[Fic Fragment] Babies.

[justbolts]

One of the things that always bugged me about "Revenge of the Fallen" (and the first live-action movie, for that matter) was how quickly and thoughtlessly the AllSpark Mutations were wiped out. This led me to an AU idea of Bumblebee adopting the Mutations instead of killing them and then really, really regretting it. I wrote out a (big) chunk of it for shits and giggles, but lack the motivation to either finish it... or give it a proper begining. Probably because I don't know how far I want to go with re-writing the entire ROTF train wreck of a plot.

But otherwise, it's 9K words sitting around aimlessly in my Google Docs and I have a chronic case of always wanting to share what I write, even when I probably shouldn't.

So for anyone who doesn't mind incomplete stuff, here you go. If I ever get the urge to finish it, it'll probably go on one of the fic coms.

Title: Namless
Rating: PG
Continuity: '07 and '09 live-action movie AU
Warning: Injury to a child. No beta, excessive rambling, attempts at humor, inconsistencies with the film, semi-original characters. Fanwank.


Notes: This begins exactly how "Revenge of the Fallen" does and diverges with Bumblebee going "Wait!" and grabbing the sparklings.

_______



"What are you doing, 'Bee?" Sam said frantically, "Kill them!"

Bumblebee twisted his head around to stare at Sam in horror. "They're just babies!" he cried.

And then quickly snatched a miniature missile out of the air before it could reach Sam and Ron. It exploded inside his hand, wedging tiny pieces of shrapnel under his armor plating. Oh, that was going to be such a pain to dig out later. He used both hands to clutch the five struggling sparklings against his chest and turned to the side, so that his back was between them and Sam. Instead of attacking Bumblebee or each other, which was a bigger concern, they continued trying to wiggle free to get at the humans.

Said humans, for their part, had backpedaled several feet.

"Those're some killer babies," Ron said.

"Oh god, my house!" screamed Judy.

Bumblebee vented air. And it had started out as such a nice day.

"They are very scared right now," Bumblebee said with as much patience as he could muster, "I can calm them down --" his voice spiked in pitch as one of the sparklings, originally a blender by the look of it, began sawing into his chest plating with a whirling blade, "-- but I need time. Get Judy away from the house in case more are still inside and try to distract your neighbors."

He sent a desperate communication to Optimus Prime for help.

Sam, who looked like he'd been rolled around in a pile of lawn clippings and splinters, gave him a freaked-out look, but nodded. "I hope you know what you're doing, 'Bee."

He tugged at his father's arm and the two jogged off, collecting the panicking and still raving Judy Witwicky and leading her to safety.

The doubt would have stung if Bumblebee had noticed. Two things occurred at once to distract him; Optimus accepted his comm and the other sparklings had decided that the first one was on to something and applied themselves to Bumblebee's armor with vigor.

"(What is it, Bumblebee?)" Optimus asked.

Bumblebee quickly packaged everything that had happened in the last ten minutes and shot it over to his leader. The sparklings' blades, while they would have been murder against Earth materials -- or tender human flesh, something he didn't want to contemplate too deeply -- weren't strong enough to do more than scratch Bumblebee's armor. But it still stung like crazy. He glared down at them, wishing he could risk freeing a hand to pry their weapons off.

An uplink request from Ratchet pinged his comm just as Optimus said, "(I'm sending Ratchet and Arcee over to assist, but it's going to take several hours for them to make it there. I'm also contacting our agents in the Tranquility police force to manage the humans.)"

Thank Primus, Bumblebee thought. He could already hear Sam's voice getting higher as he lied his aft off to the increasing number of curious onlookers.

Bumblebee accepted Ratchet's request and brought it into his communication with Optimus just as his newly acquired charges succeeded in digging a chip out of his chest plating. They let out an excited garble of incomprehensible infant speak. The blender, in a fit of daunting cleverness, aimed a spray of bullets at the spot. Bumblebee was forced to hunch over them to prevent any bullets from ricocheting into the surrounding houses. They redirected harmlessly into the grass.

"(Do your best to contain the situation)," Optimus continued, oblivious to Bumblebee's condition. His voice took on a heavy tone of regret. "(If you're unable to prevent the newborns from harming humans, you will have to incapacitate them.)"

"(That shouldn't be a problem, Prime,)" Ratchet spoke up before Bumblebee could voice his dismayed acceptance, "(We'll get them thinking up to our speed and they'll settle right now.)"

He sent over a list of the operational systems that were the core of all Cybertronian CPUs -- the ones that allowed complex thought, abstract reasoning, emotional analysis, and more.

"(You should be able to copy these from your own systems and get the install started. I recommend leaving the little buggers in stand-by until --)"

"(Wait!)" Bumblebee said, "(You expect me to install these? I've never worked with sparklings before!)"

A crash came from inside the Witwicky house. Frag it all!

"(Well, unless you got some cage to stash them until we get there, you don't exactly have a choice.)"

Bumblebee swore creatively to himself. Jacking into someone else's CPU wasn't something to be taken lightly, even with barely conscious newborns. He didn't have the training for this!

Ratchet, as if catching the panicked thought, sent over a data packet of detailed instructions. Bumblebee unpacked the information and absorbed it quickly.

"(Notify me of any changes,)" Optimus said, "(Good luck. Optimus out.)" He dropped the connection.

"(Get to it,)" Ratchet said, "(I'll stay with you.)"

Bumblebee assembled the kernel for the infants systems to run on. He steeled himself and focused on the blender-based sparkling. It seemed to be the smartest. He didn't bother to remove its dental plates from the slowly widening chip in his armor as he went to work. The more distracted it was, the easier this would be.

Downloading the kernel was easy. Just a physical connection allowed for that and the sparkling didn't have any firewalls in place to prevent data transfer. It paused its industrious chewing in surprise and confusion at what suddenly showed up in its CPU. Next, Bumblebee extended the cable coiled around the data port in his chest, split it into hundreds of smaller cables for capability, and probed the sparkling for the right connection port.

This proved to be a mistake. The blender wasn't paying attention, but the others were and the toaster especially didn't take kindly to the mass of fiber optics moving past its chassis. Bumblebee held back a shriek as several cords were unceremoniously ripped out.

