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ajremixDepending on how the next one goes, I may have to up this to potentially 12 chapters...
Title: It Takes a Family 05
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1618
Characters: Wreckers
In Response to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kirin_saga’s plot bunny (number 10)
Summary: Just when the Wreckers thought they could handle anything… Springer gets turned into a sparkling. In which sparklings are tentatively explained.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
They trudged back onto Xantium, rowdy and euphoric after another good, dominating fight. They laughed at each other, pounded hard on backs and shoulders and felt much more relaxed having stretched their battle kinks out, decimating the second of three known Decepticon raiders. The door to Xantium’s hangar slid open and a little green figure toddled out to them, latching on to the closest leg- Twin Twist’s.
“Aw, lookit that!” Topspin teased. “I think someone missed you!”
As one of them tried to move towards the door, the sparkling latched on to that leg, clinging with tiny little arms. Sandstorm yelped as the added weight made a twist in his motor relays cinch painfully. “Yo, off!”
“I think he missed all of us.” Scoop knelt to coo and sweep the sparkling up. He fussed, twisting in the payloader’s arms. With an amusingly serious pinch to his little fact, the sparkling pointed at Sandstorm, Broadside and Roadbuster. They all stood, staring at him blankly and he pointed again, this time making little chirps and whirs in his developing vocalizer.
“What is this, charades?” Sandstorm shook his head and made to leave, but the sparkling started whining. “What does he want?”
“Hang on there, Sandy.” Topspin put a hand to the triplechanger’s chest, ignoring the threatening growl with expertise. “I think I get it.” He pointed down at Sandstorm’s leg where excess fluids were seeping out of his leg and watched as the sparkling nodded. Then the jumpstarted pointed at the penetrating cracks in Broadside’s armor and the shrapnel embedded in Roadbuster’s shoulder and got a nod each time. Then the sparkling jabbed a finger at Topspin with all the authority such a little figure could command. “I think I’ve just been ordered to bring you three in for a check-up.”
Roadbuster shook his head. “I’ll bet. Look over the other two first, I’m going to report in-“
Tiny hands hooked into a seam in Roadbuster’s armor, sparkling giving a sad/demanding ‘mrr’ and completely unconcerned with the fact he almost slipped out of Scoop’s hold. The two Wreckers reacted at the same time, four arms coming up protectively and the bodies attached to them collided roughly, almost sending them to the floor.
“Ow.” Scoop winced, snaking an arm out from the complex weave of limbs and sparkling to rub at a chip on his chin. “That shoulder mount means business.”
“So does the kid, apparently.” Whirl patted Roadbuster’s shoulder who was trying to calm his racing spark. “I’ll take care of the report, you get looked at. I don’t think it’s gonna happen any other way.”
Roadbuster looked up at Whirl, then a highly amused Topspin before turning his attention to the squirmy thing that was prodding gently at his wounded shoulder. The sparkling looked up at the combat vehicle and chirruped.
“Alright, wounded to medical.”
There were a couple snickers, but they followed dutifully. As Scoop (with sparkling) and Whirl left with him, Twin Twist told them, “He may be a sparkling, but he is still Springer.”
~*~*~*~
Whirl sank deep into the ionic bath, humming happily to himself as he felt the solvent and alkali seeping into the small parts of his body and easing the warm liquid into joints. It was soothing over his sensors, a soft thrum through the bath giving a little tingle that had him wriggling even deeper in the pool. It wasn’t as hot as Whirl preferred to have his baths, but it was a nice refresher (and celebratory post-reporting gift to himself).
Until he found himself unceremoniously dunked.
When he came up spluttering fluids out of his shoulder vents Whirl found Twin Twist and Scoop were near the edge, looking at him expectantly. The driller had the sparkling braced against his hip component.
“Since you’re here not doing anything,” he said a little too cheerfully, “you get to watch the kid!” With that, he held out the sparkling and practically dropped him on the glass of Whirl’s cockpit.
“Wha- but, hey! Wait a klik!”
“Sorry, Whirl! But we got work to do.”
“Roadbuster wants to make sure there’s no more crawl spaces the little guy can get into and since we’re the security and defensive experts around here, that job falls on us.”
