Chapter Text
There came a certain point when it became impossible to keep Firestarter out of the medbay. After they had grown enough that their spark condition stabilized, they were kept out of the fray and watched by other bots while their carrier worked.
But shortly after they got too big to be picked up and carried easily, they started escaping from their sitters and slipping back into the medbay. Then they would refuse to leave and throw tantrums when they were dragged out.
Ratchet tried scolding them. He tried grounding them to the hab they shared. He tried everything he could think of. But his sparkling was extremely stubborn.
So he mostly gave up on keeping them out of his way. Instead, he gives Firestarter a job to do.
The bitlet zooms into the medbay in alt and transforms to skid straight into a wall. Recovering quickly, they scamper to their carrier's side. "I'm here! What do you have for me to deliver?"
"Did you hit your helm?" Ratchet takes their helm between his palms and examines the scuff marks from their collision with the wall.
"I'm fine!" Firestarter squirms out of his hold and steps around him. They peek over the edge of a worktable, reaching for the tools laid out there.
Ratchet pushes their grabby hands away from the sharp implements. "Ah-ah! I have a special mission for you today."
He pulls a folded piece of flimsy from his subspace, and Firestarter bounces in excitement. "Gimme! Gimme!"
Ratchet holds it out of reach. "Listen up first! This is for Optimus, and it's very important that he reads it. But after that, your mission is to get him to come back here to see me. You cannot let him get out of this."
Firestarter nods very seriously. "I won't let him escape! I'll get him to you, Riri!"
They bare their tiny fangs in a savage grin. Ratchet huffs a soft laugh. "Okay kid, go get 'im."
He hands them the flimsy. Firestarter sprints off immediately.
Ratchet smiles as he watches them. That's his bitlet.
Firestarter has a mission, and they'll be damned if they don't get to finish it. Nothing can stand in their way.
They speed down corridors, bots jumping out of their way. Some don't move fast enough and they have to weave between their legs, dodging flailing pedes. Some call their name as they whip past, asking where they're headed in such a hurry.
Optimus is Riri's friend, and Firestarter had visited his office many times before. They remember hiding under his desk, playing pretend while Riri talked to him. In their memories, Optimus is a giant pair of blue shins, gentle hands, and bright optics curved upward in a smile.
Firestarter manages to not run face first into the office door as they once more skid to a stop. They transform and knock primly on the door. "Delivery!"
"Come in!" The door slides open.
Firestarter hadn't seen Optimus since their last growth spurt, and it's strange to be able to see over the edge of his desk. Optimus is surrounded by stacks of datapads, a stylus in his hand. He looks up when Firestarter enters. "Hello, what do you have for me, little one?"
Firestarter squares their shoulders and takes out the piece of flimsy, setting it on Optimus's desk. "It's from Ri—Ratchet."
"Ooh, a very important delivery then." Optimus picks it up, unfolding and reading it. He sighs. "Firestarter, could you bring a message back to your carrier for me? Tell him that I can't see him right now, I'm much too busy with some very important work."
"Riri said that I couldn't let you get away." Firestarter informs him cheerfully.
Optimus chuckles. "Did he really? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint Ratchet, but I will not be leaving my work today."
Firestarter is stumped for a moment. Riri's instructions had made it seem like Optimus was going to run away. But now he was saying that he wouldn't move?
Then they come up with a brilliant idea. They stomp around Optimus's desk and face off against him, face plates set in a determined expression. "If you don't go, I'll scream."
"There's no need for that, little one." Optimus raises his hands placatingly, looking concerned.
"Then go see Riri."
"I can't—"
Firestarter gives one last angry stomp, hands curling into tiny fists. Then they tilt their helm back and scream.
Optimus winces spectacularly, sliding out of his chair to kneel on the ground before them. "Wait, settle down! It's alright! Please stop, little one!"
Firestarter resets their vocalizer, cutting off the sound. "Are you going to come see Riri now?"
Optimus sighs again. "I suppose I can spare some time."
Firestarter nods very seriously, then holds out their hand for him to take. They walk like that all the way back to the medbay, Optimus bent awkwardly to keep their hands linked.
