Chapter Text
Before the circumstances lead to Malto's family to grow suddenly much larger, Dorothy has already been a mother of two kids for many years; they were her pride and joy, and even if she thought about the troubles they managed to bring to her doorstep, she couldn't find it I'm herself to regret her decision to be a parent for longer than the initial instinctual pang of irritation at something being a bother.
She wouldn't trade them for anything.
Still, being a mom for this long meant that she had learned a couple of skills that made her life easier:
- the ability to discern if a child is lying to her face because they are scared to make her worry or being punished;
- to know when the sickness is real or pretend - and when to let the matter slide;
- the way she could differentiate between a peaceful silence and one that required her immediate attention;
and many, many others.
Having to take care of more kids was a matter of adjustment, but the core of their relationship was nothing new - they were her children, and she was their mother, no matter the composition of their bodies.
Those very instincts were a reason why, when she heard a loud clang followed with a light tremor that shook the house, she was already killing the stove and getting out of the door before she heard Twitch's panicked scream:
“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!”
“I'm coming!” Dot yelled back as ran towards her daughter, eyes sharp while she assessed the situation.
There was no sound of fire, no obvious intruders; she hadn't heard anything suspicious before the shout, having gotten used to the sound of Megatron playing along with his little bird, teaching her maneuvers-
Speaking of Megs - where was he?
He wouldn't have left the child alone, but she couldn't see his massive frame anywhere.
He didn't just… disappear, did he?
“MOOOOOOOM!!!”
Another cry from Twitch got her to focus again on her daughter…
… who appeared to be holding onto something just a little bigger than herself.
“I'm here, don't worry, I'm here,” Dorothy said as she finally got to place her hand on the red plating, rubbing it soothingly to slow the sobs that were coming out of her child; Twitch was leaning into her touch, distraught, clearly needing reassurance, but she also refused to let go of whatever she was keeping in her arms.
She didn't appear injured, so Dot counted it as a small blessing.
Looking down to see what it was precisely, the woman could only stare as the Terran met her eyes, all teared up, hugging the unconscious mech closer.
“Mom, I shrank Uncle Megs!”
Dorothy continued to trace circles on her kid's plating, unable to start to process as to what the hell actually happened - but with her old friend laying there out cold, cradled by his niece, she couldn't deny that the mech was way too tiny now.
She allowed her eyes to take in the suddenly much smaller hands, a considerably downsized cannon, and a face that was making her sense of proportion go haywire.
She had been close to Megatron's face a number of times, having been used to traveling on his shoulder meant she was in its proximity a lot; she had seen it show a lot of different expressions at plenty of ranges, but as she reached down to touch his cheek, her brain was trying to reconcile the size of her hand versus his helm.
It was all wrong.
He was too small.
He was…
Adorable.
She wasn't going to be able to unsee this - even once they get him back to normal, because they will, no doubt about that, she had this much faith in the range of Cybertronian shenanigans to know this was probably a minor inconvenience at best, but now she would always look at him and remember how it was to have a much too small servo reach out to her as the red optics flickered online, consciousness returning at a glacial pace.
That made her frown a little; if whatever caused it had given Megatron processor damage, it would be a much worse situation to fix.
“Megs?” she called out, touching on the back of the hand, able to wrap her hand around one of his fingers as she gave it a squeeze, and searched for eye contact, focused on assessing how screwed they were. “You good?”
At the sound of her voice, his optics grew a little brighter, and she heard the vocaliser reset, accustomed to the specific quiet electronic rattle as his mouth opened, taking in the cool air.
She held on his hand, her other clutched by Twitch, who had let out a sound of relief, hugging the mech even more fiercely, if a little clumsily, and waited for the ability to form words to return to the other's helm.
“Dorothy?” he called out tentatively, a bit too quietly (or perhaps it was the fact that he was smaller now, his voice no longer proportional to his size), shifting his gaze to the one cradling his helm from above, the neck wiring bending under the Terran's embrace (that could also have explained the lower volume, to be fair), patting it lightly with his other servo as he looked up, from under the edge of his helm. “Little bird?”
Dot breathed out calmly; this was a promising sign, him knowing who they were
Twitch smiled at him, the expression still showing how worried she was about the development, but she gave him a weak nod.
He smiled back, whatever confirmation his brain needed to be happy registering slowly, yet his gentle motions froze, and Dorothy watched as the faceplates rearranged themselves into a very blatant confusion.
“When did you get so big?” he asked with such genuine puzzlement, that his friend couldn't help but tease.