The two smiled bright, purposeful smiles and waved cheerily. “Later!”
“Wait! Come back! Guys!” The sound of the doors sliding close, isolating Whirl with the sparkling in the washracks eerily resembled a death sentence. Warily he turned his attention to the squirmy thing in his hands who whirred happily and smacked his little hands on the wet surface of Whirl’s cockpit.
Whirl did not like sparklings. It wasn’t anything personal, they just… weirded him out. He didn’t know what was going through their heads and couldn’t understand and thus had no idea how to deal with them. And now… and now…
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re enjoying this.” He groused at the wall. The helo set his cargo down on the edge of the pool. “Stay.”
The sparkling be-beeped. Then leaned over to splash at the fluids just within his reach. He giggled and splashed more. Whirl couldn’t help watching him.
“You like baths, huh?” Well, Topspin didn’t say they were bad for him and this ionic bath was one of the milder ones that the Wreckers had. Whirl considered the sparkling, doubting his ability to float and not being big enough to have his head above the fluid line while on Whirl’s lap.
Can’t say nothing good ever came out of Whirl knowing so many random things. “Let’s go,” he said, curling an arm around the sparkling and hefting him up like a sack. The sparkling squealed in delight, flailing his little arms and legs at the ground passing under him. Whirl would probably get beaten down when others found out what he did, but he didn’t much care. He dug into a patch kit they kept in every room, pulling out some seals and patches. It didn’t take much work at all to create an air bladder, inflating the donut before sealing it off entirely.
It took a little bit of wriggling to get the squirmy sparkling to get in it, but Whirl persevered. With the inflated donut snug around the sparkling’s body, he took the two of them back into the pool and- very carefully –settled kid and contraption in the fluids.
The sparkling stayed curiously quiet. Then, as Whirl slowly pulled his hands away and he found himself floating, he let out high pitched clicks and chirrups, splashing his arms with squealing laughter.
Whirl settled back against the wall of the bath and watched the sparkling kick himself around the pool. Hn, he could do this.
~*~*~*~
“Did you just randomly online STUPID today?”
“I thought he was just tired, I’m sorry!”
“Sorry? You let the poor guy overheat in the racks and you’re sorry?”
“I didn’t know he’d be so sensitive to temperatures! He was doing fine at first!”
“He’s a sparkling, Whirl! He can’t regulate his internal functions like a mech can!”
“I really didn’t know! I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
The fact that Whirl felt guilty at all was impressive, but seeing him slouching and obviously taking this hard had Roadbuster putting a hand to Topspin’s shoulder. “Ease off.” He said lowly. “We all need a better understanding of what a sparkling can and can’t properly handle.”
“He’ll be okay, though. Right?”
Topspin looked up at Roadbuster, then at Whirl. He sighed and rubbed at his helmet. It really wasn’t Whirl’s fault, all things considered. Topspin doubted if anyone but him had known the sparkling would’ve overheated far sooner than the rest of them.
“He’ll be fine.” He said finally. “I’ve got him hooked up to a regulator right now. I’ll be monitoring his internal temperature. It needs to be gradually dropped to normal parameters, but there’s no lasting damage.”
“Keep watch on him, let me know if there’s any changes or when he’s cleared. Meanwhile, we need a better idea of the finer points of caring for a sparkling.”
“I can do that.”
Surprised, both Roadbuster and Topspin looked at Whirl.
He shrugged in return. “I like researching stuff and it’ll be less suspicious if I do it anyway. The mechs at the Hub are used to me requesting access to weird subjects in data storage as is. Besides,” he tone got a little lower, a little less light, “it might as well be me.”
Topspin reached out to squeeze at a lanky white arm. “Let me look over what you find, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
And, just like that, they accepted responsibility, apologized, forgave and moved on in three simple sentences. No lasting damage indeed, Roadbuster thought to himself. “Go ahead and do it up on the bridge, it’s almost your shift anyway.” He said.
Whirl nodded in return. “Will do.” He turned and strode out of the medbay, moving just slow enough he could read the sparkling’s monitor as he passed. If he wanted to, of course.