Riri laughs at Optimus when they get there. "Good job, bitty."
"Check up time, Firestarter." First Aid says by way of greeting when Firestarter pokes their helm into the medbay. It's Ratchet's off-shift, so they don't get to deliver messages.
"Aww, already?" Firestarter drags their pedes as they walk over to the medberth.
"I know you're big and strong now, but it's important to make sure you're still doing okay." First Aid helps them onto the berth, even though they're practically big enough to climb up on their own now.
Firestarter swings their legs back and forth. "But it's boring!"
"It's just a quick surface scan and then a spark scan. Then you can go play." First Aid holds up the first scanner, and Firestarter stays still for him.
As soon as the scan is down, they start fidgeting again, looking around for any way to escape.
"Primus, kid." First Aid exclaims. "You're practically made of dents."
Firestarter pouts. "It's not that many!"
"Where did you even get half of these?" First Aid asks as he looks for a magnet tool to pull the dents out.
Firestarter brightens again, pointing to the dent in their knee plate. "This one I got playing tag with Bee! I fell down." Then they point to the one on their forearm. "I got this running into a shelf that I didn't know was there." Finally, they gesture to the one on their back of their helm. "And that's from when I tried to make a crate tower. And fell off it."
"Well, I hope having to sit still while I fix all of these will teach you not to be so reckless next time." First Aid says.
"Aww! No fair!" Firestarter whines, "You said I could go play!"
"After. And maybe someone should talk to your sitters, if you keep getting into trouble like this."
Firestarter grins. "They try to catch me, but they're all too slow."
First Aid boops them on the nose. "Troublemaker."
Firestarter snaps their teeth at him then laughs.
There were no deliveries to be made. Carrier was busy and needed someone to take care of Firestarter. But all the usual sparkling-sitters were unavailable, which meant someone new would be watching them.
Which is how they found themself hiding behind Carrier's leg as he tried to convince the strange mech to take them for a shift.
Firestarter liked Bumblebee, and Jazz, and even Beachcomber. But some of the sitters they had had either couldn't keep up with them, or weren't responsible enough for Carrier's standards. There was a long list of bots who were banned from watching them.
This bot is babbling nervously. "I don't know anything about sparklings! I've never even met one! Please Ratchet, there has to be someone else. What if they get hurt? What if they cry? What if—"
"Enough, Bluestreak. It's not even a full day-cycle. Just keep them busy and out of trouble and you'll be fine." Carrier peels Firestarter's clinging hands off his armor, pushing them towards the strange mech. "C'mon sweetspark, say hi to Bluestreak."
Firestarter crosses their arms. "No."
"Be nice. You'll like Blue, he's one of Bee's friends."
"Bee's friend?" Firestarter looks over the strange mech suspiciously.
He waves, smiling. "Hi, little one. You wanna go play? I know some games, lots of games, plenty of sparkling-safe games!"
"Okay." Reluctantly, they step away from Carrier.
"Stay safe, bitlet." Carrier smooths a hand over Firestarter's helm, leaning down to kiss the top of it.
Bluestreak makes a choked sound. Firestarter huffs and squirms away from Carrier.
"Bye, now!" Firestarter says forcefully.
Carrier rolls his optics and leaves.
Firestarter stares at Bluestreak. Blustreak stares back.
"Okay, well, why don't we go to the rec room?" Bluestreak holds out a hand for them to take.
"Race ya!" Firestarter folds into alt and zooms off.
"Wait!" Bluestreak races after them. But Firestarter is small enough to dodge other mechs as they speed down the corridor, easily losing him.
The rec room is boring. Firestarter had played with all the baby toys they had, and all of the sim games they were allowed to play. They wanted to explore, and they knew just where in the ship to go.
"Stop! Firestarter, it's not safe over here! Come back!" Bluestreak finally pulls ahead of Firestarter, fishtailing around to face them.
Firestarter brakes hard. "Hey!"
"That's a maintenance corridor, it goes to the engine room. You're not allowed there, it's too dangerous. Now let's turn around and go back to the rec room." Bluestreak transforms, arms held out to herd them back.
