Post by cetus on Apr 23, 2008 15:01:10 GMT -5
Ironhide was practically an adult, a youngling simply in frame. The bruiser had gotten into another tussel, never willing to back down despite the odds. But the other young mechs had been wrong. They were picking on the sparkling femme near unmercifully, taunting her about still having the unpainted 1st armor, not their gloriously handsome older painted plating, and Ironhide stood before her and told the trio to take their sorry skidplates and get the frag out of there. They had not liked being told what to do by a younger mech.
Rushing him en masse, they pounded, clawed and wrenched at plating, while Ironhide bashed his fists into shoulders and chassis. The black youngling had actually managed to come out in something of a tie before the adults had intervened, leaving thee idiotic bullies with dented plating, but himself dripping energon and with a wrenched shoulder joint. The femme mumbled her thanks for being protected, Ironhide grunted and nodded his acceptance. Then she scurried away from the site of the altercation; she was not interested in being reprimanded for being the cause of a fight, even if it wasn’t her fault. So with a final nod between her and the burly youngling, she left Ironhide to his discussion with the adults, again, for fighting, again.
His creator had been commed, and informed that his offspring was being brought down to the medical bays. After a longsuffering sigh, his creator had assured the youth sector guardian that he would meet his charge when his shift ended. The charge, for his part, did not mind. Ironhide was used to the medical bays, a frequent enough visitor for one reason on another. The somewhat annoyed caretaker took his irritatingly argumentative charge within the medical bays and hailed one of the medics. It was surprisingly busy and the area seemed understaffed. While the caretaker grumbled about sitting with the violently tended youngling, said black youngling simply sat grudgingly on a berth.
A frazzled medic glanced up and made his way over. “Ironhide,” he sighed, “What did you do this time?” He waved off the guardian, sure that he had other charges that needed his attention back in the youth sector more than the bullish black youngling.
“Kept them from teasing Chromia about being unpainted.”
“By getting beat up?”
“I beat them up, too!”
“I see.” The medic scanned over the youngling. True to his designation, most of the damage to the black frame was light, minus a few rake marks to his chassis and the arm out of joint. All of which the young mech took with a stoicism that the medic wished some of his other patients would exhibit. “You realize there are other ways to solve problems than violence?”
“But it worked.” Ironhide groused, he attempted to cross his arms in a huff but winced at the harsh grind of an offset joint from his damaged shoulder.
“I’m sure. Now if you will stop aggravating your injury, it will hold until I seal off the fuel leaks.” The medic’s tools whirred from beneath plating and he began working. Ironhide watched, fairly impassive, while the assorted nicks and tears in his frame were repaired.
Suddenly the medbay doors slammed open and both medic and patient whirled to see the cause of the commotion. A mech hurried in carrying a distressed femme. Her optics were shuttered tightly, and she clutched at chest plating hard enough that her mate had tight connections around his own optics that indicated he was in pain.
“Idiot. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He ground out, then looked up to catch the medic’s optic and call him over with a head jerk.
“I told you as soon as I realized, scrapheap. I-” she grimaced and her intakes froze a moment, then she panted and continued through a clenched jaw. “I didn’t sit around and analyze before I figured it out.”
The medic glanced at Ironhide, and patted his good shoulder, indicating he should remain where he was, then moved over to the couple. “Figured what out?”
The mech settled her on the berth and put a hand on his femme’s hip, letting his other hand be captured by hers when she hissed and groped for it. “Our sparkling-” he began, and was cut off when the femme curled in on herself and glared at him, yanking him down to her level by his arm.
“When I get the chance, rustheap, I am ripping out relays until you know what this is like.” As the next rounds of pain hit her, intakes whined and stuck, then kickstarted with a crack.
“I love you, too.” He replied.
“How long has it been?” The medic asked
“Seven breems.” The sparkmates answered in unison.
The medic started and blinked, scanning over the femme while she fought through another pain. Only seven breems into the process and their offspring was already splitting away from the spark of its creator. “Insistent little sparklet, hmm?” He said gently, touching the femme’s shoulder and looked to the mech. “Protoform?”
