Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fowler was annoyed. He’d gone through the database of vehicles and the translations the tech team had given him of the specifications of each of the aliens and now big blue was throwing a tantrum and picked up the smallest bot in their little crew. 

“No,” Optimus said, quickly foisting the small bot to balance on his hip, “he can’t use that as an alt mode.”

 “What in Sam Hill is wrong with it,” Fowler shouts in annoyance, “it fits his size and I know he has guns I’ve seen them on the medical readouts!”

“They aren’t active yet,” Optimus says firmly, “he’s too young for that!” Fowler sighs, putting his fingers to the bridge of his nose and trying to rub away the brewing headache behind his eyes from that statement. “The readouts put him at almost one million years old,” Fowler says, “in what universe is that too young?!” 

“It can take millions of years to create a hatchling pod let alone how long it can take to achieve the right conditions to emerge in an active war zone of all places,” Ratchet shouts angrily. Fowler feels a massive headache coming on as he processes that the million year old dwarf they thought they had was actually a baby no more than a year old by earth standards. 

“That’s a baby,” Fowler asks, trying as hard as he can to keep the annoyance out of his voice and failing miserably. Optimus pulls the little thing closer causing it to make a noise like an old dial up computer that grates his ears, but big and blue to coo at it. “Well I guess I can’t very well give a tank to a baby,” he says waving away the bewildered operator to drive the tank back out. He’d been thoroughly vetted and offered a job onsite helping ratchet create what replacement parts they could so he wasn’t worried about him blabbing about the baby. “Hmm give me another few days and I’ll find something,” he tells the aliens, “what was the kid’s name again?” 

“Roller,” Optimus says. Upon hearing their name Roller made a noise like a paper jam a few times. Fowler winced again at the volume. “Any chance he will start babbling in English,” he mutters mostly to himself. 

It took him a week before he found the perfect one. It fit the specifications Ratchet had sent about size and build. It was a toy he had to have imported from overseas, and had been a bit expensive. He had to delve into his personal savings a little but it was worth it. “It’s still tank shaped,” he explained as he showed them the toy tank, “it’s drivable by a child or two but the gun is only air soft. It can’t shoot projectiles like bullets and bombs but it can propel some objects with air.” 

Optimus slowly placed Roller on the ground. The little guy swayed on his feet for a moment before walking to the toy. His eyes scanned it the same way the bots had scanned their own alt modes. There was a now familiar sound of gears shifting and a second tank began vrooming around the base while Bumblebee played loud cheers from his radio. Fowler busied himself with packing the toy back up to hide his smile.

————

“Ok stay still Roller I’m almost done,” Miko says, dipping her brush into the paint and continuing to paint the tips of his fingers. She’d finished painting a design on his peds earlier. He’d seen her painting her own nails a few days back and she’d promised to paint his. Optimus leaned down as he entered the room. Roller excitedly showed him a finished hand. “Very nice,” Optimus compliments softly, “and who painted them?”

“MIBO,” Roller shouted excitedly gesturing to Miko still painting his other hand. “Yes she is a very good painter isn’t she,” Optimus prompts as Miko finishes the other hand, “what do we say to our very nice friend?” Roller reaches out to hug Miko very gently. “Thank you Mibo,” he says. “Aww you are welcome Rock and Roller,” she says with a laugh. 

Roller pulled away from the hug and pushed himself awkwardly to his feet so Optimus could pick him up. He cradled his baby close, leaning their foreheads together. His engine let out a low rumble and Roller’s turned over in response. Miko was pretty sure it was autobot purring. She’d heard Bulkhead do it when he thought she’d fallen asleep while driving her home from the base. 

“It’s time for a nap, little spark,” Optimus said gently, walking away despite Roller’s protests that he wasn’t sleepy at all. He waved goodbye to Miko over Optimus’s shoulder. 

————

Megatron stalked down the halls of the nemesis radiating far more smug energy than normal. The vehicons scrambled to get out of his path to the control room. He had Orion back. That foolish prime had handed him the war on a silver platter. Orion was certainly a firecracker when he wanted to be but he was no prime. “Um lord Megatron,” came a grating irritating gnat from behind him. He growled before turning around to glare at his medic harshly. 

Knockout did not cower though, sadly. The medic knew he was too important on the ship for Megatron to resort to beating him like he’d always done to his deplorable second. “Well out with it,” Megatron demanded. Knockout glanced around choosing now to finally be nervous. “Perhaps we should speak privately, my lord,” he said, “it is about our current…new recruit’s medical history that I discovered during my exam.”

Megatron waved a hand and stomped to Soundwave’s surveillance station. His old friend would no doubt hear any news anyway and it was the most secure location on the ship. Soundwave pulled away from his work as they entered. Knockout squirmed beneath the combined power of both of their stares. “Well out with it,” Soundwave played the recording of his voice from earlier in the hall. 

“Right. Yes sir well you see it’s rather a difficult topic to broach but I recall after a particularly hard battle you explained your relationship to Orion Pax -in detail- to me while on hard painkillers,” Knockout says, “whilst I was examining him I came across some old scaring consistent with a sparkling emergence. He couldn’t remember any sparkling and became very distressed. I had to give him something to calm him down. I’m sure Soundwave is monitoring the med bay but the emergence happened at some time during the war. Is there a chance, sire, that if there is a living sparkling that it might be yours?”

