Chapter Text
“Kids, they grow up so fast.”
Optimus looked curiously down at his friend, Sparkplug. This statement had come out of the blue and the Autobot leader was a little confused.
“What do you mean, Sparkplug?” he asked, causing the man to smile almost sadly.
“Spike,” he said softly before nodding in the direction of his son who was playing a ball game with Bumblebee.
He sighed heavily again.
“Seems only yesterday he was just learning to crawl and trying to eat my tools.”
Optimus blinked.
“Eat your tools?” he said surprise. “I didn’t think humans could do that?”
Sparkplug laughed.
“They can’t but babies sure as hell try. They’ll eat anything they can get their hands on, tools, coal, grass, mice, goldfish, stones and many more.”
“How....strange,” Optimus finally said after trying to process this information. “Is there a reason they try to consume such objects?”
“It’s their way of exploring the world around them,” Sparkplug explained. “They eat these things in order to find out if they're edible. Babies are the most curious things you’ll ever encounter, they have no knowledge of the world so they explore and experiment to find out.”
He shook his head fondly.
“They don’t just eat things, they touch things and find out they hurt like nettles. They run too fast and trip, getting grazed knees. Boy, I could sure go on about what they do,” he finished with a grin. “See, they ever do things by half, they decide on something and they go for it.”
“They sound incredible,” Optimus said softly. “I admit I have never had much to do with Sparklings, I was very young when I was made Prime and since then I’ve been running an army.”
He shook his head sadly.
“I’ve never had a chance to have a proper family.”
Sparkplug nodded sympathetically.
“I know what you mean. I lost Spike’s mother when he was still quite young, and it was hard for a long time, though of course worth it.”
He smiled sadly up at Optimus.
“Must be hard that you can’t plan a family with your wife.”
Optimus nodded, it was. Especially for her, when she saw other couples with Sparklings. They always told themselves that they would have children once the War was over but sometimes it seemed that day would never come.
“So,” he said abruptly, pulling his thoughts away from their depressing train of thought.“I take it you miss the time when Spike was a Sparkling.”
“Yeah,” Sparkplug said with a small smile. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great seeing him growing up and seeing his accomplishments. But things were so simple when he was young, it seems like it’s gone by so quickly.”
He now chuckled.
“Ah well, I’ve got the memories and the photographs.”
He grinned up at Optimus as he suddenly withdrew a battered old wallet from an inside pocket. He took something out of it and then held it up for Optimus’s inspection.
“This was taken when he was three, he hates but I have very fond memories of that day.”
The picture was of a young, naked human child with a huge yellow hat on his head. Even with the flowery hat, Optimus could still see the unruly mop of hair that characterised Spike. The young boy seemed to be covered in a gritty substance and was happily tucking into an ice cream that was also dripping all over his hand.
“It’s a good picture,” Optimus said with a laugh. “Why does he hate it?”
“Because I used to always show people it when I talked about my son,” Sparkplug replied with a grin. “He claims it’s embarrassing. Not sure if it’s because he’s starker’s or because he’s wearing his aunty Em’s sun hat.”
Optimus chuckled.
“I can understand that part. Ratchet always likes to bring up what certain Autobots were like when they were either Younglings or Sparklings. He knew the twins when they were Sparklings.”
Sparkplug did a mock wince.
“Ouch,” he said, making Optimus laugh out loud.
“Indeed,” the Autobot leader said, optics twinkling. “It’s his favourite method of blackmail, bringing up incidents they’d rather not hear about. Like cuddling up to a Decepticon prisoner and telling him they loved him.”
Sparkplug almost fell over laughing.
“T-they really said that?” he asked, tears flowing from his eyes at the thought that the two biggest Decepticon haters would say something like that.
“They did,” Optimus assured him. “And what’s worse, it’s on tape, which they’ve never managed to find and destroy.”
“Now, what I wouldn’t give to see that,” Sparkplug mused, he’d been on the receiving end of quite a few of the twins pranks.
Optimus’s optics twinkled again.
“It is certainly a sight. The Decepticon in question was quite bemused but thankfully for us, he was more amused than angry. He allowed them to hug and kiss him before we got into his cell and took them away.”
“Is it a Con I’d know?” Sparkplug asked curiously.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to watch the tape to see,” Optimus said with a sly wink, indicating that Sparkplug probably did know who it was.
“I’ll have to show you guys some footage of Spike sometime,” Sparkplug now said as he watched Spike clinging to Bumblebee’s back as the Minibot charged around the place.
