Zip Line au
ooooo I love me a messy DritRod relationship and a child too? God what happened between the two mechs? Also Zip Line is so cute!! Who actually takes care of Zip Line the most like taken care of her throughout her life a baby to the modern time, maybe a time line would be good. ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´
Aaah!! I'm so glad Zip Line has caught your interest! ヾ(≧∇≦)ゞ
And I'm so glad you think she's cute!! Her design came to me as a blurry vision of Green and Magenta, some hopes and dreams, and different femme designs as refs <3
I absolutely love her design so far, even if I struggle with her body, like with all my other OCs. Mechas are hard to draw👉👈
Messy DriftRod is my fav! I like Dratchet, sure, and Dratchrod, but honestly, I care more about the side of the pairs that involves Rodimus the most cuz he's my blorbo, so DriftRod and RatchRod are MY THING here and will be the main focus of this AU (though whether they are endgame is up in the air for me and I think you'll get why the further you get into the lore of it). But I also just really love to play around messy relationships in general lol.
As for your questions, given that I'll probably not write anything for it any time soon (tho who knows, I just might if I get to a certain point with it) I'll answer it.
But before we start, this IS a mechpreg type AU, so lemme just give a quick explanation of how carriage and newsparks work in this AU:
They need to Spark Merge to created a Newspark (asexual reproduction babyy);
After the initial Spark Merge, it will take about 5 years for the Newspark to fully develop itself, but also for the forge to create the sentio metallico necessary to receive the Newspark;
Once they are ready, there will be a decent from spark to the forge and the carrier's T-Cog will deactivate as the sentio metallico will no longer be soft to survive the transformation and will start to harden as it shapes around the spark;
It only takes a few months after the spark drop until emergence, how long usually varies, but it's typically less than a year after the spark drop;
Carries don't have any major and visible changes to their body. They'll bulk up slightly to help carry the new weight, making them be slightly heavier, but otherwise, they'll look the same as before to any regular bot;
Sparklings don't typically resemble their creators. While they will have influences, their color, looks, and alt-mode are entirely independent of the creators. For example, chances to have a flyer alt-mode with 2 grounder creators are slim, but not impossible, and vise versa. Again, the creators' coding can influence and give the Newspark some of their own traits or raise the chances for certain things to develop, but it is not an 100% deciding factor to what or how the sparkling will be like.
Now, onto the questions!
What happened between DriftRod?
NOTE: This question will be answered alongside a set time-line as well
Nothing much changes from Canon for them, at least from the start, there will be some different feelings later down the line involving Zip Line. But the basics of how Zip Line came to be:
Imma be honest, it's a bit vague as I'm still workshopping the AU (theories are appreciated to help me get some ideas), but the gist of it is that the two had a fling of sorts, and at some point, before buying the Lost Light, the two decided to Spark Merge, something that Drift had found out about during his time on the Circle of Light: to share yourself to someone you truly love by Merging Sparks. They thought they could have at it and wanted to try it out to try and actually see if they could push their relationship further.
But once they did it, Drift might've quickly pulled away, and the two realized this might not have been for them. The thing is, what they didn't know what that a Spark Merge would create a Newspark
To their defense, this has been a long forgotten practice. The functionists, to keep control over everything, spread the propaganda that Spark Merging would extinguish the sparks of the bots merging due to the excess energy, like a Spark attack. Then, after a while, bots simply forgot that Spark Merging was even a thing.
The one reason Drift even knows about Spark Merging is thanks to the Circle of Light. No one fully told him, it was something he simply just came across once but never looked too far into it.
They would not find out about the carriage at all. Rodimus only finds out once he has gone into emergance and Drift only finds out later down the line when Ratchet goes after him (with Zip Line accompaning him, but that's a whole other rant).
When did Zip Line emerge? Around the 6 month timeskip after Dark Cybertron. A few weeks after they left cybertron, Rodimus went into emergence, and a lot of things change from here on out. But it does mean Drift missed out on her baby days.
Who actually takes care of Zip Line during her baby years to her modern day?