~*~*~*~
It was fairly quiet on the bridge, Whirl absorbed in his research and Sandstorm doing whatever thing Sandstorm did in confidentiality- the rest of the team had long ago learned to let him work in privacy. Occasionally Whirl would pipe up with whatever interesting tidbit he gleaned from the data stream.
“Though a sparkling is incredibly energy efficient,” Whirl read, “they require lots of rest and easily tire faster than an upgraded form. Instead of energy being used to regulate the internal workings as they would in a matured frame, the minerals and metals in a sparkling’s specially formulated energon is absorbed by the nanotech in their protoframes. The nanotech then assimilates the resulting materials in order to promote the growth of the sparkling's comparatively weak and flexible protoframe. As the protoframe grows, nanites will construct additional axons to help regulate more of the internal processes. Once the protoframe reaches its preprogrammed size, the nanites will focus on maintaining neural pathways and the nanotech will regulate itself to sustaining internal functions as ‘internal repairs’. The sparkling is then able to undergo their first upgrade to become a fledgling, capable of learning skillsets pertinent to their function.” He flicked a finger, scrolling through the next screen.
“Huh,” Whirl muttered, “if I knew sparklings were this interesting, I would’ve read up a long time ago.”
Sandstorm, not really listening to Whirl but somehow comforted by his random lectures, couldn’t help but prod, “You’d think you’ve never been a sparkling yourself.”
“Never dealt with them.” Came the vaguely distracted answer. “After my upgrade, and starting the Academy I never saw any. No one ever really remembers their time as sparklings, anyway. Primus only knows what they think.”
“If they even think at all?”
“Were it anyone else, I’d probably say that. But this kid is sharp and curious. It’s obvious he’s got thoughts of some kind in him.”
Sandstorm turned his attention away from the communications hub he sat at. “So no one was suspicious about you wanting information on sparklings?”
“Oh, I’m sure someone was.”
“But they didn’t say anything?”
“Pfft.” A long, sharp hand waved dismissively. “They stopped asking me questions when I was researching the effects of extreme pressure on organic beings in both sudden and prolonged exposures.”
A silence fell between the two.
Hesitantly, a little afraid to actually know, Sandstorm asked, “And why were you looking that up?”
“To see if there were actual studies done on it. I was surprised at the amount of text I found. Couple of vids, too.”
“There’s something very wrong in your processors.”
“Obviously. That’s why I’m here.”
Well, he had to give Whirl that one.
“Due to internal focus on growth,” the helo said, obviously finding another interesting passage, “they are very sensitive to change. Temperature, pressure and fuel must be carefully monitored to ensure the sparkling remains healthy and doesn’t tax their internal systems. If a sparkling is overstressed, it can lead to overheating, internal pressure buildup, shorts and, if serious enough, results in an internal shut down in a final attempt of the body to protect itself from stressors. In these extreme cases, the sparkling should be hooked up to monitors and life support in order to ensure its continued survival.
“Recent research suggests an important and often overlooked source of stress in a sparkling is caused by its attachments. Theorists believe the sparkling needs attachments to one or more adults for socialization and emotional development. They attach to those that are responsive and interactive during the sparkling’s development, their sparks more adapt to resonating with another’s. Theories suggest these attachments will help to develop the sparkling’s thought process, feelings and behavioral patterns. Attachment theory states the bond between sparkling and adult affects how the sparkling reacts both in and away from the presence of the adult. Theory suggests the complexity of a family’s social interactions will further develop-“
“Hang on,” Sandstorm said suddenly, jolting upright, “I’m getting something.” Deft hands flew across the communications panel, upping the gain on the communications receiver and filtering out other random space noises. Whirl watched him silently, patiently waiting to hear what was picked up.
The triplechanger flicked on the ship-wide communications. “Roadbuster to the bridge. We’re receiving a distress call.”
:On my way.: Came the low rumble of the acting-commander. :What is it?:
“Emergency medical vessel Asclepius, a little less than two sectors out. It’s a bit of a garbled mess, but from what information I’m getting, it sounds like they’ve been hit by that last raider we’re looking for.”
:Put us on alert and get us there ASAP. Let me know if you glean any more information from them or once we have a read on that sector.:
“Understood.” By his side, Whirl was already transferring the coordinates into the helm and Xantium shot forward into the stars.
