back. 

Misfire might claim it was beginner’s luck and Crankcase might claim copyright violation, but no one would argue that this was a victory to be remembered.  

POV: Grimlock

Grimlock was enamored, he’d admit it. Following the antics of the Firstborn as she grew more able to toddle about the ship and get into trouble was a great way to spend any day, in his opinion. She loved riding around on his shoulders, whether he was a mech or a tyrannosaurid (almost as much as she loved roaring along with him). 

Sure, the little hatchling wasn’t exactly great at holding on, but that’s what his reflexes were for. He kept at least one hand or half his attention on her, if not both, at all times. 

He clicked at her, a sound half-organic, half-robotic, and she chuffed back at him and playfully bopped his helm with one fist. The parts of her that were more or less organic were different from his beast mode, but he was surprised every day by how similar the sounds they made were. Though the kid was a lot chattier than him on every level. She babbled increasingly less random syllables as though they were full lectures when asked any question, tended to beep random letters of binary when sleepy, and purred and snarled and chirped like any Dinobot on top of that. 

It was only a matter of time till she started narrating her point of view of their adventures, Grimlock was certain.

Sometimes it made Grimlock wonder what a hatchling that was more technologically-based on the seven of them would look and act like; every time, though, he couldn’t picture anyone but her. 

“Let’s go see what the others are up to, fledgling,” he rumbled, following the familiar clamor multiple Scavengers in one room inevitably produced. He heard Spinister’s indignant arguments at the top of the fray, something about a suspicious pillow and deadly couch cushions. 

“The baby will agree with me,” Spinister declared the moment he caught sight of them. “Right, Firstbee?” He stood, hands on hips, facing down all five others—Crankcase and Krok in the sagging center of the couch, with Fulcrum tucked under Krok’s arm on one side and Nickel leaning against Crankcase on the other. Misfire was sprawled on his front over the back of the couch as it sagged ominously under everyone’s combined weight. 

“No, look, if it hasn’t broken yet, I think it’s gotta be literally unbreakable,” Misfire insisted. “Sure, there isn’t room for you and Grim now, but if we all get up and put you two in the middle, I think the rest of us can fit!” 

“You’re just saying that because you want my spot,” Crankcase muttered mutinously. “Which you’re not getting, by the way, it’s my turn in the middle and you know it.” 

The Firstborn giggled and drummed her hands atop Grimlock’s helm. He obediently moved forward, letting her push and pull at his finials to direct him over to Spinister.

“Ah! Ituh!” she exclaimed, failing to climb over Grimlock’s helm toward Spinister—if there was one thing she liked more than being held by one Scavenger, it was being held by one of them and getting attention from at least one if not more of the others. 

“See!” Spinister said. “She’s coming over here because she doesn’t trust that deathtrap either.” 

“I think she knows which one of us sneaks her rust sticks,” Nickel murmured. 

Grimlock chuckled as he leaned forward, giving the baby a much flatter plane to scoot forward on. “You say that like you’ve never snuck her some of those sulphurifudge truffles the rest of us aren’t supposed to know about.” 

“And if you’re a wise mech, you’ll continue not knowing about them.” Nickel’s face wasn’t visible with the way Grimlock’s helm was tilted, but he didn’t have to see her expression to know she meant business. (That didn’t stop Misfire from immediately bugging her about them—the seeker had recently started craving all sorts of unusual treats. The other day Grimlock had caught him dipping what looked suspiciously like bits of a metal wall panel into some nightmare zinc-citron ‘sauce.’ Seekers sure were weird.)

Misfire’s odd preferences aside, there were more fun things to think about—like the way the baby was babbling at Spinister and how he chirped back and shuffled forward to let her grab at him. They all softened up around her, even if they wouldn’t admit it out loud. She was good for them just by existing. 

Of course, her foot chose then to jam into a particularly delicate cable bundle on his upper neck. Grimlock did his best to stay perfectly still to avoid jolting her, even as his optics involuntarily welled up with coolant at the sting. “Kid’s got your kicking legs, Krok,” he wheezed. 

“Wait, I gotta get up, I need a picture of this! Spinister, Grimlock, don’t move!” Misfire interjected, though his objections were somewhat lost in the guffaws of the others. 

Grimlock winced as the Firstborn’s foot wedged deeper into his cables, but remained obediently still. Thankfully, he didn’t have to suffer alone for too long, as Krok’s laughter was abruptly cut off by an ominous crunk-CRACK announcing the death of the couch. 