Firestarter transforms as well. "Bee would let me."
"No, I don't think he would. What would your carrier think? He would get in so much trouble."
"Jazz would."
"I sure hope he wouldn't! Maybe he would?" Bluestreak looks thoughtful. "Maybe he would but he'd probably not let a little sparkling run around back here on their own."
"I'm not on my own. You're here to watch me." Firestarter growls, their engine turning over. "You were gonna play with me."
"Yes but not here! C'mon, we'll find something fun to do in the rec room together. I bet I know a game you've never tried before!"
"Let's play hide and seek." Firestarter says.
"Yeah, that's perfect. We'll go back and—"
"I hide, you seek." Firestarter dodges around his legs and goes for a vent cover.
They get their claws around the edge, popping the cover off and scrambling inside. But they don't get much further before Bluestreak grabs their leg, dragging them back out. "No, stop! You can't just crawl into the vents!"
As soon as Firestarter is out of the vent, Bluestreak lets them go. With a fierce shriek, Firestarter whips around and sinks their fangs into his hand.
Bluestreak yelps, then holds very still. "Little one, please let go. I think we need to go see your carrier."
Firestarter frees their fangs from his hand. They spit and splutter, pulling a face at the taste of Bluestreak's energon and sticking out their glossa. "Gross!"
They make Bluestreak carry them there, even though they're getting too big for it. The two of them arrive at the medbay, shamefaced and bleeding in Bluestreak's case, and glaring and grumpy in Firestarter's case.
Carrier just looks at them and sighs. "Go sit down, Blue. Firestarter, come here."
Bluestreak sits on a medberth. Firestarter sulkily shuffles to Carrier.
He wipes the energon off their face. "Did you swallow any of this?"
"Uh-uh."
"Alright then you little menace, you're going to have to fix what you broke now." Carrier turns them around by their shoulder to face Bluestreak. "First, apologize."
Firestarter's finials drop, and they widen their optics. "I'm sorry."
"Aww, it's okay. It doesn't hurt that much, I'll be fine. Ratchet, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to let them get away."
"I'll deal with you later. Pay attention now bitlet, you're going to help me patch him up."
Firestarter nods vigorously, their finials shooting straight back up again. "Okay!"
Carrier starts taking out supplies. "Blue, hold out your hand."
He does so, and Carrier guides Firestarter closer. "See, you dented his plating and punctured a line. Not a major one, and it looks like he already closed off the flow to it."
"Yep!" Bluestreak starts to say more, but Carrier gives him a look and he subsides.
"I'll straighten out the plating and then you can apply a temporary mesh patch. The punctures are so small his nanites will be able to take care of them just fine."
Firestarter watches closely as Carrier fixes Blustreak's plating. When it's their turn they hold the patch carefully with both hands, placing it so it covers the two pinpricks they had left.
"Does he get an energon goodie now?" Firestarter asks.
"I don't know, was he a good patient?"
"Uh-huh!" Firestarter opens the drawer that they're not normally allowed in, selecting an energon goodie and presenting it to Bluestreak.
"Thank you, sweetspark. I'm sorry that we couldn't have fun together today."
Firestarter grins, all fang. "It's okay."
Carrier shakes his helm. "What am I going to do with you?"
"I'm not letting you train my sparkling as a spy." Ratchet says.
Jazz holds up his hands in surrender. "I didn't say that! I was just asking if lil' Dent was thinking about what they want to do when they grow up."
"They're a little too young for that yet." Ratchet replies, turning away pointedly to continue straightening up his medbay. After a moment, he pauses. "Wait, when did they get that nickname?"
"Oh that one's a fun story." Jazz grins. "But you have to promise not to get too mad at me."
Ratchet raises an optic ridge. "What did you do?"
Jazz leans against a counter, staring wistfully into the distance. "It all started the last time it was my turn to sparking-sit."
Because of Ratchet's strict parameters on who was allowed to watch Firestarter, Jazz was still mildly surprised whenever he was handed the responsibility.
"Just for a few joors." Ratchet had said. "No one else is available."