"(Idiot,)" Ratchet said unhelpfully, "(Talk to them. They may be feral, but somewhere in those pea brains they know the sound of their own kind.)"

Bumblebee doubted that, but he started crooning quietly in Cybertronian all the same. To his surprise, this did stop the desperate efforts to escape. He could feel the prickle of their tiny scanners as they tried to find the source of the noise. Encouraged, he continued speaking and managed to locate the blender's jack. He plugged in.

Its mind was a whirling mass of simple, mathematical programs. New and increasingly complex code was in the process of being written as the newborn struggled to make sense of its surroundings, but even that was rudimentary at best. It had just managed to make a connection between the comforting noise it was hearing and the big creature that was restraining it from attacking the //enemy/danger/energy source//, and was trying to decide what to do with the knowledge. It reacted to Bumblebee's mental presence with the same frightened confusion it'd given the data pack and instinctively threw several flimsy firewalls in his path.

Underlining it all was a torrent of rushing, panicked, senseless terror. There was no logic to justify it, none of the familiar streams of evidence-cause-effect that governed Bumblebee's own internal processes. Constant streams of sensory data were being received, but the sparkling had no frames of reference to understand any of it and that only fed the fear. Running at full capacity was a simple survival program that could be summarized as "kill everything that's not like me".

"(Were we all like this?)" he asked, both dismayed and humbled.

"(Knocks you down a peg, doesn't it?)" Ratchet said.

After rechecking his instructions, Bumblebee carefully slipped around the firewalls rather than break them and retrieved the software bundle. If allowed, the sparkling would re-create approximations of these programs on its own. The ability to learn and adapt was embedded in their very sparks, part of what separated them from mindless drones. However, it would be emotionally and social crippled, driven only by the need to survive. Cybertronians were not meant to grow up unaided.

Bumblebee initiated the install with a short command.

The bundle unfurled and went to work. The blender's terror vanished as its CPU literally became too busy to process anything else. The simple, original coding was pulled apart and re-written to fit the rest of the new system. Memory blocs were organized to be ready for storage. A program ran a full body analysis and wrote an appropriate boot sequence.

//Designation://

The sequence paused. Bumblebee, at a loss, entered in a long designation composed of the date, the sparkling's basic stats, current mod, and finished it with the shot-tag human designation //Blender// The little bot could always rename itself later.

The input was logged into the allocated space and the installation program initiated a reboot.

//Hello,// Blender said a moment later, its emotions registering as curious and cautious. Now that the terror had subsided, it was able to process other feelings. //Who are you?//

//I'm Bumblebee, a friend. I need you to go into recharge for a while. Don't worry,// he added in response to a surge of fear, //You're safe and I promise to protect you to no matter what.// He lowered his own firewalls enough for Blender to feel the truth of his words.

A staggering rush of trust/relief/happiness flooded Bumblebee, surprising him. //Accepted!// Blender said and powered down.

Bumblebee had been planning to initiate an encryption key to keep Blender off-lined until Ratchet arrived to reactivate it, but in the face of that blinding trust, he couldn't do it. He left the shutdown voluntary and exited Blender's CPU.

The entire process had taken ten seconds. Sam's voice came to him from the front of the house; "No, no, no, not a gas leak, I mean, you would smell gas, right? And I certainly don't smell any gas, do you? Really, no one needs to go in there!"

Satisfied that his human was still managing things, Bumblebee went to work on the next sparkling. Before long, he had Ejector (formerly the toaster), Waffles, Mixer, and Microwave recharging on the grass next to Blender. Each had responded to Bumblebee with varying degrees of curiosity, doubt, confusion, and in Waffle's case, outright suspicion, but they were equally worn out by their recent activities and equally soothed by the promise of safety.

"(You can't leave them too long,)" Ratchet said, "(Bot that size'll wear out quick, but they'll recharge even faster. You should've locked them.)"

"(I know,)" Bumblebee said unrepentantly.

He heard Ratchet mumble something about a bleeding heart. Bumblebee ignored him and crawled cautiously toward the house, keeping as low to the ground as possible. The Witwicky yard had been re-structured over the past year and a half to block the view of it from the rest of the neighborhood, but it wouldn't do any good if Bumblebee stood up.

There was a crash in the area of the kitchen, followed by a burst of static.

"Oh my god, there's someone inside!" one of the neighbors said.

"No, its just some debris still falling," Ron said in a resigned way. Unlike his son's stuttered excuses, Ron spoke the calm confidence of a man who'd weathered far worse in his life. Bumblebee could distantly hear Judy Witwicky breathing brokenly into a bag. "Everyone back up, we don't need any more injuries. Come on, back, back."

A scan revealed three non-Earth origin EM signals moving around inside. He glanced up at the ruins of Sam's bedroom wall and rolled a few gears in frustration. He couldn't get in without mangling the rest of the building. Not to mention creating even more of a commotion. Acree could do it, but...

"(ETA?)" Bumblebee asked.

Ratchet sent him an estimate. It was no good. Three murderous sparkling couldn't be allowed to roam free that long.

"I just need to check over here, okay? It's fine, I left uh -- a thing, my dog!" Sam said, his voice growing closer. "I need to make sure my dog isn't over here! Be right back!"

The human pushed through a pair of bushes and scanned the mangled yard with his eyes. Seeing Bumblebee crouched in front of the house a few feet from his previous position didn't appear to calm him down any.

"Where -- " Sam started to say.

Bumblebee held up a hand to stop him from coming any closer. "They're sleeping." One of the signals moved toward Bumblebee and Sam's location. "Don't worry, they won't attack anymore." Bumblebee shifted his weight. Almost. "My bigger concern is -- "

The back door exploded. A bulky shape, three times the size of the other sparklings, hurdled through with a scream. Bumblebee lunged through the falling timber and pinned it to the ground.

"You're all right, you're all right," Bumblebee said in Cybertronian, unconsciously echoing the words Sam had spoken to him that horrible time under Hoover Dam. He scanned quickly to confirm Sam's well-being and relaxed to find his human safely on the other side of the yard. Bless Sam for being quick on his feet.

Ron was shouting, "When I said stay back, I mean it! All of you! Sam, Sam, are you okay?"