Title: It Takes a Family 05
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1618
Characters: Wreckers
In Response to:
kirin_saga’s plot bunny (number 10)Summary: Just when the Wreckers thought they could handle anything… Springer gets turned into a sparkling. In which sparklings are tentatively explained.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
They trudged back onto Xantium, rowdy and euphoric after another good, dominating fight. They laughed at each other, pounded hard on backs and shoulders and felt much more relaxed having stretched their battle kinks out, decimating the second of three known Decepticon raiders. The door to Xantium’s hangar slid open and a little green figure toddled out to them, latching on to the closest leg- Twin Twist’s.
“Aw, lookit that!” Topspin teased. “I think someone missed you!”
As one of them tried to move towards the door, the sparkling latched on to that leg, clinging with tiny little arms. Sandstorm yelped as the added weight made a twist in his motor relays cinch painfully. “Yo, off!”
“I think he missed all of us.” Scoop knelt to coo and sweep the sparkling up. He fussed, twisting in the payloader’s arms. With an amusingly serious pinch to his little fact, the sparkling pointed at Sandstorm, Broadside and Roadbuster. They all stood, staring at him blankly and he pointed again, this time making little chirps and whirs in his developing vocalizer.
“What is this, charades?” Sandstorm shook his head and made to leave, but the sparkling started whining. “What does he want?”
“Hang on there, Sandy.” Topspin put a hand to the triplechanger’s chest, ignoring the threatening growl with expertise. “I think I get it.” He pointed down at Sandstorm’s leg where excess fluids were seeping out of his leg and watched as the sparkling nodded. Then the jumpstarted pointed at the penetrating cracks in Broadside’s armor and the shrapnel embedded in Roadbuster’s shoulder and got a nod each time. Then the sparkling jabbed a finger at Topspin with all the authority such a little figure could command. “I think I’ve just been ordered to bring you three in for a check-up.”
Roadbuster shook his head. “I’ll bet. Look over the other two first, I’m going to report in-“
Tiny hands hooked into a seam in Roadbuster’s armor, sparkling giving a sad/demanding ‘mrr’ and completely unconcerned with the fact he almost slipped out of Scoop’s hold. The two Wreckers reacted at the same time, four arms coming up protectively and the bodies attached to them collided roughly, almost sending them to the floor.
“Ow.” Scoop winced, snaking an arm out from the complex weave of limbs and sparkling to rub at a chip on his chin. “That shoulder mount means business.”
“So does the kid, apparently.” Whirl patted Roadbuster’s shoulder who was trying to calm his racing spark. “I’ll take care of the report, you get looked at. I don’t think it’s gonna happen any other way.”
Roadbuster looked up at Whirl, then a highly amused Topspin before turning his attention to the squirmy thing that was prodding gently at his wounded shoulder. The sparkling looked up at the combat vehicle and chirruped.
“Alright, wounded to medical.”
There were a couple snickers, but they followed dutifully. As Scoop (with sparkling) and Whirl left with him, Twin Twist told them, “He may be a sparkling, but he is still Springer.”
~*~*~*~
Whirl sank deep into the ionic bath, humming happily to himself as he felt the solvent and alkali seeping into the small parts of his body and easing the warm liquid into joints. It was soothing over his sensors, a soft thrum through the bath giving a little tingle that had him wriggling even deeper in the pool. It wasn’t as hot as Whirl preferred to have his baths, but it was a nice refresher (and celebratory post-reporting gift to himself).
Until he found himself unceremoniously dunked.
When he came up spluttering fluids out of his shoulder vents Whirl found Twin Twist and Scoop were near the edge, looking at him expectantly. The driller had the sparkling braced against his hip component.
“Since you’re here not doing anything,” he said a little too cheerfully, “you get to watch the kid!” With that, he held out the sparkling and practically dropped him on the glass of Whirl’s cockpit.
“Wha- but, hey! Wait a klik!”
“Sorry, Whirl! But we got work to do.”
“Roadbuster wants to make sure there’s no more crawl spaces the little guy can get into and since we’re the security and defensive experts around here, that job falls on us.”
The two smiled bright, purposeful smiles and waved cheerily. “Later!”