Megatron put a hand to his chin in an attempt to look contemplative while he frantically searched his memories. Did they have a sparkling? Had Orion been carrying and he hadn’t noticed in time to correct Orion from drifting away from him? Or was it that she devil’s? The one from the docks that always chatted Orion up over adventure novels smelling of the rust sea. That aquatic menace. 

“Uh lord Megatron,” Knockout prompted after much to long a period of silence. Megatron turned burning purple eyes on him silencing him quickly. “Give orders to the soldiers to be on the lookout for signs of a sparkling among the autobots,” Megatron barked at Soundwave who was already moving back to his work station, “I want to know if it exists. If it does it will make a fine heir once I teach it the true ways of the decepticons. Now I must go and comfort poor distraught Orion and see if I can’t pinpoint what he remembers even in his fractured memories.” He stalked away towards the med bay stiffly to hide the spring trying to creep into his steps. 

A sparkling! They could possibly have a sparkling. A true powerful heir and constant tie to Orion if that she devil hadn’t tried to claim it for her own already. Even if she did he would just have to work hard to erase her rust smelling taint from his CNA. 

————

Jack ran beside Arcee through the streets of Cybertron desperately clinging to the key Optimus had given to him thinking about Roller still sitting by the groundbridge waiting for Optimus to come back. He couldn’t fail the little guy. He had to do this, to bring Optimus home. He and Arcee were backed into a corner surrounded by howling insecticons. “Jack when I say so I want you to run between their legs when they lunge,” Arcee mutters to him while holding her blasters up at the four slowly approaching insecticons. “What I’m not leaving you here,” he says, completely shocked. 

“It’s the only way,” Arcee hissed at him, “I’ll give them the slip and come find you later.” Jack was about to argue again when one of the insecticon’s helms suddenly exploded in a mess of shrapnel and energon. Arcee jumped to block some of the debris from hitting Jack. He was grateful for that, no one wants to be knocked off their feet by giant viscera. The insecticons jumped back, their eyes darting around to try and find the shooter when a giant boat shaped object dropped down seemingly out of the sky to crush another insecticon flat. 

It transformed into a pink bot that was built with broad heavy looking shoulders. “Commander Elita,” Arcee whispered as the bot charged at the two remaining insecticons with a bellowing war cry. “Whoa,” Jack muttered as she slammed a servo transformed into a hammer into the face of one of them crushing half of it before bringing her other servo over and transforming them together into a bigger hammer to completely crush it in a second blow. The final insecticon let out a screaming cry as it lashed out at her slashing at her armor sending up sparks. 

She shoulder checked it, sending it stumbling backward. She transformed her servos back into fists and gave it a harsh uppercut to the stomach and energon spewed from its mouth. The little distance it gained from stumbling back let it escape and Commander Elita watched it go with a cold glare before turning around with a wide boisterous grin and wide open arms. It heavily contrasted the amount of energon and viscera on her plating. “Arcee,” she called, “what brings you to this quadrant of Cybertron?”

“A lot commander,” she says sounding relieved as she hurried forward to hug Elita, “it’s a long horrible story.” “Hm well I’ll trade you a survival tale for this long horrible one,” she prompts, “especially if it explains that little carbon based life form by your peds.” “My name is Jack,” Jack says awkwardly, holding out a hand to introduce himself. She lightly gives him the tip of her finger to shake. “Commander Elita One,” she introduces, “now about that story?”

————-

Elita led them through the streets running alongside Arcee as she drove Jack through the winding paths around various collections of debris. Elita joked that a boat wasn’t much good on the roads of Cybertron. She was still fast on her feet. Jack guessed she had to be if she couldn’t transform into a car like the autobots he’d already met. They found where the key was leading them even faster with her help. She was upset to hear Megatron had captured an amnesiac Orion Pax. 

It didn’t take them long to dodge scraplets and more insecticons to gather the data from Vector sigma. Jack couldn’t help but grin at the shocked look on Megatron’s face as Elita came charging through with an insecticon’s heavy arm in her grip like a makeshift weapon. She batted him away from a prone Optimus and was holding her own while Jack gave Optimus back his memories. 

It was a sight to see when he rushed to help her fight. He heard Arcee talking about how Megatron and Optimus had fought fluidly alongside each other but Optimus and Elita looked almost like one entity as they quickly overwhelmed Megatron into retreating. As soon as his shiny silver ass fled through a groundbridge from Soundwave, Elita threw her arms around Optimus to hug him tightly. 

Jack heard him laughing as he leaned back so her feet left the ground and spun her around while she hung onto his neck. He’s never seen him smile so much even after he set her down and she kissed the side of his head. “You are alive,” Optimus said, his tone full of wonder and happiness. “Nothing can keep me down,” Elita boasted with a grin, “I’ve been hiding and surviving out on the rust sea far from insecticons and Shockwave’s loose experiments. Now that I’m here though I think there is a little someone that would be quite happy to see us both.”

———-

“Roller,” Elita shouts in greeting as soon as she steps through the ground bridge. Roller lets out an excited screech trying to climb out of the bed Bumblebee had set up by the groundbridge by himself. Bumblebee hurried to help him out before he hurt himself and as soon as his peds hit the ground he was bolting for Elita and Optimus sobbing big fat happy tears as the two held him. 

Optimus managed to tuck Bumblebee into the hug as well thanking him for taking such good care of Roller whilst they were gone. Raf could see his door wings perk up with pride at the praise. As long as he was put down Roller was bustling from his room on the base to the main room where Elita was recounting her survival to them all. He brought her all his toys and pictures for her to compliment and praise between her stories. Every word made the little guy beam with happiness. The whole base felt warm and happy.