Bumblebee tuned out Sam's response to focus on his current problem. The sparkling -- formerly a device used to crush and condense waste, by the configuration -- was much stronger than the others and much more heavily armored. It twisted angrily under his arm and managed to tear out a couple chunks of armor, along with more of his already mangled transfer cables.

"(Eh, I'll fix that later,)" Ratchet said.

"(Thanks,)" Bumblebee snarled and established the connection.

Once the newly named Compactor -- he couldn't bear to call the poor thing 'Waste' or 'Trash' -- was calm, an idea occurred to him. It wasn't the best plan, but it was his only option right now.

//Would you do something for me? It's very important,// he asked gently. That had been the most stressed point in the instructions Ratchet had sent; be slow and gentle and above all, patient. It was all too easy to traumatize sparklings at this stage. Their emotions were fragile and because their personalities were still being formed, anything that happened to them now would affect them for the rest of their lives.

Compactor radiated confusion. //Do what?//

Bumblebee explained carefully, wrapping the explanation with as many layers of seriousness and importance as he could. //There may be more children like you inside the house.// He paused to explain what a house was, giving Compactor reference pictures of the Witwicky residence. //They're very afraid and they might accidentally hurt someone. I can't get inside to find them and let them know they are safe. I need you to do this for me.//

Compactor was quiet as it processed the request. //Hurting people// Following Bumblebee's example, she added the 'sentient, feeling, reasoning non-Cybertronian life-form' modifier to the word, //is wrong?//

//Yes,// Bumblebee said. Sensing Sam cautiously approaching them, he shared his knowledge and affection for the boy. //My friend. I want to keep him safe. It's a very important mission.//

//Protecting friend is right,// Compactor declared. And then, //It'll make you happy?//

//It will,// Bumblebee said, startled that this mattered to the sparkling, //But it's dangerous. You could be hurt, too. The infants won't know who is friend or enemy.//

//I'll do it, I'll do it!// Compactor exclaimed. It started wiggling under Bumblebee again, with much less force than before, but no less energetically. A giddy bubble of 'make happy/make proud/be important/succeed!/excitement' rushed past Bumblebee's awareness.

//Remember! This is serious, I don't want you to be hurt so you have to be very careful.//

//I promise,// Compactor said, much more solemnly.

Bumblebee helped Compactor examine and try out its radio so they could stay in contact, fed it the locations of the remaining EM signatures, and removed his cables. He pulled back to let the sparkling stand up.

"'Bee?" Sam said. His hand came to rest on the heel of Bumblebee's right ped. The violent, non-human energy still pulsing around him burned against Bumblebee's components through the contact.

Because really, the one thing Bumblebee needed this week was his human giving off Allspark signatures.

"Sam," Bumblebee said, "This is Compactor. It --" Bumblebee made a quick decision. "She is going to go inside and lure out the last two infants the Allspark created."

Compactor waved and chirped a Cypertronian greeting.

Sam stared at Bumblebee. "My mom's trash compactor is a girl? No, wait, never mind. I don't care. Are you sure this a good idea, 'Bee?"

"(That's what I'd like to know,)" Ratchet said.

Bumblebee sent an annoyed burst of nonsense data at the medic and made a helpless gesture for Sam. "You got any better ideas, wiseguy?" a man's voice demanded from his radio. "I can't do it and I can't let you go in there unprotected."

"Is there something the matter with your friend?" Compactor asked, watching Sam curiously. She dumped a dense packet of sensor data about Sam in Bumblebee's comm, along with a ton of attached queries. "(What's this expression, what's this scent, what's this inflection, what --)"

Bumblebee set the packet aside and gave Compactor his human language and cultural modules instead. "(Install those later, they'll explain everything. I need you to start the mission.)"

She straightened up and nodded with resolve. Compactor stood just over three feet high, covered in panels of what looked like stainless steel. Her chest and shoulders were a literal block; her triangular head emerged from the top, with twitching control dials adorning either side, glowing red optics, and a mouth full of razor sharp dental plates. Her arms were longer than her legs and ended in hands like clubs. Her legs, despite being short , were equipped with powerful hydraulics down the center. She probably couldn't run very well, but she could jump.

After pinging Bumblebee's comm again to make sure the link was solid, she planted her broad hands on the ground and used them to swing her chunky body back through the hole she'd created earlier.

"...like some mutant robot gorilla from hell and he says it's a girl," Sam muttered.

"She's cute," Bumblebee said reproachfully. It was hard not to find her eagerness and determination charming.

"Terrifying, 'Bee, the word you're looking for is terrifying."

Compactor initiated a streaming upload so Bumblebee could see what she did.

A short while later, he'd developed a sudden, unexpected sympathy for all the Autobots that had looked after him when he was young. Compactor didn't just share sensor data with him; she questioned everything. Nearly every byte had a half dozen queries linked to it. A few were practical, but most were down right non-sequential. "(why is that shaped like this, what's that used for, if I put this and that together would it change its purpose, does this have meaning, if this had heat/cold/ultraviolet/plasma/etc. applied what would happen, why is -, what -, how come -)"

"(Ah, payback,)" Ratchet said when Bumblebee expressed this through their still-open link.

"(How did you keep from tearing my circuits out?)" Bumblebee asked wonderingly. He'd always been so hurt the times his caretakers had needed him to please, be quiet, even though he'd known there was a good reason. He'd never considered how frustrating it must have been to deal with the constant babble.

"(Masochism,)" Ratchet said promptly, "(It helped that we liked you.)"

While they talked, Compactor traveled through the mangled remains of the kitchen. Bumblebee could see the shredded counter where Compactor's non-sentient body had once lived, though Compactor herself didn't attach any importance to the location. She continued down the hall to the living room. The larger of the two EM signatures was there, wedged back into the far corner. It hadn't moved since Bumblebee had reconfigured Compactor, despite humans being less than a few dozen yards from its location. It had either calmed down on its own -- unlikely -- didn't have the range to sense them, or had been too frightened by their greater number to risk attacking.

In response to Bumblebee's warning to be careful, Compactor peered around the corner instead of entering. The living room was just as destroyed as the kitchen, but instead of the random, wholesale mayhem, it was torn apart with purpose. The couch, TV, and two armchairs had been dragged to the corner and piled to create an awkward barrier.