The mech shook himself and nodded, producing the tiny form from his subspace and passing it to the medic.
Any other day, any other time, any other set of circumstances; with other open berths the medic would have commanded the youngling to stay put and done this in isolation. But the sparkling was coming now, and there was no time and no other place available. So here it would be. The medic started the preparations for the transfer, settling the small silver bundle of parts beside the pained femme. “I need to get to the spark,” he spoke softly.
Ironhide leaned over from the adjacent berth, curious to see exactly what was going on. This was the least boring the medbay had been during any of his previous visits.
The femme had taken to laying with wide optics while she made hitchy panting intakes. Her mate stood near, letting her cling to his hand. She nodded nearly imperceptibly and her faceplates contorted while she eased tender chest plating apart, followed by the whine-clank of her sparkchamber opening far too quickly. A short shudder and she writhed slightly on the berth. Her mate cringed sympathetically.
“Easy, now.” The medic intoned. He gathered the little coalescing spark, and transferred it to the waiting sparkchamber of the protoform. The femme slumped, slowly closing chamber and plating once the second spark was free of her chest. Everyone nearby, including her, looked intently at the small being while the new spark took hold.
Ironhide was nearly in shock, almost unbelieving that he had just witnessed a sparkling being brought into being. He stared at the little form, head quirked in thought.
Its optics onlined, and limbs twitched. The mech picked up the sparkling, and settled beside his mate on the berth. Their offspring chirped and squeaked a few times, squirming, unsettled by the sudden change in its surroundings. It only quieted to a contented purr when the exhausted femme rolled to face her mate, sandwiching their sparkling between their chests and rubbed at tiny shoulders. “What do we call you?” she murmured.
“Ratchet.”
The femme soon dropped into recharge, and the mech and sparkling quieted enough that after a thorough scan of all involved, the medic moved back to his original patient. “Bet you didn’t expect to see that when you came out of recharge this morning.”
The young mech grunted and shook his head. He remained fairly quiet while the medic continued repairing nicked lines and plating. Three unhappy mechs made for a fair tedious amount of minor repairs. Ironhide looked at the second trio he encountered that day, giving him something to focus on. Both creators had slipped into an exhausted recharge. The sparkling, however, was still far from that state, peering around the medbay. Eventually, the black mech watched as the little form squirmed and escaped, clambering towards the medic and himself. “Uhh…” he rumbled, incoherently, and cocked his helm at the sparkling nearing the edge of the adjacent berth.
Without missing a beat, the medic turned and offered his hands to the sparkling, who happily agreed to be picked up. “You do not wait for anyone, do you?”
“Why wait? Why not now?” he chittered. The medic smirked and eased the sparkling to the berth near Ironhide.
“Guess not,” the medic chuckled. “Well, behave and keep quiet, and you can watch.”
Ironhide rolled his optics, and tried not to shift away from the being a fraction of his size. Once again forgetting himself, he tried to cross his arms, only to hiss and bite back a curse.
Tiny head tilted, and Ratchet wondered why the black mech reacted strangely to his own simple motion. He crossed his own arms, taking a few moments to figure out the completed position from Ironhide’s partial success, and decided that it was not the motion that had caused the reaction. Process of elimination; he prodded at the black arm hanging in front of him, then grabbed the hand and gave a sharp tug.
Ironhide threw his head back with a strangled noise, and reminded himself that sparklings screamed in near ultrasonic when struck.
The medic steadied the wavering Ironhide and turned to the sparkling. “That is not behaving,” he admonished.
Ratchet blanched. Pain, his core processes told him that look on the black mech’s faceplates was pain. He had to make that expression go away. A glance at the medic and back to the mech sitting beside him on the berth. “I fix?”
Black helm twitched in a “no.” But the medic smirked. “Let him make it up, Ironhide.”
“But-“
Snapping open plating over the shoulder, the medic shushed his patient and recalibrated the joint, settling it safely back in the socket. “Ratchet, you can finish the fix. Swing this closed.”