“Wait! Come back! Guys!” The sound of the doors sliding close, isolating Whirl with the sparkling in the washracks eerily resembled a death sentence. Warily he turned his attention to the squirmy thing in his hands who whirred happily and smacked his little hands on the wet surface of Whirl’s cockpit.
Whirl did not like sparklings. It wasn’t anything personal, they just… weirded him out. He didn’t know what was going through their heads and couldn’t understand and thus had no idea how to deal with them. And now… and now…
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re enjoying this.” He groused at the wall. The helo set his cargo down on the edge of the pool. “Stay.”
The sparkling be-beeped. Then leaned over to splash at the fluids just within his reach. He giggled and splashed more. Whirl couldn’t help watching him.
“You like baths, huh?” Well, Topspin didn’t say they were bad for him and this ionic bath was one of the milder ones that the Wreckers had. Whirl considered the sparkling, doubting his ability to float and not being big enough to have his head above the fluid line while on Whirl’s lap.
Can’t say nothing good ever came out of Whirl knowing so many random things. “Let’s go,” he said, curling an arm around the sparkling and hefting him up like a sack. The sparkling squealed in delight, flailing his little arms and legs at the ground passing under him. Whirl would probably get beaten down when others found out what he did, but he didn’t much care. He dug into a patch kit they kept in every room, pulling out some seals and patches. It didn’t take much work at all to create an air bladder, inflating the donut before sealing it off entirely.
It took a little bit of wriggling to get the squirmy sparkling to get in it, but Whirl persevered. With the inflated donut snug around the sparkling’s body, he took the two of them back into the pool and- very carefully –settled kid and contraption in the fluids.
The sparkling stayed curiously quiet. Then, as Whirl slowly pulled his hands away and he found himself floating, he let out high pitched clicks and chirrups, splashing his arms with squealing laughter.
Whirl settled back against the wall of the bath and watched the sparkling kick himself around the pool. Hn, he could do this.
~*~*~*~
“Did you just randomly online STUPID today?”
“I thought he was just tired, I’m sorry!”
“Sorry? You let the poor guy overheat in the racks and you’re sorry?”
“I didn’t know he’d be so sensitive to temperatures! He was doing fine at first!”
“He’s a sparkling, Whirl! He can’t regulate his internal functions like a mech can!”
“I really didn’t know! I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
The fact that Whirl felt guilty at all was impressive, but seeing him slouching and obviously taking this hard had Roadbuster putting a hand to Topspin’s shoulder. “Ease off.” He said lowly. “We all need a better understanding of what a sparkling can and can’t properly handle.”
“He’ll be okay, though. Right?”
Topspin looked up at Roadbuster, then at Whirl. He sighed and rubbed at his helmet. It really wasn’t Whirl’s fault, all things considered. Topspin doubted if anyone but him had known the sparkling would’ve overheated far sooner than the rest of them.
“He’ll be fine.” He said finally. “I’ve got him hooked up to a regulator right now. I’ll be monitoring his internal temperature. It needs to be gradually dropped to normal parameters, but there’s no lasting damage.”
“Keep watch on him, let me know if there’s any changes or when he’s cleared. Meanwhile, we need a better idea of the finer points of caring for a sparkling.”
“I can do that.”
Surprised, both Roadbuster and Topspin looked at Whirl.
He shrugged in return. “I like researching stuff and it’ll be less suspicious if I do it anyway. The mechs at the Hub are used to me requesting access to weird subjects in data storage as is. Besides,” he tone got a little lower, a little less light, “it might as well be me.”
Topspin reached out to squeeze at a lanky white arm. “Let me look over what you find, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
And, just like that, they accepted responsibility, apologized, forgave and moved on in three simple sentences. No lasting damage indeed, Roadbuster thought to himself. “Go ahead and do it up on the bridge, it’s almost your shift anyway.” He said.
Whirl nodded in return. “Will do.” He turned and strode out of the medbay, moving just slow enough he could read the sparkling’s monitor as he passed. If he wanted to, of course.
