Hi! I was looking through the Transformers Prime tag and came across your blog! I kinda like your au where Jack, Raf and Miko became sparklings! If you have the energy for it, maybe could you write them growing up? If not maybe a drabble where Cliffjumper was able to hold his own against the vehicons until backup arrived?
Well I have already written something similar, so how about the little ones getting just a tiny bit older and reaching some milestones?
Milestones
Back during the age of evolution, sparklings were feral monstrosities that grew to their adult frames within a vorn and were mentally able to operate at the capacity of a grown bot, albeit with emotional stunting to deal with. But ever since Cybertron became more civilized, sparklings stopped emerging so wild. Their survival instincts were replaced with higher cognitive functions and more complex frame types that required longer to develop. This in turn meant that as a general rule, sparklings took vorns upon vorns to reach full size and maturity. But due to this slow development, changes were sometimes hard for guardians to see, so milestones were observed, documented, and served as a celebration not too dissimilar from human birthdays.
It was always a joyous occasion when a sparkling reached a milestone simply because it took them so long to grow in any capacity. So when the sparklings began showing signs shortly after their growth spurts and the acquisition of their Decepticon secondary Caretakers, everyone was ecstatic. Even June and Fowler found themselves somewhat giddy and were brought in to watch the sparklings begin testing the limits of their frames despite the overall distaste toward them ever since the incident.
To the surprise of the team, it was not Jack or Miko who showed signs of reaching a milestone first, no, it was Rafael. The team were waiting on a baited breath for days as they kept as close an optic on the little ones as possible. They had each been outfitted with recording devices and their optics had been looped back to the base's database just in case they couldn't snap a picture in time. Milestones were nothing to be taken lightly, so even Soundwave and Starscream agreed to being temporarily hooked up, although Soundwave was put in a private channel to keep him from messing with anything important. So when Rafael began shifting around and making noise, every bot was ready, with even the human adults prepared with their own devices.
Rafael had been on the ground playing in the evening one day, and shortly after Soundwave arrived at base, the minicon sparkling's plating had begun to shift. In response the entire base fell silent, every bot and human present with their optics and eyes glued to the scene as Rafael's face scrunched up in concentration. Not a spark so much as twitched as Rafael's armor made an alarming pop before two small cables not too dissimilar from Soundwave's but definably not meant for combat wormed their way out from underneath his plating. The cables were pale, still very fragile, and covered in a protective jell that shimmered as they were exposed to the light. Immediately thousands upon thousands of individual snapshots were taken as Rafael flailed his newfound appendages in interest.
June and Fowler looked ever so slightly disgusted but overall happy at the development. They had both seen far worse in their respective fields of work. And while the bots were too busy cooing over the scene, June hopped down and began wiping off the sticky fluid covering Rafael's cables. The sparkling in turn giggled and unknowingly began wrapping his cables around June in a hug of sorts. She was swiftly covered in the fluid and gave up halfway through trying to clean it, much to the bots amusement.
Rafael was swiftly swooped up and tended to by Optimus who only managed to get there a second before Soundwave could. The Prime gave every other bot in base a look that screamed "I won", before sauntering toward the medical bay to clean Rafael off and then prepare for a little celebration. Once the sparkling was clean, he was showered with affection and passed around like the greatest treasure in the world. Every bot, Autobot and Decepticon, were left in awe as Rafael's new cables wrapped around the arm of whoever was holding him. It was the sweetest thing for the Cybertronians present, like a baby saying their first words or taking their first steps, the grown bots were swooning over the adorableness. Then once everyone had their chance to hold Rafael, the sparkling was sat down with an energon goodie as a reward while the team continued to coo over him.
It was a good day.
From that point on Rafael used his newfound cables for everything even when he didn't need to. If he wanted attention he would flail them in the air, the stark pale coloration of them causing them to stick out in the relative darkness of the base. When he was crawling around on the ground he would use them to attempt to reach up and grab things, more often than not knocking smaller things over as his cables were too weak to do much. Ratchet got freaked out every single time Rafael was allowed to roam and the little one proceeded to knock some of his things onto the ground with a startling clank. Rafael also began attempting to hook his cables into every nook and cranny he could squeeze them into, hence everything human sized being sparkling proofed for everyone's sanity.