Standing next to the larger mech’s hip, Ratchet reached up and pushed the plating back, where it locked in with a click. Ironhide managed to relax, finally. That expression gone from the black mech, the sparkling beamed.
“See, Ironhide? He's a good little medic.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, “medic that has a flair for pain.”
Rushing him en masse, they pounded, clawed and wrenched at plating, while Ironhide bashed his fists into shoulders and chassis. The black youngling had actually managed to come out in something of a tie before the adults had intervened, leaving thee idiotic bullies with dented plating, but himself dripping energon and with a wrenched shoulder joint. The femme mumbled her thanks for being protected, Ironhide grunted and nodded his acceptance. Then she scurried away from the site of the altercation; she was not interested in being reprimanded for being the cause of a fight, even if it wasn’t her fault. So with a final nod between her and the burly youngling, she left Ironhide to his discussion with the adults, again, for fighting, again.
His creator had been commed, and informed that his offspring was being brought down to the medical bays. After a longsuffering sigh, his creator had assured the youth sector guardian that he would meet his charge when his shift ended. The charge, for his part, did not mind. Ironhide was used to the medical bays, a frequent enough visitor for one reason on another. The somewhat annoyed caretaker took his irritatingly argumentative charge within the medical bays and hailed one of the medics. It was surprisingly busy and the area seemed understaffed. While the caretaker grumbled about sitting with the violently tended youngling, said black youngling simply sat grudgingly on a berth.
A frazzled medic glanced up and made his way over. “Ironhide,” he sighed, “What did you do this time?” He waved off the guardian, sure that he had other charges that needed his attention back in the youth sector more than the bullish black youngling.
“Kept them from teasing Chromia about being unpainted.”
“By getting beat up?”
“I beat them up, too!”
“I see.” The medic scanned over the youngling. True to his designation, most of the damage to the black frame was light, minus a few rake marks to his chassis and the arm out of joint. All of which the young mech took with a stoicism that the medic wished some of his other patients would exhibit. “You realize there are other ways to solve problems than violence?”
“But it worked.” Ironhide groused, he attempted to cross his arms in a huff but winced at the harsh grind of an offset joint from his damaged shoulder.
“I’m sure. Now if you will stop aggravating your injury, it will hold until I seal off the fuel leaks.” The medic’s tools whirred from beneath plating and he began working. Ironhide watched, fairly impassive, while the assorted nicks and tears in his frame were repaired.
Suddenly the medbay doors slammed open and both medic and patient whirled to see the cause of the commotion. A mech hurried in carrying a distressed femme. Her optics were shuttered tightly, and she clutched at chest plating hard enough that her mate had tight connections around his own optics that indicated he was in pain.
“Idiot. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He ground out, then looked up to catch the medic’s optic and call him over with a head jerk.
“I told you as soon as I realized, scrapheap. I-” she grimaced and her intakes froze a moment, then she panted and continued through a clenched jaw. “I didn’t sit around and analyze before I figured it out.”
The medic glanced at Ironhide, and patted his good shoulder, indicating he should remain where he was, then moved over to the couple. “Figured what out?”
The mech settled her on the berth and put a hand on his femme’s hip, letting his other hand be captured by hers when she hissed and groped for it. “Our sparkling-” he began, and was cut off when the femme curled in on herself and glared at him, yanking him down to her level by his arm.
“When I get the chance, rustheap, I am ripping out relays until you know what this is like.” As the next rounds of pain hit her, intakes whined and stuck, then kickstarted with a crack.
“I love you, too.” He replied.
“How long has it been?” The medic asked
“Seven breems.” The sparkmates answered in unison.
The medic started and blinked, scanning over the femme while she fought through another pain. Only seven breems into the process and their offspring was already splitting away from the spark of its creator. “Insistent little sparklet, hmm?” He said gently, touching the femme’s shoulder and looked to the mech. “Protoform?”
The mech shook himself and nodded, producing the tiny form from his subspace and passing it to the medic.