When the dust settled, the five Scavengers that had been on the couch were half-buried in metal and plastic detritus, to say nothing of each other. Nickel was the luckiest of the bunch, flopped over both Crankcase and Misfire, but poor Krok looked seriously entangled with everyone else’s limbs and a large amount of the stuffing from the erstwhile couch. 

The baby, little monster that she was, giggled. 

“Before I fall into a fit of laughter, no one’s actually injured, right?” Spinister asked brightly. Nickel flipped him off as he joined the baby’s gleeful snickers. 

“Fuck you too,” grumbled Fulcrum from his spot between Crankcase’s aft and the remnants of a couch support strut. 

“Fuck oo!” the baby agreed, before collapsing into more giggles. This seemed to stun everyone even more than the couch collapse had. Behind his mask, Grimlock suppressed a grin. Yeah, she was their hatchling, alright. He reached up to scoop her from his helm and tuck her into his arms, where she beamed up at him and waved her arms as she repeated, “Fuck!” with clear delight. 

“Fulcrum!” Misfire gasped. “You aft, she was going to have Misfire be her first word, and then you were all going to let me name her Misfire Junior! Just you wait till I get out of this pile, I’m going to—”

“We are never naming her Misfire Junior!” Fulcrum insisted, scrabbling to free himself from the couch faster than Misfire. 

“Should we help Misfire or Fulcrum, fledgling?” Grimlock asked quietly. 

Spinister abandoned the chaos to turn and hook his chin over Grimlock’s shoulder, chirping softly at the baby, who obligingly chirped back. “Mm, she says we shouldn’t help either of them. She wants to go steal Nickel’s candy.” 

“Ituh!” the baby responded. “Ituh-ituh!” When this didn’t get much of a response from either mech over her, she pouted, like the tiniest sour gear-grape. She looked up at Grimlock again and pounded one fist on his chest. “Gib-Gimmuh!” 

Grimlock had to recalibrate his language processors for a moment.

“Spin, I think she’s—I think those are our names. ” He stroked a lock of hair back from the Firstborn’s face as he murmured to her, “That’s right, I’m Grimlock, and that’s Spinister. If I shortened it, I’d think Pin would be easier than Ituh, but I guess we have different language struggles, huh.” 

“Fuck, huh,” she agreed with him. 

Spinister chuckled. “What a little menace. I hope she calls Fulcrum ‘fuck’ at least once.” He bunted his helm against Grimlock’s like an affectionate photovoltaicat. “Come on, Gimmuh. I think such an expanded vocabulary deserves a treat.”

“Something tells me the baby is not the only one who wants a few of those truffles,” Grimlock said, but he was already slipping the Firstborn back onto his shoulders in preparation to follow Spinister out of the room. 

“I’m allowed to have an ulterior motive or seven,” said Spinister with a shrug. “Now come on, if we hurry, we can get snacks and get back in time to see who wins the couch kerfuffle.” 

“Bet you a case of rust sticks it’s Nickel.” 

“No fair, I was going to bet on Nickel!” Spinister complained as the two of them snuck out of the room, ignoring the rising volume of shouting from within it. “Fine, I’ll raise you a flask of that moonshine engex on Krok.” 

“Deal,” Grimlock agreed. He reached up to get the attention of the Firstborn. “How about you, hatchling? You wanna get in on this?”

She hummed, as if considering her options. 

“That’s alright, kiddo, take your time.” Grimlock assured her. “We’re gonna do a lot of stupid things, all of us, but we’re not gonna rush you. Promise.” 

After all, they hadn’t rushed him. 

POV: Fulcrum

“It isn’t that I don’t like you, specifically,” Fulcrum said. “It’s just—the Diaper Incident. Hearing about that gave me nightmares, I don’t know how Misfire cleaned it up without losing his fuel.” 

Tucked in her bassinet, snug as a byte-bug in a rug, the Firstborn just looked at him. She was actually getting a little big for it these days, but they hadn’t yet figured out a good step-up that wasn’t a regular berth built into the ship walls, since those were still too far off the ground for anyone to feel safe about her sleeping in one overnight. Her eyes—optics?—were all round and shiny, like she didn’t have to care about a thing but wanted to care anyway, or something.