Then once again to the surprise of everyone, it was not Miko who reached a milestone next, but Jack. The team had anticipated it after Rafael's milestone. Sparklings with siblings tended to reach milestones together as a way of making sure all sparklings in the group stayed on track. So it was not unreasonable for the team to be ready and on edge, prepared to see what milestone Jack would reach. At his age and with his frame type there were multiple milestones he could reach ranging from weapons specs or mods to alt-mode capabilities, so the team had to expect any possibility. Wheeljack even set up barriers around some corners just in case Jack developed something out of the ordinary like canons or some form of incredibly destructive weaponry. But thankfully for the entire base, no such destruction happened.
Jack had been quietly fiddling with his toy medical kit when he suddenly stopped, froze, and his plating began making clicking sounds. In response the bots once again stopped dead in their tracks, that is save for Wheeljack who dived behind cover. After a moment Jack's plating shifted and before anyone really understood what was going on, the sparkling had transformed into the simplest of alt-modes that was gifted to all sparklings. He had transformed into a small vehicle with no real distinguishing features aside from color and sped around the base before promptly crashing into a wall, forcing him to return to root mode.
Jack of course cried and was rather scared of his new skill for a while, but with the team cooing over him and telling him all about how amazing he was, he slowly became more open to the idea after a week or so. Optimus looked like the proudest dad in the world as he gave Jack some energon goodies in congratulations, took a few extra pictures, and then set him up with Bumblebee and Smokescreen to learn how to control his alt-mode. The sparkling's two elder brother were more than pleased to take Jack out into an uninhabited bit of flatland and work with Jack, slowly helping him get used to transforming and driving around in small circles. Ratchet was always kept on standby as more than once Jack drove right into a rock, tree, pond, or some other obstacle.
By the time Jack figured out how to use his newfound abilities, he quickly came to use it to his advantage. Whenever one of his siblings wandered off, he would transform and herd them back toward adults like some sort of mechanical sheep dog. He also got his alt-mode fitted with some sirens by Wheeljack (who certainly didn't do it to cause chaos while he flew off to who knows where), and whenever he wanted someone to come in for a "checkup" he would blare his sirens and drive around the pedes of the bot in question. It caused more than a few helm aches, especially when Smokescreen made the incredibly poor decision to teach Jack how to make donuts. But still the team found Jack adorable as he sped around base in his tiny alt-mode which was hardly the size of an adult human. June certainly found it amusing and had fun cleaning Jack up after his little drives.
Good times.
Then after nearly a month when the team were starting to get worried, Miko finally showed signs of reaching a milestone. Her previously inactive thrusters began showing sings of coming online, prompting the team to try and sparkling proof the base as much as possible. But after a week of her thrusters not activating, Starscream got irritated and so did the most seeker like thing the team has ever or will ever witness. He climbed up into the rafters as he would normally with Miko, and then without any warning he threw her and watched her fall apathetically. The team literally dived to catch her, with Ratchet skidding and sliding across the floor, Bumblebee and Smokescreen running into each other, Bulkhead and Wheeljack being too stunned to move, Arcee just looking on in horror, and Optimus making a mad dash to get her in time.
Thankfully for Starscream's health and safety, Miko's thrusters came on just in time for her to glide down into Optimus's waiting arms. And while Starscream was banned from base for a week afterwards, he was swiftly brought back when Miko began abusing her newfound abilities to fly where no one could reach her to avoid activities she didn't like. Before long, Starscream became a much needed necessity to get Miko to do just about anything as she would simply fly off, albeit clumsily. He had to teach her to fly safely since no one else could, and he had to fetch her whenever she decided she didn't want to do whatever was required of her.
Eventually Miko's thrusters were disabled medically when she flew directly into a wall and busted an optic. It was for the best, even though Starscream fought against the idea for a long while, proclaiming the need for seekers to fly. His argument was shut up when Optimus pointed out that none of the Autobots could fly and that her being able to get around when Starscream is not there is foolishness. Hence Miko was only permitted to fly whenever Starscream came around, not that it stopped the team from thinking her adorable.