The sparkling had developed situation analysis and planning.

Not a good sign; there was a narrow time window in which a sparkling's security protocols were sparse enough to allow for a direct install. Once those strengthened, they'd have to convince the infant to lower its walls (or risk mental trauma by breaking through them) and that could be very, very hard with someone who couldn't speak.

"(Scaredy,)" Compactor said scornfully. One of her hands shifted into cannon form. What would it do if she shot a pulse straight into --

"(Stop!)" Bumblebee cried.

"(Why?)" Confusion, hurt, and resentment layered the word.

Bumblebee modulated his inflection, trying to mimic that mellow, solemn tone Optimus Prime assumed whenever he'd chastised Bumblebee. Not angry, not accusing, just stating the truth. It was hard; her split-second of petty cruelty and lack of empathy had shaken him.

"(That would compromise the parameters of the mission. I want it to chase you; that might provoke a long range attack, which could harm both you and the area.") Then, unable to help himself, added softly, "(We're all afraid sometimes. It needs sympathy, not scorn.)"

She didn't respond immediately. Without the close connection of the interface, he couldn't tell whether his words had the effect he'd hoped for. He considered checking with Ratchet, but the medic's immediate attention on the other side of the uplink was gone, meaning he was busy. Bumblebee shouldn't override the stand-by unless it was important.

"(Understood, sir,)" Compactor said without emotional overtones, "(Should I continue approach?)"

Slag, he thought. The sparkling handling instructions were awash with warnings and suggestions about what that could mean, some of them contradictory.

Fret later. "(Cautiously.)" The sound of sirens came from down the street.

"The police are here," Sam said, his hand flexing on Bumblebee's foot, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"It's good," Bumblebee said aloud, splitting his attention, "Some of the agents work for us." He considered having Sam return to the other humans.

No. The slowly fading glare of Allspark energy was especially visible to the sparklings. Bumblebee could protect him better here.

Inside, Compactor approached the shelter at a slow shuffle, her cannon still active for self-defense. When she was a yard or so away, an angry chatter of clicks, whirls, and squeaks spat out. She paused and then took another step. More chatter. The makeshift barrier moved and there was the distinctive rev of charging weapons.

"(Its going to attack,)" Compactor said and fear colored the link.

Too young. "(Don't be afraid, just be ready to either run or grab it. I'm right here and I can get to you if it becomes too dangerous. Can you think of a way to lure it out without your weapons?)"

A pause. The heated weaponry peaked into a high whine. Outside, the police had gotten everyone to move to the opposite side of the street and were setting up tape to create a hundred foot wide space around the residence. The humans were wondering what happened with Sam. Judy was ranting about the cost of repairs to her husband. Behind Bumblebee, the sparklings continued to recharge, oblivious.

"(Sympathy, not scorn,)" Compactor said.

And before Bumblebee could make sense of his own words being sent back at him, she squatted down on her stubby legs, powered off her cannon, and started to sing.

It was a nonsense song, without words, but it wasn't like the off-key humming a human toddler might engage in. Instead, it was short combo of notes that all Cybertronians found auditory pleasing, repeated over and over again. A human might describe it as a dial tone with a violin and a guitar duking it out in the background.

At first there was no reaction, the other sparkling probably as flabbergasted as Bumblebee. Then, slowly, it's energy signature lowered and there was the sound of a transformation.

A second later, a vacuum cleaner rolled out around the pile of furniture. It was a slender model in purple with gray hints that Judy Witwicky had picked up only a few days ago. A few pieces of debris spun idly in the clear waste collection container in front.

"(Good job! That was a great idea!)" Bumblebee said, "(Keep it up, see if it'll follow you.)"

Compactor retreated backwards with her weird, swinging gait, still singing. The vacuum cleaner went after her hesitantly, collecting more waste in its chamber along the way.

"(Eww,)" Compactor said emphatically.

They made it into the kitchen, at which point the vacuum cleaner went ballistic. It darted forward with a howl -- "(Get out of the way!)" -- sailing past Compactor as she jumped aside and transforming mid-way.

The infant bounced over the door jam, hit the pavement of the patio and was instantly caged by Bumblebee's hand.

"Okay, am I insane, or are those things seriously gunning for me?" Sam demanded.

Bumblebee didn't have the time to explain. He poured praise and reassurance on Compactor and got to work on his latest charge.

As soon as he was jacked in, he slammed right into a wall. It wasn't anything compared to the encryption an adult was capable of, but it did cover all routes into the processing core. Slag. Too long.

Taking a cue from Compactor, he began singing softly. He also sent as much reassurance, comfort, and sense of safety as he could over the interface, though the sparkling wouldn't be able to feel any of it through its filters.

"Sam, I need you to back up," Bumblebee said around the singing, "Walk across the yard to the garage."

Sam, obediently, retreated with a dismayed "I'm never getting to college at this rate" on the way.

At the same time, Compactor said, "(I'll get the other one!)"

"(No, wait until I say,)" Bumblebee told her and turned his attention on the new sparkling.

The former vacuum cleaner was, thank everything, relaxing, though whether that had to do with the singing or Sam's retreat he couldn't tell. When the struggling ceased, Bumblebee pinged against the firewall, a polite request to enter.

The struggling renewed, weaker than before. Bumblebee waited until it settled and pinged again. No violence this time. The wall remained.

Distantly, Sam said, "Aw man, not the waffle iron!"

A third ping. No response. Just as Bumblebee was preparing a fourth, the barrier came down all at once. He poured in, initiating install.

Unlike the others, the newly named Dusty flat out refused to go into recharge.

//Not secure,// it insisted when Bumblebee repeated the request.

//I promise to protect you.//

//No, not secure,// Dusty repeated with greater feeling.

The little bot barely had any sensor range at all and everything outside a dozen yards vanished into nothingness. It was far more frightened of what might be lurking in the darkness than trusting of Bumblebee.