Any other day, any other time, any other set of circumstances; with other open berths the medic would have commanded the youngling to stay put and done this in isolation. But the sparkling was coming now, and there was no time and no other place available. So here it would be. The medic started the preparations for the transfer, settling the small silver bundle of parts beside the pained femme. “I need to get to the spark,” he spoke softly.
Ironhide leaned over from the adjacent berth, curious to see exactly what was going on. This was the least boring the medbay had been during any of his previous visits.
The femme had taken to laying with wide optics while she made hitchy panting intakes. Her mate stood near, letting her cling to his hand. She nodded nearly imperceptibly and her faceplates contorted while she eased tender chest plating apart, followed by the whine-clank of her sparkchamber opening far too quickly. A short shudder and she writhed slightly on the berth. Her mate cringed sympathetically.
“Easy, now.” The medic intoned. He gathered the little coalescing spark, and transferred it to the waiting sparkchamber of the protoform. The femme slumped, slowly closing chamber and plating once the second spark was free of her chest. Everyone nearby, including her, looked intently at the small being while the new spark took hold.
Ironhide was nearly in shock, almost unbelieving that he had just witnessed a sparkling being brought into being. He stared at the little form, head quirked in thought.
Its optics onlined, and limbs twitched. The mech picked up the sparkling, and settled beside his mate on the berth. Their offspring chirped and squeaked a few times, squirming, unsettled by the sudden change in its surroundings. It only quieted to a contented purr when the exhausted femme rolled to face her mate, sandwiching their sparkling between their chests and rubbed at tiny shoulders. “What do we call you?” she murmured.
“Ratchet.”
The femme soon dropped into recharge, and the mech and sparkling quieted enough that after a thorough scan of all involved, the medic moved back to his original patient. “Bet you didn’t expect to see that when you came out of recharge this morning.”
The young mech grunted and shook his head. He remained fairly quiet while the medic continued repairing nicked lines and plating. Three unhappy mechs made for a fair tedious amount of minor repairs. Ironhide looked at the second trio he encountered that day, giving him something to focus on. Both creators had slipped into an exhausted recharge. The sparkling, however, was still far from that state, peering around the medbay. Eventually, the black mech watched as the little form squirmed and escaped, clambering towards the medic and himself. “Uhh…” he rumbled, incoherently, and cocked his helm at the sparkling nearing the edge of the adjacent berth.
Without missing a beat, the medic turned and offered his hands to the sparkling, who happily agreed to be picked up. “You do not wait for anyone, do you?”
“Why wait? Why not now?” he chittered. The medic smirked and eased the sparkling to the berth near Ironhide.
“Guess not,” the medic chuckled. “Well, behave and keep quiet, and you can watch.”
Ironhide rolled his optics, and tried not to shift away from the being a fraction of his size. Once again forgetting himself, he tried to cross his arms, only to hiss and bite back a curse.
Tiny head tilted, and Ratchet wondered why the black mech reacted strangely to his own simple motion. He crossed his own arms, taking a few moments to figure out the completed position from Ironhide’s partial success, and decided that it was not the motion that had caused the reaction. Process of elimination; he prodded at the black arm hanging in front of him, then grabbed the hand and gave a sharp tug.
Ironhide threw his head back with a strangled noise, and reminded himself that sparklings screamed in near ultrasonic when struck.
The medic steadied the wavering Ironhide and turned to the sparkling. “That is not behaving,” he admonished.
Ratchet blanched. Pain, his core processes told him that look on the black mech’s faceplates was pain. He had to make that expression go away. A glance at the medic and back to the mech sitting beside him on the berth. “I fix?”
Black helm twitched in a “no.” But the medic smirked. “Let him make it up, Ironhide.”
“But-“
Snapping open plating over the shoulder, the medic shushed his patient and recalibrated the joint, settling it safely back in the socket. “Ratchet, you can finish the fix. Swing this closed.”
Standing next to the larger mech’s hip, Ratchet reached up and pushed the plating back, where it locked in with a click. Ironhide managed to relax, finally. That expression gone from the black mech, the sparkling beamed.
“See, Ironhide? He's a good little medic.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, “medic that has a flair for pain.”