Fulcrum deposited himself in the chair next to her with a heavy sigh. “You’re so cute. It’s rude, you know? To be so gross and yet so cute? I guess you take after Misfire in that way.” 

“Miffy?” the baby asked, bright eyes darting around the room.

“No, Misfire’s not here,” Fulcrum answered, guessing at what she meant. After ‘fuck,’ (and look, it was not his fault her first word was ‘fuck!’ He just said it in the wrong place at the wrong time, okay?), everyone had started noticing the way her babbling was steadily making more and more sense. They all knew their Firstborn-given names: Misfire was Miffy; Grimlock was Gibbie or Gimmie; Spinister had settled into Pittuh; Nickel was Nicky; Crankcase was Cancky; Fulcrum himself was Fookuh or Fookum. 

Certain sounds clearly gave her trouble—much to the dismay of ‘Kock.’ M’s were hit-or-miss, but r’s were still off the table entirely. 

(Sure, cock wasn’t the Cybertronian word for spike, but they dealt with enough humans in the process of meeting the Firstborn’s needs that their liaisons were likely to notice sooner or later. Fulcrum was just glad he hadn’t been dubbed ‘Fuck.’)

“You’ll need a name of your own sooner or later,” he said. “Have you thought about that yet? ‘Firstborn’ doesn’t exactly have your favorite sounds in it.”

Fulcrum wondered if she had something she thought was her name already—baby, hatchling, little one, kid, any of the many affectionate nicknames all the Scavengers had slowly accumulated for her. They all referred to her as ‘the baby’ or ‘the Firstborn,’ but when talking to her directly, basically everyone had their own nickname for her. 

Except for himself. 

So here he was… bonding? He supposed? Misfire got tired way more easily than usual these days—Fulcrum wasn’t worried; sooner or later Nickel and Spinister would be able to herd him into the medbay and give him a scan to make sure whatever he had wasn’t deadly or contagious. Even then, with the seven of them, there was normally someone other than Fulcrum happy to scoop up and cart around their little bundle of joy (and of disgusting fluids, but who was counting). 

Krok had worn her out this morning with mecha-soccer practice, which mostly involved him standing the baby on his pedes and them “kicking” the ball together. It was, frankly, unbearably cute.

Fulcrum had surprised everyone—especially himself—when he volunteered to take the Firstborn for nap time. 

The Firstborn had settled down into her nest pretty easily, but real recharge was taking longer to happen. Case in point, after Fulcrum had stopped talking for a few moments, she made a questioning sound and grabbed at the edge of her bed. She didn’t get a real proper grip on it, but she did get Fulcrum’s attention.

“How did we get our names?” Fulcrum responded, as though she’d asked a specific question. “Well, Misfire’s pretty obvious. Your Miffy’s not great at the whole aiming thing. Krok had a pet that was a mechano-krok. Crankcase—okay, it probably isn’t because he’s cranky, but let’s be real. It also, definitely is. I’d guess Nickel came from a hotspot that had a lot of nickel around it, and, I gotta be honest, I have no idea where Spinister or Grimlock got their names. Maybe Spin’s is a reference to some helicopter thing like spinning rotors.” 

She shook her head—the sheer focus on her face as she did so was kind of hilarious. “Fookuh, Fookum name,” she insisted. It took her a minute to switch from ‘mm’ to ‘nn,’ but Fulcrum had time to wait. 

“Oh, you want to know where my name came from?” he guessed. At the baby’s nod, so enthusiastic it moved her whole body, Fulcrum had to smile. “Well, I was forged, uh, in Vauvaire, so not one of the cool ones like Nova Point or anything. My mentor…” It took some effort to keep himself smiling now; he didn’t want to upset the Firstborn. “My mentor named me. I guess he really thought I’d be worth something, because that’s like—a ‘fulcrum’ is a pivot point, a vital part of a situation. We hadn’t talked in decades when I joined up with the Decepticons.”

“I Depicon?” the Firstborn asked. She yawned, focus slipping away as her chubby cheeks stretched and relaxed. Her yawn pulled one from him; his processors readjusting to favor energy preservation across all systems.

“Well, since we’re Decepticons, you’re probably one by extension,” Fulcrum said. “So yeah, you are a Deception.” He grinned, and at her responding smile, let her cuteness overwhelm his common sense. And he reached in to pet her head (though still being careful to avoid all of the orifices on her face). “The littlest ‘con,” he murmured. 