Checking the recently compiled stats explained this apparent design flaw; all its sensors, excluding tactile -- from the visual and audio spectrum, to the olfactory, energy, pressure, and slagging atmospheric receivers -- were pointed inward. The chamber originally intended for trapping and collecting human debris had been reinforced and converted into an extremely sensitive and sophisticated miniature testing lab. The only bot on their team with the same level of diagnostics capabilities was Ratchet. Unfortunately, the sparkling's frame simply wasn't large enough to support two set of sensor arrays, plus limbs, weapons, spark chamber, wires, fuel storage, and processor core. The overall effect was like being forced to stare directly at your chest and rely on peripheral vision to find your way.

Bumblebee made a mental note to have Ratchet upgrade it as soon as possible.

Dusty gave a complicated twist that yanked Bumblebee's cable free of its data port and scrambled out from under Bumblebee's relaxed hold. The large purple ball that allowed the head of its vacuum alt-form to pivot on the body was now the sparkling's main source of locomotion. The body was reverse tear-drop shaped, with the testing chamber hidden behind plates of purple, gray trimmed armor. A faint red light seeped between the seams. The ball fit into a bowl-shaped depression at the base of the body, where it could be balanced on. A long, flexible hose extended out from the back and probed along the ground, constantly picking up new bits for analysis. There was fang filled mouth located near the top, but that was it for facial features.

"Too open, not secure," Dusty said fretfully, rocking back and forth on its ball.

Bumblebee shifted his weight and lifted one arm. "You can hide on me," he offered, "Anything that tries to get at you would have to go through me first."

Dusty rocked silently for a moment, its mouth in a tight line, and then let out a chirp. It zoomed forward to wiggled into the gap between Bumblebee's tucked up knees and the blocky front of his chest.

"I'm not going to recharge," Dusty reminded him rebelliously. Four gray spider legs emerged from under its armor and hooked into the pistons in Bumblebee's abdomen. The force-field that protected Bumblebee's internal gears and wires from damaging particles threw off small sparks at the contact, then extended to enclose Dusty's structure as well. An upward heave and a little bit of squirming to get its mostly rounded frame wedged between armor plates, and Dusty was securely attached. It wasn't the most comfortable arrangement, since Bumblebee simply wasn't designed to carry other mechs on his frame, but it would do for now.

"(Moving in to secure,)" Compactor announced suddenly.

Bumblebee had noticed a few minutes ago when Compactor dropped the streaming upload. But having no reason to suspect her of disobeying his direct command, he'd tagged it as low-priority and simply stopped monitoring her.

It was worth noting that Bumblebee had only dealt with two types of mech in his life; ones trying to kill him and ones vastly older and more experienced than him.

Bumblebee aimed his scanners at the house in time to find Compactor's EM signature right on top of the last sparkling. Both were upstairs in Ron and Judy Witwicky's bedroom. Compactor was nearly immobile in comparison to the smaller signal's darting about, but she well within the range of weapons.

"(Compactor, pull back,)" Bumblebee demanded, "(You're too close!")

"(Its not pay attention to me,)" she said. "(I can grab it on the next pass.)" She sent him her video feed as proof.

A tiny, mostly white mech scuttled wildly around the room, sorting through the various items stored there. It would pause for a second or two to feel all over something with long fingered hands, then either discard the item or carry it to the bed, where a hole had been dug into the center of the mattress. It was looking for fuel supplies, Bumblebee realized. Just as Compactor had said, the sparkling wasn't responding to her presence.

Bumblebee had an instant to process all this. Compactor was already reaching down to snag the small robot has it hurried past her feet on another circuit of the room.

At the contact, the sparkling's six leg abruptly reversed direction and the sharp ends plunged into Compactor's hand.

Compactor let out a cry and frantically shunted the resulting warnings and damage alerts over the upstream. She shook her limb hard, but the tiny sparkling simply refused to disengage. Four of the legs had left dents in the armor without puncturing it. The remaining two had delved between plates and even now were pushing through the force field to press uncomfortably against the hidden gears and pistons. In addition to the six legs were two arms with spindly fingered hands, which the sparkling was using at rapid speed to drag out wires to be gnawed on.

Bumblebee had jerked up at the first alert. His instinctive urge was to reach through the flimsy wooden walls and rescue his charge. But his battle computer overrode that desire, laying out in cold streams of logic why it wasn't worth the risk. The humans still wandering just beyond the hedges would see him and while she was being hurt, it wasn't yet enough to cause significant injury.

"(Calm down, listen,)" he said, speaking over the alerts, "(The damage is non vital. You can still move. You aren't in any major danger. Hurry, return to my location and I'll get it off you.)"

Compactor, panicked beyond coherence, only sent him another burst of warnings. These quickly switched to full-on errors as the other sparkling successful severed the connection between her wrist and index finger. If she were an older, more experienced mech, she could have turned off the alerts or at least de-prioritized them. But she wasn't. This was her first experience with pain and it was enough to overwhelm her.

So, she reacted out of self-preservation.

When shaking didn't remove the tiny attacker, Compactor slammed her other hand down on it instead. The sparkling froze at the blow, as if stunned, but didn't let go. Energy fizzed all over its frame. It returned to chewing and clinging. Another strike. The grip weakened and the sparkling let out a staticky whine. A third strike.

That did it. The infant went limp. The two limbs wedged under Compactor's armor remained stuck, but the rest let go, leaving it dangling from the base of her palm. Compactor grabbed it and yanked it off her. One of the limbs was too tightly wedged in place and tore off the sparkling instead of coming free. Through Compactor's optics, she and Bumblebee stared at the twitching, fizzing mess hanging from her fingers.

"(...did I kill it?)" Compactor asked. The error messages continued to flash, but the warnings had quieted down now that the immediate danger was over. Her tone was blank with shock.

"(Return to my location so I can ascertain its damage,)" Bumblebee said, "(For now, run a self-diagnostic and send me the result.)" He kept his voice level, both to keep her calm and to hide his rising self-recriminations. Stupid. It was stupid to send an infant on this mission in the first place and doubly stupid to stop paying attention in the middle of it.

"(Yes, sir,)" Compactor said. The errors messages coming over the upsteam vanished and after a second, were replaced with a more ordered report. Luckily, except for a few severed conduction wires, an immobilized index finger, and dented armor, the damage was slight.

Awkwardly, after switching the other infant back to her injured hand, Compactor propelled herself one-armed down the hall to the stairs. She watched her burden warily in case it decided to come to life again.