“Aw, big guy, are you calling me fat?”
His optics widened a fraction. “No, I'd never-” he countered, a little frustrated, making her laugh as she settled more comfortably.
His memory banks were probably not too affected, if he could interpolate the allusion with the comment he had made when she had been pregnant with Robby, earning him a thorough rant at being a rotten piece of garbage with an aft for a helm. She had been a little touchy at that stage, and his words had set her off even though later she apologized to him, recognising retrospectively his curiosity; he had assured her he held no grudge, to let it be, but apparently it left a lasting impression if it filtered through his still-catching-up systems.
Said systems were starting to work at a slightly higher efficiency the more time passed.
“Wait,” he said, the drift of his pupils betraying the fact that he was checking the messages on his internal HUD, probably reading off the sensory data, “you're not bigger,” he noted, looking them up and down for a good measure, before taking hold of both of their hands, staring at them for a long while.
He put them up, motioning for both to place their palms directly across his, and turned them around to look at how they compared to him.
At last, reality set in.
“Why am I so small?”
Dorothy snorted, retracting her hand. “You tell me,” she replied, settling herself a little further away as she gestured for her daughter to release the mech so he could sit up.
He pulled himself up a little once his neck was no longer taken hostage, but he didn't bother to stand; instead he remained sitting on the ground, looking at both of them with open fascination.
Dot guessed her own expression was not too dissimilar, especially since she could see the clear hints of it in the Terran's optics too.
It's not something they would see everyday.
‘At least he doesn't seem too worried,’ she thought, glad to be able to process this without managing a massive panic; if Megatron was more curious than concerned, there's a chance they could go through this relatively unscathed.
Nevertheless, it would be prudent to see if they could get some clues.
“Twitch, you got any idea?” she asked, looking at her daughter - but her question must have been a mistake, because Twitch immediately lost her smile, tears returning in full force.
“It just… happened!” she tried to explain, guilt showing in all of her small frame, from her voice that cracked dangerously between the stuttered ventilations, to the nervous twitches of her digits and wings, before her optics widened and she ran off, only to return with an item that, to Dot's expert eye, looked like a lovechild of a toaster and a hairdryer that's been infected by the graphic design from early Oughts, that's also been put into a microwave without knowledge of its metal parts.
Her daughter was holding it gently, despite its clear lack of functionality. “Dad Two gave this to me yesterday,” she confessed, wiping her face, unknowingly spreading the dirt from the soot covering the… device, charitably speaking, on her stained plating, “he said it could be a solution to some of the size differences,” she mumbled, “I think he's worried we're this small…”
Dorothy frowned, trying to remember who precisely had been ‘Dad Two’, her memory coming up empty at the moment, but she nodded encouragingly; she may have to speak with whoever it was later about making her children feel in any shape or form inadequate, but right now it wasn't the priority.
Twitch looked towards Megatron next. “Uncle Megs suggested to try it out somewhere without anything easy to break,” she recalled, and, as Dot forced her eyes to stay on the child's face as she ran through her memories of making her way over, she was glad to realise that she didn't see any damage on her way - or nothing structural, at least.
One less issue to manage; she would take her small blessings wherever she could.
The Terran's fingers shook, before coiling around the item. “But my hand slipped when it started to shake and smoke,” she admitted hoarsely, “and it just… exploded.”
Huh.
That explained why it looked like it went into the microwave.
Her daughter put it down with immense care, which now was much more understandable, given its track record, before she wrapped arms around herself, the crying intensifying.
“I didn't mean to, I swear!”
“Hey, hey, easy, easy!” Dorothy called out, hoping to stop Twitch's mood from getting even worse from the reignited anxiety, however she was beaten to it by the mech lifting her up, above his head, making her yelp in surprise as he stood up, much more stable on his legs than the woman expected at this stage.
“Little one, it's okay, I'm unharmed,” he said, the reassurance putting most of her daughter's worry out of her mind at once as he smiled, winking.
“Though maybe I should call you big bird now, huh?”
She gasped at the suggestion. Initially, she was beaming with the same kind of pride as when she realised she was the older sister, but at the same time her expression turned conflicted; while it was cool to be upgraded, to be more mature in a way, it wasn't all fun to lose some of the carefreeness that came with being the kid, so Dorothy could guess she wasn't going to ask for the change in the end, if she was reading the kiddo correctly.
She smirked, getting up from the grass. “We will figure this out, together,” she assured, coming up to stand right by the two, arms crossed.