Which made sense, since the Autobot fleet of spaceships was currently in a rather percarious area of the galaxy. Technically, Jazz had very important work he was supposed to be doing. But he figured he could spare the time, after all, it wasn't often that he got to hang out with the youngest member of their crew.
Firestarter had been less than thrilled to be separated from Ratchet. They were getting a little too big to hide behind his leg, but they still tried. Ratchet skillfully scruffed them and set them in front of Jazz. "Play nice."
Firestarter bared their fangs at him. Jazz grinned back. "Hiya, sparklet. Come play with your ol' Uncle Jazz, why dontcha?"
They rolled their optics. "I don't wanna."
Ratchet sighed. "Try to have fun, or at least stay out of trouble. Both of you."
Jazz waved cheerfully as Ratchet left, who threw him one more warning glare as he did.
Jazz wasn't dissuaded. Despite his reputation, he could be responsible. When he wanted to be, at least.
Firestarter gave him a once over. Then they huffed and started walking away.
"Where are you going so quickly?" Jazz asked, following after. "I can show you someplace fun on the ship that I bet you've never seen before."
Firestarter paused, turning to look at his suspiciously. "I've seen every place on the ship like a hundred times. It's boring."
"You haven't seen any of the off-limits places yet though." Jazz wrapped an arm around their shoulders, leaning in to whisper. "Like the security command center."
"What's that?" Firestarter's optics went wide.
"Wanna see? I'll take you there right now, you can even ride on my shoulders if you like."
Firestarter nodded very seriously. "Okay."
Jazz scooped them up and set them on his shoulders. "Away we go!"
He even managed to get them to giggle as he raced off, deliberately hopping and swerving to jostle them.
"Hey! Walk normal!"
"What are you talking about? This is normal!"
By the time they made it to the command center, Firestarter's grumpy mood had dissolved. Jazz set them down just outside the door. "Now this is the fun part, when I open the door I want you to yell 'boo!' as loud as you can. Got it?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Ready? 1, 2, 3!" Jazz swiped over the pad next to the door to input his idents.
"Boo!" Firestarter yelled, so loud that their vocalizer glitched and cut out.
"Fragging—Jazz!" Red Alert startled from inside the room, whipping around to glare at the culprit.
Firestarter stared back innocently. "Hi. What's 'fragging' mean?"
Red Alert's hands flew to the sides of his helm, horns sparking with panic. "Jazz! Why would you bring a sparkling here!"
"Because he's an idiot." Said Prowl from further inside. "Don't repeat that word either, little one."
"S'Okay, I know that one." Firestarter stepped past the threshold, looking all around.
Jazz elects to ignore the scolding, leading the way deeper into the command center. "This is where Red watches out for threats both inside and outside the ship."
Firestarter peeked over the edge of a console, trying to see the screen. Jazz boosted them up. But as soon as he did, Red Alert turned it off.
"Hey!" Jazz said.
"That's classified." Red Alert replied.
"But educational! How is the sparklet gonna learn anything?"
"Have them look at something non-classified." Prowl leans over to type into the console. The screen flashed back on, now showing a video feed from a security camera somewhere on the ship. "This is a compilation of security footage that I have been collecting."
"Is that your office door?" Jazz asked.
"Yes." Prowl sped up the footage. Sideswipe appears, carrying buckets of paint and a brush. Within minutes he'd vandalized the door and the wall around it.
The next clip shows the rec room, where both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are hustling bots out of their energon rations by running a rigged game. Each clip contains more of the same, the twins getting up to trouble and breaking rules.
"What were you planning to do with all of this?" Jazz asked warily.
"I was going to appeal to Optimus for disciplinary measures." Prowl sighed. "But that doesn't seem right at the moment. Half our troops are going stir-crazy as it is. If I have those two confined I'm afraid of their behavior worsening."
"I still think you should act on it!" Red Alert chimed in. "Those two are dangerous, and they're causing me all sorts of helmaches!"
"They're not dangerous, just bored." Jazz said. He looked down at Firestarter, another bored bot who was likely just as sick of the same routine cycle after cycle. "Let me talk to them. I'm sure we can figure something out."