Bumblebee poured reassurances over the active line and turned to wave to Sam. He may have dropped his awareness of Compactor earlier, but he'd remained alert to the rest of his surroundings. Sam had spent the entire time bouncing and fidgeting in the corner of the yard. Two more police units had arrived and succeeded in thinning out the crowd. Unfortunately, several people continued to loiter around, as much to comfort the Witwickys as out of curiosity. Of the other sparklings, only Ejector was stirring out of recharge. Bumblebee sent it a comm request, hoping to for stall it from moving around.

Sam took a few steps forward in response to the wave, only to pause when he saw Ejector unfold from its toaster alt-mode. A fearful look on his face, Sam gave the pile of sparklings a wide berth. Ejector stood still and watched the human walk passed with equal unease.

Bumblebee shook his head in disbelief. Honestly, how could someone who'd run right underneath Megatron, of all mechs, act so nervous around infants?

"(?)" Ejector replied to the comm request.

"(Remain in that location until I retrieve you)" Bumblebee said, "(We're going to move to a more secure location shortly.)"

"(Acknowledged,)" Ejector said and hunkered down in the grass. Bumblebee made himself look at the little bot from a human perspective, to better understand why Sam might react negatively to it.

Well, outside of Ejector and the others having attacked him before.

Ejector's head was set low between bulky shoulders that carried the majority of the infant's weapon mounts, on a neck that extended forward instead of up. The head itself swept up into two razor-edged horns at the top -- radio receptors, the infant would have a good range before having to resort to satellite communication -- and down into wide, red optics and a disproportionately large, jagged edge mouth. A fiery red light adorned the front of the truncated torso; the heat coils originally intended for searing human food. Their placement over Ejector's processor core had alarmed Bumblebee when he first reviewed the design schematics, but apparently all of the heat emissions were being safely channeled into Ejector's armor, super heating it. A useless defense against other mechs, but ideal against organic lifeforms. Ejector's legs were twice the length of the torso and triple jointed, ending in four 'prongs' that supported the weight of its structure. From the back of the pelvic area extended a long cord with a plug, that Ejector held up behind itself in a loose curl.

Overall, Bumblebee had to admit that the effect was notably similar to human mythological creatures such as demons and devils. Ejector's face, especially, was reminiscent of the "jack o' lanterns" the Witwickys and their neighbors made during Halloween. This design, like the super-heated armor, spoke of being deliberately constructed to be antagonistic toward humans.

"Bee? Is everything all right? We're good?" Sam said, "No more house-go-boom?"

Bumblebee set aside his analysis to scan his friend. Except for the benign radiation he picked up from associating with Bumblebee, Sam's signature was now reading at only slightly above normal human levels. Some of Bumblebee's tension eased. The question of how and why, exactly, Sam had started leaking AllSpark energy and how this led to eight Cybertronians being brought to life, still remained unanswered. But at least Bumblebee didn't have to worry about Sam suddenly exploding from being infused with energy the human body simply wasn't designed to carry.

"It's all right now," Bumblebee played over his radio. "Compactor has the last one and is heading down. I figure we can all hide in my garage so the repair crews can get to work." Contritely, he added, "I'm sorry about all this, Sam. I know how you've been looking forward to today."

Sam shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the ground. Bumblebee was confused to read guilt in Sam's posture. "Yeah, well, don't worry about it. It's not like you're the one who brought the whole kitchen to life."

Was Sam blaming himself for the creation of the sparklings? Illogical, given that consciously wielding Allspark power was far beyond Sam's capabilities. It was doubtful even acquiring that energy in the first place could be blamed on Sam. Of course, if the last two years with the Witwicky family had taught Bumblebee anything, it was that humans seldom made sense.

"It's not your fault, either," Bumblebee said, lowering his voice reassuringly.

Sam shot him a look of such utter surprise, Bumblebee realized he had to be off the mark. He didn't get the chance to investigate the issue as with a thump-clunk, thump-clunk, Compactor reached the bottom of the stairs and made her way across the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," she said in dismayed Cybertronian as soon as she reached the remains of the doorway. She thrust the wounded sparkling at Bumblebee. "I'm really, really sorry. I should've listened. I shouldn't have hit it."

The upstream, sparse for the short time she'd been in the second story of the house, was once against flooded with her data and questions. Most of it was about every single twitch, energy discharge, and leak the tiny sparkling had experienced. It was layered with guilt and distress.

Her self-blame made Bumblebee feel worse. "The way you reacted to the attack wasn't wrong," he responded in kind, "It was my fault for sending you on this mission and not protecting you both like a I promised. I'll do everything I can to help the sparkling, please don't worry. Sam," he continued, switching to English, "Could you carry the little one? Its too small for my hand. Use your jacket so you don't get shocked."

Sam winced at the crushed tangle of metal and obligingly pulled his hoodie up over his head. "What'd she do, sit on it?" he asked, "I thought you were trying not to kill them."

Compactor let out an unhappy keen and Bumblebee realized she must have installed the human language module, at least enough to understand it being spoken. She dropped the injured sparkling into Sam's cloth covered hands and turned all her attention to digging free the piece stuck in her armor. Sam let out a hiss and juggled the body awkwardly, probably feeling the heat even through the barrier of his jacket. Something he saw on it made him pause.

"Bee," he said.

Bumblebee, meanwhile, ran a diagnostic over Sam's burden and sent out an order for the other sparklings to wake up. The results of the scan weren't promising. The spark chamber was intact, so the infant lived, but its processor was mostly ruined, leaving only a few circuits to keep vital functions operational. Its structure was air-cooled and with the frequent energy discharges, it would soon be in danger of overheating and melting the last remaining motherboard. If that happened, spark containment would fail, resulting in permanent deactivation. It was highly unlikely they'd be able to save this one. Sadly, he bundled the information along with Compactor's damage report and transferred it over the still-open link between him and Ratchet. At the same time, the other sparklings booted up and answered his comm requests with a flood of data.

"Bee," Sam repeated when Bumblebee didn't respond, "Please tell me this isn't the wireless modem."

"It's a dying child," Bumblebee snapped more viciously than he'd ever spoken to Sam before.