Megatron lowered his hands a little, so Twitch was a bit closer to the woman's reach; she was hanging limply like a cat in his grip, but her gaze were alert, intrigued, as he bumped their heads briefly, fondly, and let her stay level with his own optics.
“Wheeljack's experiments sometimes… tend towards their own annihilation,” he admitted, grimace spreading across his face, making Dot suspect some rather specific examples of such happening to the mech, but the displeasure didn't last long as he softened, putting her against his hip, supporting her with his arm looped around her back, “so don't be too harsh on yourself for this.”
Twitch didn’t look convinced, but the physical closeness was clearly helping; she buried herself against his shoulder, hugging him back, and nodded weakly.
He pinned her down with his pointed stare, distancing her a little from himself. “If you do, then I have to take a majority of the blame, for even letting you handle it in the first place,” he shook her lightly, “so no more crying, alright?”
She snickered at his insistence, and replied with a much more confident smile, which was clearly deemed enough by the mech, who pulled her close again, rubbing her back.
Megatron hummed at the child in his arms, rocking her a little to banish the remaining uneasiness from his niece, while his own face twisted.
“Though I don't look forward to Optimus hearing about this…” he muttered quietly, unfocused, shushing Twitch when she made a noise, a mix of query and worry, and continued to stare ahead.
Dorothy grinned. “I have the best idea.”
He immediately tensed up, narrowing his optics at her, pulling the Terran behind him by turning his frame, shielding her from Dot as if she suddenly turned into a bomb about to go off at any moment.
“No, Dorothy, that is not a ‘good idea face’,” he gestured vaguely with his free hand towards her, the small circles aimed at the direction of her face, “that is a ‘I see blackmail opportunity’ face.”
She pouted excessively, batting her eyelashes.
“How can you say that, can these eyes lie?” she asked innocently, but her face broke into an even wider smile at the end, shattering the illusion of hurt.
“Dorothy,” he said flatly, stepping even closer to the woman, now only a foot or so taller than her, “I am much closer to you now and so I see it very clearly,” he reminded her, leaning over her as much as he could while balancing his niece, and pointed at her accusingly.
“This is the face you make before you make fun of me.”
She shrugged his words off easily.
“Oh, come on, Megs, just play along,” she said, before quickly maneuvering herself below his arm so she could plaster herself flush against his side, “for the first time we can hug you like this!”
Twitch didn't need to be asked as she picked up the cue flawlessly, squeezing him harder.
Megatron stood between them, paralysed by the very gentle vice that had him trapped. “Ah, well…” he mumbled, looking between them, and finally moving his servos so they rested on their backs, scooping them closer and ex-venting quietly as they nuzzled into his plating.
For a minute, they stood there, locked in the hug that nobody appeared to intend to break.
That is, until Dorothy's hand somehow found its way to the pocket of her trousers, fishing out her phone, and used the mech's contentment to pull her arm a bit away, aiming the camera at their trio as she put her fingers up behind the bot's helm, imitating bunny ears.
“Now, smile!”
Megatron barely had the mind to look at the device, while his niece threw up a wide smile, throwing up a peace sign in the attempt of more active participation.
A faint click sounded off, and Dot was already pulling her hand back, watching the result and cooing at the image as she settled back at his side again, satisfied.
Her fingers didn't stop moving, though, and even without following the patterns, Megatron already knew what was happening with the evidence of this little situation.
“You've sent it to him already, haven't you?”
“Obviously,” she replied without a beat, not needing the clarification as to who ‘he’ was, the choice of bunny ears reminiscent of the time she's seen him put them over Prime's head on purpose, as she hit another ‘send’, “image says a thousand words, don't you know?”
“Tell that to GHOST,” he grumbled, rolling his optics, until his entire frame shuddered.
“Slag,” he grunted, rubbing his face briefly with the tips of his digits, “how will I deal with them?”
“Don't sweat it, babe,” she patted him on the shoulder, delighted to be able to do so, as she sent the photo over to Elita, Bee, and all of her family, and was already asking Alex to get it printed and framed, “I'm sure our resident Prime will cover your ass again.”
Megatron glared at her, but he did seem to relax at the comment, settling back into their mutual embrace.
Optimus would, most likely, be able to manage this somehow - especially since it’s a result of one of his bots’ devices that caused it.
It didn’t stop him, though, from pulling Twitch closer and muttering quietly about ‘promising to not be as mean as her mom when she grows up’, which got him a playful swat up the helm from the woman, and a wonderful laugh from his niece, who rose to his defence, climbing over his frame so she could valiantly protect him from any more mild expression of disapproval.