"What?!" Bulkhead nearly screamed. He looked frightful for his 'little buddy' as Ratchet shoved him out of the Med-Bay for surgery to see what had caused Bumblebee's deafness. Arcee had quickly grabbed Smokescreen before Ratchet could push her out too. The medic gently reasoned with Optimus to get him to leave, too.

Arcee and Bulkhead sat in a corner of the Rec-Room with Smokescreen sitting between them. Optimus walked over to his monitor and began working, seeing as he had nothing better to do.

"Opt!" Smokescreen said, waving to Bulkhead. The receiver laughed.

"No, no. I'm Bulkhead!"

Smokescreen concentrated. "Bukeed!" He looked proudly at the mech.

"Hmm, let's try this: Bulk. Can you say that? Bulk?"

"Bulk!"

"Yeah! Good job buddy!" Arcee was looking at the two male Cybertronians. She decided to butt in.

"How about Arcee? Well, that's a little too hard. Cee? Can you say Cee?"

"Cee?"

"Yes! Awesome job!" Bulkhead raised his hand out for a high five, but the sparkling cowered away from it. Bulkhead's eyebrows raised.

"No, nothing to be afraid of. Hit it!"

Smokescreen tentatively put out his hand and smacked Bulkhead's much larger one. Bulkhead was smiling. The sparkling was looking at the two Autobots with interest. His eyes scanned them carefully. Suddenly, his vents started blasting air. The vents sputtered and then... stopped. His little faceplate turned an unnatural shade of purple. Arcee gasped.

"W-what's happening?!" she screeched. Optimus looked over with his forever stoic expression, but that quickly changed as he saw the small sparkling writhing on the ground.

"Smokescreen!" he sort-of-yelled, briskly walking to said sparkling. Picking him up, he placed his smallest vent to one of Smokescreen's main ones, and blew with all his might. After a few seconds, the vents sputtered back to life.

"Opt!" Smokescreen said again, smiling and waving. The three older bots sighed in relief.

"What was that?" Bulkhead wondered aloud. Optimus shook his head.

"I do not know. We must wait for Ratchet to complete Bumblebee's examination to do the same to Smokescreen."

Speaking of Smokescreen, the sparkling was waving his tiny arms at the floor, trying to reach it. Optimus slowly let him down, but did not walk back to the monitor.

They heard a door open. Every head turned. It was Ratchet.

"Ratchet, old friend, we have a situation." Optimus looked at Ratchet with a look that seemed to be asking for permission to continue.

"Well unless it's Cons, I'm pretty sure mine is bigger." Optimus looked skeptical, but nodded. "I removed Bumblebee's helm armor and saw the issue right away. The energon lines that go to his audio receptors are somehow dented, rendering him deaf. The issue is, however, that the dents will not budge. Not even when I torched them. This leads me to believe that Bumblebee has been deaf or partly deaf his entire life." Ratchet paused to let this new information soak in. "But that's not even the worst problem. As I was scanning his helm for further damage, I noticed two more energon lines were blocked. But these went to his optics. Bumblebee is also blind."

Arcee's vents made a sharp intake. "So is that why he wouldn't look at me, even when I waved his hand in front of him?" Ratchet nodded.

"That is indeed grave news, but I'm afraid we also have some of our own." Ratchet nodded for Optimus to continue. "As we were waiting for you to finish your scans, Smokescreen's vents stopped. He began to writhe on the floor. I used my vents to re-activate his, but I'm afraid this is more than a one-time predicament."

Ratchet nodded. "This is uncommon with sparklings, but not impossible. If a spark feels that it needs energon to perform well elsewhere, it will redirect the energon to the new area. There is a disease that causes the spark to think that the energon is not needed in areas where it is. It takes even the most important energon for the new organ. Where you teaching Smokescreen something?"

Arcee nodded. "How to talk."

"That would be why his vents stopped working. The energon being used to power his vents was transported to his processor to aid in the absorption of knowledge. I'm afraid there is no known cure to this disease..."

Bulkhead looked to the floor, but suddenly looked back up. "But wait, why wasn't Smokescreen having troubles before he turned young again?"

Ratchet shook his head. "There is no logical explanation... unless... oh. I think... I think this may have been caused by the transformation. For which... for which there is no solution."