In any other situation, the startled and then apologetic look Sam gave him, along with Compactor's low whine expressing the same sentiment, would have deflated his ire. Now, there was no time. He sent the sparklings orders to wait and shunted their continuing uploads to another processor, to monitor for anything important. Ratchet re-activated their link with a roar of curses and Optimus Prime dropped a few messages into his inbox that were, based on the subject lines, from their local contacts in the human emergency services department. Sam's emotional state was low priority.

"(Recommended first aid?)" he said to Ratchet, interrupting the tirade. The messages from Optimus he opened and examined quickly. One was audio, in a code they designed just for that purpose, and two were text based; all were requests for status and a suggested course of action, each increasingly frantic.

"Come on, lets move," Bumblebee said aloud flatly. He crawled backward, painfully aware of Dusty attached to his abdomen, and turned around toward his garage. Ron Witwicky's precious grass shredded under his knee joints. After a slight hesitation, Sam and Compactor followed him.

"(If you can keep its temperature down and its circuits from turning to slag, there's a chance,)" Ratchet responded as Bumblebee wrote up a short report for the humans, "(Maybe. Pit, Bee, I'm not equipped to repair a mech that size!)"

"(We have to try.)"

Ratchet suggested something unseemly about Bumblebee's protoform generator at the implication he would do anything else.

"Sam, is that refrigeration unit in the other garage still active?" Bumblebee asked. He shot off the report to the heads of the human emergency departments and Optimus, CC'ing Ratchet and Arcee, in case the humans tried to approach them when they arrived.

"T-the beer fridge?" Sam asked, his voice subdued, "Yeah."

"Take the sparkling there and put it inside. That might keep it cool enough to survive until Ratchet arrives. I need to you to stay with your father after that. Let him know what's going on."

Sam nodded rapidly and ran back toward the house and its attached garage. Compactor watched him go.

The sparklings were moving about and amusing themselves by the time he reached them. Ejector had turned its immediate vicinity a charred, crispy black. Waffles, in similar fashion, had pressed its heated, griddle adorned palms into the ground, leaving a burned network of small squares. It seemed to be trying to create some sort of design. Blender had discovered it was just small enough to fit in Microwave's heating compartment and was hopping in and out while gnashing its deadly array of serrated teeth in apparent delight. Microwave, on the other hand, was emitting frustration; not over Blender's antics, but over Blender being slightly too big for Microwave to close the compartment door on it. Mixer had rolled over onto its back and popped open the armor on one of its legs to investigate the interior construction. Why it was doing that instead of running a diagnostic or studying its design schematics, Bumblebee couldn't begin to guess.

Sensing his arrival, the sparklings all looked up at Bumblebee expectantly. Their queries abruptly switched from "what is this organic material, why is it functioning in this manner, what would happen if I --", to "are we going now, where are we going, how can you be sure its secure, what are we going to do there --, why did --, how --" and on and on and on.

Primus, what have I gotten myself into?

_____________________


The Sparkling Handling Instructions stated that sparklings possessed an insatiable curiosity and it was important to nurture and accommodate it.

The instructions went on to clarify that the best course of action was to download the child a data bloc or operational module and then follow up with an activity that directly applied said knowledge. While it was good to answer queries, as it provided the sparkling with needed information and assured it of its caretaker's interest and emotional support, it was better to create situations in which the child would be required to find the answer on their own. This encouraged both independence and the development of high functioning analytical and problem solving programs. Rounding up this section of the manual was a recommendation to avoid activities involving explosives and corrosive fluids.

In short, it was completely useless for figuring out what to do with seven hyper-curious infants in an ill-equipped garage.

One minute after getting them all inside, Bumblebee had to pry Ejector and Waffles off the wooden shelves before they set them on fire (accidentally in Ejector's case; Waffles got very clear enjoyment out of burning things to see the patterns left behind). The following impromptu lesson in the combustible properties of organic plant matter and fire safety held their attention for the entire ten seconds it took them to realize that the others were still allowed to climb the shelves. This resulted in wounded feelings, so Bumblebee ordered everyone to stay on the non-flammable cement floor. He compensated by bringing his cleaning supplies down for them to study.

Microwave instantly laid claim to the polishing cloth by shoving it in its heating compartment and went on to try the same with the sponge Blender was pulling apart. A scuffle ensued. Another broke out between Compactor and Mixer over the bucket. They wanted to experiment with its volume capacity, but they disagreed on whether to use the jug of cleaning solution or the debris from Bumblebee's earlier explosive exit or both. Bumblebee separated and distracted them by explaining what all the items where used for and made of.

Ejector accidentally melted the plastic scrub brush before Bumblebee could intercede and retreated to sulk in a corner over not being able to do anything. Microwave, giving up on the sponge, snagged the ruined scrub brush instead and began, contentedly, to put its heating compartment to the intended use. Bumblebee's frantic lecture on why irradiating such material could be damaging was greeted with extreme doubt and resentment. Waffles attempted twice to burn something when it thought Bumblebee wasn't paying attention. During all of this, Dusty remained conspicuously silent, which was as much a relief as it was worrisome.

All together, Bumblebee was pretty sure he wasn't going to survive the next three hours until Ratchet arrived.

"(Why don't you send them on a mission?)" Ratchet said snidely in response to Bumblebee's plea for ideas.

"(Better you than me,)" Arcee added, equally helpful.

Surprisingly, it was Ironhide who had the most to offer.

"(You civilian-born all grew up around adults,)" he said with the satisfaction of someone who has the right answer and knows it, "(Wouldn't know what to do with more than one sparklin' if yer lives depended on it. But military brats like me were raised in creches. High Command liked to commission protoform batches whenever recruiting didn't bring in the right number a' bodies an' then dump the lot of them on some poor commander. Slaggers did it to me twice.)"

Bumblebee hadn't known Ironhide was a caretaker. It was a sad thought; most of the military had defected to the Decepticons after Megatron's coup. How many of his own children had Ironhide been forced to face on the other side of a battlefield?

"(First off, make them do recon an' then report everything. Good habit for 'em to pick up anyway.)"

"(There isn't much here to recon,)" Bumblebee said, but passed on the orders to his charges. Only Ejector and Dusty refused to follow them.