The baby yawned again. Her eyes blinked open and shut, staying closed for longer each time. “I Decon… I Con… Connie,” she mumbled. 

Fulcrum’s spark flared. Connie. Affection overpowered his wires, hot and bright and almost painful. “That’s right,” he agreed. “Our Connie.” 

Connie reached up, patting his hand clumsily a few times before grabbing two of his digits. Despite his better judgment, Fulcrum let her tug his whole hand down so she could clutch it like a snuggle toy. He waited to try and extricate himself until her eyes closed and her breathing settled into something that he was pretty sure was recharge.

Or at least, he meant to. 

By the time Connie fell fully asleep, Fulcrum had also passed out, slumped against the side of Connie’s barrel and barely on his chair.

His hand remained firmly in her clutches. 

POV: Misfire

Misfire was pretty sure he’d never been happier than this. Even post-overload bliss couldn’t compare to the spark-deep contentment warming his whole frame. Call him a sap, but napping in the center of your six mates, with your technorganic kid cuddled up in your arms? It was pretty damn great. At least it would be, until one of them got too hot or the baby needed a bathroom break or something. But hey, even those things were a part of life, and experiencing them meant that they were all here, or whatever. Further proof of their strange yet beautiful existence. 

“Misfire. Light of my spark. I’m going to tape your mouth shut if you don’t stop talking,” Krok groaned. 

“So sue me, I care about you losers!” Misfire protested. In his arms, the increasingly-less-little Firstborn grumbled something incoherent and burrowed her head into Misfire’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to care that it was metal and not very soft. He smiled and nuzzled the top of her head, scruffling up her already-fluffy hair even further. 

Maybe he had been feeling a little extra sappy lately. Whatever, it was no weirder than any of their other shenanigans. And who knew how long the baby would stay small enough to hold like this! She was already in her own cot and everything!

Misfire had maybe shed a few heroic coolant tears of bravery when they moved all of her bedding out of the barrel bassinet and into her cot.

“Do you have to care about us so loudly?” huffed Spinister. He was curled around Fulcrum like a Chelonoid shell, matching the curve of the smaller mech’s back almost perfectly. 

“Look, I’m just saying that I think this little nut has changed us for the better.” Misfire cooed some nonsense binary at the Firstborn before continuing. “You know, we’re all nicer and slag. And I’m eating better, I think, or at least eating stuff other than siphoned energon. And resting more!” 

Grimlock chuckled from his spot at the outskirts of the pile in his dinosaur mode, forming a solid, warm base everyone else could lean against. “Oh, like we’re supposedly doing now?” 

“No, really!” Misfire continued, because he had a point, dammit! “I feel like my electromagnetic field is more in tune with all of you and everything. And—” he paused to cover the Firstborn’s ears with his palms, “—not gonna lie, the sex is always good, but it’s been fucking amazing. ” 

Nickel, who’d been absently petting the side of Krok’s helm, froze. “Spinister,” she said, her voice full of a sort of nervous excitement that Misfire hadn’t heard from her before.

“Nickel,” Spinister answered, with an only slightly warier version of her tone. 

“I—run those symptoms through your databanks, because I think—I mean, they all match. Right? I’ve just never actually treated someone with that condition.”

Fulcrum mumbled, optics shuttered as though in recharge, “Spin’s not a forged medic, he’s just got bits and pieces from those piracy download sites.” 

Krok sat up and shook his head. “Okay, enough beating around the bush. Nickel. What’s wrong with Misfire?”

Misfire tried in vain to challenge the flow of conversation. “Nothing’s wrong with me!” 

“What? Spinister, sometime we’re cabling and I’m copying mine over for you, but for now—” Nickel stopped mid-sentence. “You’re right, Krok. Well, not totally, Misfire’s also right. There’s nothing wrong with him—besides the usual—but that isn’t—”

“You guys hear that, I’m right!” Misfire whooped. He winced as the noise disturbed the Firstborn, who turned to glare up at him with the world’s cutest angry eyebrows. 

“Miffy is too ‘oud,” she stated seriously. (Her ‘s’ was still more like a ‘sh,’ but it was getting clearer every day. All due to Misfire’s good influence, he was certain.) 