~*~*~*~
It was fairly quiet on the bridge, Whirl absorbed in his research and Sandstorm doing whatever thing Sandstorm did in confidentiality- the rest of the team had long ago learned to let him work in privacy. Occasionally Whirl would pipe up with whatever interesting tidbit he gleaned from the data stream.
“Though a sparkling is incredibly energy efficient,” Whirl read, “they require lots of rest and easily tire faster than an upgraded form. Instead of energy being used to regulate the internal workings as they would in a matured frame, the minerals and metals in a sparkling’s specially formulated energon is absorbed by the nanotech in their protoframes. The nanotech then assimilates the resulting materials in order to promote the growth of the sparkling's comparatively weak and flexible protoframe. As the protoframe grows, nanites will construct additional axons to help regulate more of the internal processes. Once the protoframe reaches its preprogrammed size, the nanites will focus on maintaining neural pathways and the nanotech will regulate itself to sustaining internal functions as ‘internal repairs’. The sparkling is then able to undergo their first upgrade to become a fledgling, capable of learning skillsets pertinent to their function.” He flicked a finger, scrolling through the next screen.
“Huh,” Whirl muttered, “if I knew sparklings were this interesting, I would’ve read up a long time ago.”
Sandstorm, not really listening to Whirl but somehow comforted by his random lectures, couldn’t help but prod, “You’d think you’ve never been a sparkling yourself.”
“Never dealt with them.” Came the vaguely distracted answer. “After my upgrade, and starting the Academy I never saw any. No one ever really remembers their time as sparklings, anyway. Primus only knows what they think.”
“If they even think at all?”
“Were it anyone else, I’d probably say that. But this kid is sharp and curious. It’s obvious he’s got thoughts of some kind in him.”
Sandstorm turned his attention away from the communications hub he sat at. “So no one was suspicious about you wanting information on sparklings?”
“Oh, I’m sure someone was.”
“But they didn’t say anything?”
“Pfft.” A long, sharp hand waved dismissively. “They stopped asking me questions when I was researching the effects of extreme pressure on organic beings in both sudden and prolonged exposures.”
A silence fell between the two.
Hesitantly, a little afraid to actually know, Sandstorm asked, “And why were you looking that up?”
“To see if there were actual studies done on it. I was surprised at the amount of text I found. Couple of vids, too.”
“There’s something very wrong in your processors.”
“Obviously. That’s why I’m here.”
Well, he had to give Whirl that one.
“Due to internal focus on growth,” the helo said, obviously finding another interesting passage, “they are very sensitive to change. Temperature, pressure and fuel must be carefully monitored to ensure the sparkling remains healthy and doesn’t tax their internal systems. If a sparkling is overstressed, it can lead to overheating, internal pressure buildup, shorts and, if serious enough, results in an internal shut down in a final attempt of the body to protect itself from stressors. In these extreme cases, the sparkling should be hooked up to monitors and life support in order to ensure its continued survival.
“Recent research suggests an important and often overlooked source of stress in a sparkling is caused by its attachments. Theorists believe the sparkling needs attachments to one or more adults for socialization and emotional development. They attach to those that are responsive and interactive during the sparkling’s development, their sparks more adapt to resonating with another’s. Theories suggest these attachments will help to develop the sparkling’s thought process, feelings and behavioral patterns. Attachment theory states the bond between sparkling and adult affects how the sparkling reacts both in and away from the presence of the adult. Theory suggests the complexity of a family’s social interactions will further develop-“
“Hang on,” Sandstorm said suddenly, jolting upright, “I’m getting something.” Deft hands flew across the communications panel, upping the gain on the communications receiver and filtering out other random space noises. Whirl watched him silently, patiently waiting to hear what was picked up.
The triplechanger flicked on the ship-wide communications. “Roadbuster to the bridge. We’re receiving a distress call.”
:On my way.: Came the low rumble of the acting-commander. :What is it?:
“Emergency medical vessel Asclepius, a little less than two sectors out. It’s a bit of a garbled mess, but from what information I’m getting, it sounds like they’ve been hit by that last raider we’re looking for.”
:Put us on alert and get us there ASAP. Let me know if you glean any more information from them or once we have a read on that sector.:
“Understood.” By his side, Whirl was already transferring the coordinates into the helm and Xantium shot forward into the stars.