"I'll just break more stuff," Ejector said without turning around from its corner.

"(Leave it be fer now,)" Ironhide said, "(Trust me, that young they get real competitive for attention, 'specially when there's only one caretaker around. It'll perk up when it sees you listenin' to the others givin' their reports.)"

"No, no, I won't get down," Dusty said for its part. And then, very upset, "I don't know what's going on."

Giving Dusty the feed from Bumblebee's sensors improved the little bot's mood, but not enough to convince it to venture further than Bumblebee's right forearm. It clung there while the others explored every corner, crack, and section. The garage had been built specifically for Bumblebee; it was tall enough for him to sit up in while in protoform -- which he did now, to give the sparklings more room to work with -- and wide enough for two of him in alt-mode. Unlike the main garage, it had access to a back alley to let him come and go without much notice. Most of what he kept in there was well-meant gifts and supplies from Sam and Mikaela; all of his, very few, personal belongings he kept about his person.

Sam and Ron arrived to get a tarp rigged over the damaged area while the sparklings were still doing recon.

"Hey, is that the microwave?" Ron asked. The sparkling in question stood near the wall Ron tacking the tarp to. As he watched, Microwave successfully dug out a lost nail that had gotten wedged in a cross joint and tossed it into its heating compartment with a satisfied snap.

Ron held up his hand when Bumblebee started to explain.

"Forget it, you can keep it," he said, and focused on getting the tarp in place. They left again as soon as it was up.

"How are we supposed to find out what is up there if we can't go up there?" Waffles asked after scouting out every corner. It sent Bumblebee an image of the shelves above its head. Under the demanding tone was another feeling. Vindictive self-satisfaction. A sort of non-verbal 'so there' at being ordered off them in the first place.

"(Well, ain't that one the trustin' sort,)" Ironhide said wryly, "(Be careful. It's gonna be the kind to take any flaw as an excuse to disobey.)"

"(Guess I better adopt it then,)" Sideswipe announced without warning, "(I don't have any flaws!)"

Bumblebee swore silently in surprise. He'd put out a general conference request to all the Autobots back at base, but most had politely dropped off when they didn't have any advice to offer. He hadn't even noticed anyone else was still listening in.

"(You want to raise something, Sideswipe, go look after the Moron Twins,)" Arcee said, "(I swear if those two get under my tires one more time --)"

Rachet jammed both their uplinks with furious bursts of nonsense data until they logged off in self-defense. Bumblebee took the chance to make sure there wasn't any others still on and changed the encryption code. It wasn't like the conversation was classified, but the last thing he needed right now was clever comments from his teammates.

"That's a good question," Bumblebee said aloud. He turned his head, meeting optics to make sure all the sparklings were paying attention to him. Putting Waffles on the spot might aggravate the child, so... "Blender, do you have any suggestions?"

The tiny sparkling straightened itself at being addressed. Next to the damaged one, it was the smallest of the group. Most of the rotary blades that had shredded organic material in its former life were now arranged into the facsimile of a mouth. The remaining blade was mounted on the end of one spindly arm and spun as the child thought. Two red optic were suspended above the mouth and topped with little glass panels that expressively shifted side to side and up and down in mimicry of human eyebrows. A few more individually mounted glass panels stuck out from behind the optics as well, forming a flexible sensor array. The rest of its body was a compact steel gray box, supported by two short legs with spay-toed feet. It looked very delicate.

"Use Bumblebee feed," Blender jabbered out rapidly, "High array link in range." It jerked back and clicked its dental plates together in apparent surprise at what had come out of its vocalizer. A titter of amused and confused whirls passed among the others.

"Your language programs fell out of sync with your processor," Bumblebee said, "Try again, slower."

For its size, Blender had a quick processor, probably the fastest of the children. In human terms, its brain had out-paced its mouth.

"Bumblebee is high enough up to explore without having to climb," Blender said with no less speed, but considerably more care, "We can link onto Bumblebee's sensor feed to make use of his better range."

"Yes, very good," Bumblebee said, "It's smart to utilize your teammates' advantages. But what if I wasn't here and you had only each other? Microwave?"

It took a full two seconds for Microwave to acknowledge that it was being addressed. The little bot had already comm'd Bumblebee twice to make sure that the nail -- and melted brush, washcloth, spiderweb, and wood splinters -- in its heating compartment shouldn't be irradiated and was probably in the middle of formulating a third attempt. The compartment made up the most of Microwave's diminutive frame, with its spiky shoulders and arms mounted at each top corner and its head set in the middle. Tiny optics peeked out from under a tall forehead adored with the touch pad of its alt-form; a small grill formed a grinning mouth. The three fingers on each hand were long and double-jointed, ending in slight hooks.

Mircrowave let out a low beep, literally 'wait, I'm thinking' and ponderously turned to look the shelves up and down. After a moment, it turned the same steady regard onto its companions.

"We could stand on top each other to get higher," Microwave said. It spoke in a low tonal range and had very few mood indicators in its syntax. "Or build a structure to stand on using that." It motioned to the pile of debris.

Its body language and energy field abruptly changed, showing mischievous amusement, but its voice was still a bland, empty drone as it added; "Or I could throw Blender in the air and it could scan before landing."

Blender clashed its teeth together in distress. "Don't throw me!"

"I just could. Not hard," Microwave said. It shifted its weight, making the contents of its compartment rattle against the sides. "It would work."

"Not optimal," Compactor said, after pinging Bumblebee for permission to speak, "You'd have to toss Blender up several times to get a good reading because it would fall too fast. Building a structure would be best."

"Good, good," Bumblebee said, "Any other ideas?" He spoke toward Mixer, who hadn't contributed anything yet, but Waffles spoke up first.

"How important is the 'no climbing' rule?" it demanded, "Is it higher priority than the recon orders? The only reason you made it is because Ejector and me would have set them on fire and that's bad. We could send Mixer or Microwave up because they won't set it on fire. And that's not breaking the reason for the rule, right?"

"(Lookit that, Ratchet, 'Bee got the Twins a friend for the brig,)" Ironhide said.

"(And here was just saying we didn't have enough mechs that could rationalize their way into getting slagged,)" Ratchet said.

Bumblebee held back a moan of despair.