"Fine. But if nothing changes I will have to take corrective action." Prowl said.
With that, Jazz was off to put out yet another fire. Only this time, he had a little one to take along with him.
He found the twins in one of their usual haunts, the corner table at the back of the mess hall. From there they had the perfect vantage point to watch all the other bots. Jazz could even hear Sideswipe gossiping under his vents as he walked in, keeping up a running commentary to his brother.
"And there's Jazz. He's coming this way." Sideswipe mumbled as they approached.
"Heya, mechs! What's up?" Jazz leaned casually against the tabletop.
"Is that Firestarter?" Sunstreaker asked, completely ignoring Jazz.
"Sunny! 'Sides!" Firestarter squeals, climbing up onto a seat next to them.
Well that's new. Jazz watched with concealed surprise as Sideswipe scrubbed affectionately at the top of Firestarter's helm with one hand. Firestarter's finials pin down and their engine rumbled in a purr as they laughed, leaning into it.
"Since when are you all friends?" Jazz asked.
"Everyone wants a chance to play with the sparklet!" Sideswipe enthused. "It's the only half-interesting thing to do around here."
"Sunny, got any cool new battle scars?" Firestarter asked, bouncing excitedly in their seat.
"Aw, don't ask him, he always buffs his out!" Sideswipe complained. "Check out mine instead."
"Ridiculous, everyone knows you keep the most important scars for longer." Sunstreaker said.
Both twins show off a number of scratches and dents, each with a story to accompany them. They interrupt and talk over each other, each eager to be the one to impress Firestarter the most.
"I wish Carrier would let me keep my dents." Firestarter said after a while, flopping down miserably onto the table.
"You're too little to have battle scars." Jazz told them.
"How do you figure that?" Sideswipe had countered.
"Little ones shouldn't be doing the fighting." Jazz continued. He sensed he had hit a sore spot.
Sideswipe looked like he was going to argue more, but Jazz was interrupted by an emergency comm.
[EMERGENCY: Assistance needed on the bridge. Possible hacking attempt is underway. Soundwave's involvement likely.]
Jazz held up a hand to forestall Sideswipe. "One sec. I've got to run to the bridge. Would you two mind watching the little one? Just for a bit, I'll be right back."
"Sure." Sideswipe replied.
So Jazz had left. He knew, vaguely, that maybe the twins weren't on Ratchet's approved sparkling-sitter list. But it was an emergency and he didn't have time to find someone who was.
When the emergency was resolved he found the trio at the ship's racetrack. But they weren't racing. They were sitting beside the track, looking scuffed up.
"What happened?" Jazz asked.
"Bumper tag!" Firestarter said as they jumped to their pedes. They rushed over, showing off the dents littering their shoulder plating. "Look! Battle scars! I got 'Sides so good!"
Jazz winced, turning to Sideswipe. "You two really shouldn't play so rough with them."
"It's okay. Little Dent can take it." Sideswipe said.
"Little Dent?"
"'Cause they're always getting into trouble and getting dented."
"Oh, that makes sense." Jazz pulled a medkit out of his subspace. "As cool as those 'battle scars' are, I'm gonna have to fix them before I bring you back to your carrier."
"Aww, no fair!" Firestarter whined, dodging away from him.
Jazz ended up chasing them around the track until they tired out. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were no help, cheering them on instead of getting up to catch them.
"And they've refused to let go of the nickname since!" Jazz finishes his story with a dramatic flourish.
"I see." Ratchet says, dangerously even.
"Now, you promised not to get mad!"
"I promised nothing." Ratchet turns around, lobbing a wrench at Jazz.
Jazz ducks with a yelp. "I brought them back in one piece!"
"You left them alone with the only two mechs who are not only banned from watching them, but banned from being alone with them! Those two are the worst influences on this entire ship! In this entire army, even!"
"Now isn't that a little harsh?"
"Nope." Ratchet points an accusatory finger at Jazz. "You are officially banned from sparkling-sitting."
Jazz falls to his knees. "Nooooo!"
"Now get out of my medbay!"