Ok, important note: In this AU, they grow up fast. Within only the 3rd month of Zip Line being born she could already walk and talk and was just learning how to read. During the encounter with the alt-Lost Light, Zip Line was already grown, almost like a teen to young adult levels of maturity (say maybe like, 19). So the time period of her needing care is slightly short.
I will state, though, that her frame still resembles that of a newly forged as they did not have any blacksmiths on board at that time to properly upgrade her frame. While they tried with what they knew (books appon books provided by Nautica), it wasn't the best work. It was only good enough to keep her health stable. She isn't at her full height or physical potential for a bit.
But back to the question
Zip Line's main caretaker during her early days was actually Ratchet! Rodimus had already entered a depressive state once they had left cybertron, locking himself in his room and avoiding everyone (as stated within Canon itself), but then he suddenly felt like he was dying and in unbearable pain he had to call Ratchet.
Rodimus had almost died during it. I'll keep the details vague for now, as I want to save some juicy moments for later posts, but it was so bad Ratchet had to call onto First Aid, who was still grieving what happened back in Luna-1, at that time and had to perform a Spark transfer to save Rodimus' life (and the bot who they had to call on to do the spark transfer leaves Rodimus feeling very conflicted, that's all I'll say for now🤭). To add onto it all, once explained to how a Newspark was created inside of him, Rodimus knew immediately that the kid was Drift's, and that brought waaay too many emotions for him to handle
Safe to say, Rodimus was not stable enough to take care of Zip Line. He was basically going through their version of post-partum depression and had a hard time bonding with Zip Line
While things did improve as time went on, it was still slightly unstable.
Ratchet took care of Zip Line when Rodimus couldn't and helped where he could. Unlike Canon, Ratchet stayed in contact with Rodimus, and the two actually talked a lot more. Ratchet even started to take pictures of the smallest of mile stones Zip Line would achieve to give it to Rodimus since he wasn't able to be there for all of them (he couldn't emotionally handle being around her and started to take to working on his captain duties a lot more and stayed away from her. Though he felt terrible for missing out on things, which is why he'd also always give her a Rodimus Star for any accomplishment he did attend to).
That isn't to say Rodimus didn't take care of her, he did, but not as much as Ratchet, unfortunately, he just couldn't bring himself to. But he didn't want to make Zip Line feel unwanted, so he tried his damn best.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough and she did end up feeling like a burden, which ended up in her leaving with Ratchet to look after Drift, but that's a whole other rant
She does return before Swerth, though. She leaves Drift and Ratchet after some time of thinking and then encounters the V.V. and stays with them until they come across the LL again.
Actually, for simplicity sake, here's a timetable I set for the AU to help me nevagate things:
On a final note, I'd also like to add, no one knew that Zip Line was a carried spark, let alone Rodimus' sparkling. The only explanation the ship ever got was that they found the Newspark laying about somewhere on the ship, and Rodimus took it in, causing it to imprint on him and having him be her creator/caretaker. But that didn't stop rumors from spreading, though surprisingly, none of the rumors were about Zip Line actually being Rodimus' kid. The only reason no one really figured that out was because no one really knew what carrying was! Being such a forgotten practice, the pieces were just never put together for many
The only bots who know the truth are:
Rodimus (duh)
Ratchet
First Aid
Ultra Magnus
Rung
Nautica
Ratchet cuz he's the one who helped birth her; First Aid because Ratchet called onto him for help; Ultra Magnus because he's the SIC and needed to be informed, also bc he's a friend they could trust to help; Rung because he's the oldest bot who has delt and seen carried sparklings before; and Nautica bc of all her book knowledge about carried sparks, and also because it was something not too forgotten back on Caminus (tho ngl, I'm still working on that part of the lore, so take it with a grain of salt).
Also, most of this info is specifically before encountering the Alt-L.L. where they find Rewind in. Some information, like who knows the truth, changes after that point.
That's basically all for now. I hope you don't mind the long info dump. There is still some lore I'm holding out on sharing fully here, but feel free to ask if you'd like to know more! I'd happily share ╰(*´︶`*)╯please ask