“Sorry, bug, I’ll keep the volume down,” he promised. “Can’t promise I won’t interrupt, though, because if I don’t, we might forget about the topic, you know? And everyone can interrupt me, of course, I’m not a hypocrite there, at least.” Misfire could have talked more, but a bleat of static from Nickel clearing her throat reminded him that they weren’t the only participants in this discussion. 

Misfire wasn’t worried about whatever was going on with him—Nickel had said there was nothing wrong with him and everything. 

He glanced over at her, curious but not hugely invested or anything. Her optics were brighter than normal; it looked kind of uncomfortably bright, honestly. That had to be blowing out her color perception. 

“I think you might be sparked, Misfire.” 

Misfire snorted. “Yeah, sparked to party! What else is news, doc?” 

It didn’t really sink in for a long, silent moment.

“Wait. Sparked, like, carrying sparked?” Misfire had to reboot his language processors to make sure he’d understood that right. And then his actual audials, and his optics too for good measure. It was a good thing he was already laying down, because it seemed like most of his frame actually needed a solid couple of kliks to put itself back together in a way that made sense. 

When the world came back into focus, he and the Firstborn were still ensconced in the middle of the pile of Scavengers, and Nickel was talking again. “—and his craving for flight you noticed, Krok, is normal for carrying seekers, it doesn’t mean he’s definitely carrying a flighted sparkling. That said, flying isn’t off the table as a possibility, though, especially since Spin and I have contributed and we’ve both got flight-capable alts. I’m not sure how far along he might be, so it may or may not show up yet in the scans.” 

This was… a lot of information to take in.

Misfire trilled to get everyone’s attention before the conversation could get any more scientific. “You nerds are all forgetting about something vital!” he declared. 

“We need to redistribute pillows again?” Crankcase guessed.

“You’re gonna get first dibs on picking a new couch,” Spinister sighed.

Fulcrum added, a smidge frantically, “We should have been looking for way more enriched fuel for you lately, and now we’re in the middle of nowhere and at least a couple days of travel away from any planet likely to carry it?” Grimlock stretched his neck forward to comfort Fulcrum with a gentle nudge, encouraging him to lean on Grimlock’s blocky helm. 

Krok was clearly suppressing a smile as he said, “You think you get naming rights on the new sparkling, don’t you.” 

Misfire held up his hands to ward off any further panics. “So none of that was my point, but Krok was close! In order, yes, I get the most; yes, because clearly I medically need to be getting railed (forget you heard that, Mini-miss) on that thing; and no, doofus, if the fuel thing was that dangerous at this point, Nickel and Spinister would have already dragged me to the medbay and we’d be having this conversation there. And Krok, I don’t think that, I know that!” 

He paused just long enough that he could claim he’d given everyone else a chance to chime in before barging ahead. “Now we really need to name the Firstborn something other than ‘the baby,’ because otherwise we’re going to have two ‘the babys’ and that’s just ridiculous. And I’m just saying, I’ll let Misfire Jr. go, but I haven’t heard anything half as good as Minimiss.” 

“Actually…” Fulcrum spoke up, looking… well, ‘calmer’ wasn’t quite right, but ‘less actively freaked the slag out’ was close enough. Actually, if the flush on his already vibrant orange cheeks spoke to anything, it was almost shy. “I’ve been calling her Connie.” 

Misfire couldn’t hold back a delighted little flutter of his wings. “Frag, I want to object on the principle of being right about cool names for things, but I can’t. How’d a pinhead like you come up with such a perfect name?” he teased. He looked down at the Firstborn—at Connie— and beamed. She met his smile with her own. “What do you think about that, Connie? A new name and a future little sibling.” 

“That’s fuckin’ awe-fum!” Connie cheered, and then Grimlock was laughing that deep, barrel-chested laugh he didn’t show off often enough, and sooner rather than later, all of the Scavengers were laughing with him. 

In another universe, one where he hadn’t been raising a baby who was literally the first of her kind for so long already, a life change like carrying might have terrified Misfire. He’d have figured it out, of course, because he rocked like that, but it would have been a tiny bit more intimidating, probably. 

“Thanks, kid,” he whispered against Connie’s head. “You changed my world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” And that seemed like a good ending line to him. A little sentimental, sure, but Misfire was carrying, he got to be as soppy as he wanted. On that note… 

Misfire spoke up over the laughter. 

“Guys, how do you feel about a genre change? I’m thinking slice-of-life domestic shenanigans.” 

fin