“I’d like that,” Optimus said softly. “It’ll be interesting to see what Spike was like when he was a Sparkling.”
Later that day
Spike cheerfully whistled as he walked through the Ark’s corridors. It was the weekend and his dad was letting him stay with the Autobots which he was very pleased about. He hoped the Cons wouldn’t come and ruin it.
He grimaced, why did the Cons always have to pick on him? The last couple of times he’d gone with the Autobots into battle, he’d been caught, first by Laserbeak and then by Soundwave. Megatron and Starscream had taken great delight in gloating over him and waving him in front of Optimus.
Both those incidents had been utterly humiliating and he was still stung by them.
It wasn’t just getting captured that he hated, it was awful to see his friends get injured. Last time, Bumblebee had been badly banged up and hadn’t been able to have any fun with his human friend. Spike had of course, done his best to cheer his friend up but it still wasn’t the same when his best friend was hurt.
He was meant to be going out to watch a movie at a drive in later with his friend. However, at the moment, Bumblebee was out on patrol and wouldn’t be back for a while yet. So Spike was just wondering the base, idly looking for something to do.
He suddenly heard heavy stomping coming down one corridor and quickly rushed down another. He didn’t fancy running into the Dinobots at the moment. Not that he thought they’d hurt him but because they tended to take the mickey.
They had been the ones to save him from Megatron, who’d be telling Spike he was pathetic and exactly why this was. But then they’d started to tell him how weak he was and how he should let the stronger bots handle things.
So now he was hurrying away from the sound of their footsteps before they spotted him. He was so intent on this, that he didn’t notice where he was until he’d run into a new room.
“Oh, hey there Spike,” Wheeljack said cheerfully, upon seeing Spike. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Hi Wheeljack,” Spike greeted back with a smile though he was slightly nervous.
He rarely came into Wheeljack’s lab alone, things had a nasty habit of exploding. But Wheeljack didn’t seem to be doing anything dangerous at the moment so Spike thought he’d be alright. He walked over to the bench the inventor was working at and asked.
“What’re you working on today, Wheeljack?”
“Eh, an invention for Optimus?” Wheeljack said proudly.
“Really, what is it?” Spike asked, now very curious.
“Yeah, see Optimus always worries about what we should do when we capture really dangerous Cons,” Wheeljack explained. “So I’m working on something that should solve all his problems.”
“Wow,” Spike said, though he noticed Wheeljack still hadn’t properly explained what the invention did.
Then again, he probably didn’t want to say until he was sure it was going to work.
Spike watched as Wheeljack tinkered with a device which thankfully, didn’t look like it was about to explode. However, it seemed the inventor had hit some sort of dead end because he kept taking wires out and then putting them back in.
Finally, with a slight huff, Wheeljack got up to go and get something off a shelf. Unfortunately, while he was reaching up, he accidently knocked something which blasted part of the table he’d been working on.
Spike jumped back in fright as Wheeljack’s invention suddenly began to shake, the blast had hit close to it and some debris had flown into it. Suddenly, the invention toppled and fell to the floor with a crash, making Spike leap back again.
“My invention,” Wheeljack cried out in horror as it lay broken.
Spike only just realised how hard his heart was beating a moment later when nothing happened. He was really surprised at this, he’d been sure it was going to explode. But no, it was just laying there harmlessly.
Later he would wonder why he had tempted fate by thinking like that.
“Aw, man, I can’t believe this,” Wheeljack groaned as he climbed down to survey the wreckage of his invention.“It was going so well and all.”
“I’m sorry Wheeljack,” Spike said sympathetically. “You never know, maybe you can still fix it.”
“You're right,” Wheeljack said, sounding more cheerful. “I can do this, thanks Spike.”
“You’re welcome....,” Spike started to say but stopped at the device started spluttering and shaking.
“Hey, it ain’t meant to do that,” Wheeljack said, rushing over but it was already too late.
It suddenly started glowing and then a beam of light shot out and hit Spike right in the chest, sending him flying backwards.
He hit something but he barely felt it, it felt like he was still falling down, down into blackness. He heard yelling but it came from a great distance. His insides were boiling but he was so wrapped up in cotton wool that he barely felt that either. And then his world truly went black.
He came awake very slowly, his limbs feeling like they were being weighed down by lead. His whole body felt tingly and he didn’t really like it. But he couldn’t move, or even open his eyes.
“Um guys,” he heard Wheeljack’s nervous voice from high above him.
“We’ve got a problem.”
