The sparklings return after almost two years!!! :D

-----------------------------------------------------------

Optimus didn’t want to look up. He’d heard the small cry (of surprise, or maybe fear; he couldn’t tell) and immediately knew what had happened. He forced his optics open, however, when a shout of protest rang through the dusty and humid air.

“Hey, put me down! Hey!”

Smokescreen. The Prime should have known that the rambunctious sparkling would follow him through. He bent one leg and groaned in pain; his back struts ached from the finishing blow dealt by Starscream mere moments before the entry of Smokescreen.

There was something pinching in his neck. He couldn’t lift his helm to see the scene before him and tried valiantly to bring himself upward- a luckless task until a wail reached his audio receptors, and he threw himself forward to snap his frame out of its pain-ridden prison.

And there Starscream was, in all of his grotesque glory, his long, sharp digits digging into little Smokescreen’s doorwings. Optimus felt anger radiate through his frame, boiling up to his vocalizer until he let out a harsh shout.

“Starscream!” He bellowed, rising to his heavy pedes and beginning to walk toward the other scene. “This is between you and I!”

A harsh cackle echoed through their barren surroundings. “Prime,” the seeker drawled, as if just noticing the larger mech’s presence for the first time. The very tips of his digits were glowing bright blue. “Nice of you to call in… reinforcements.”

“Put the sparkling down,” Optimus requested with malice, but not forcefully. He did not want to trigger a reaction and risk injuring the young ‘bot indirectly.

“Or what?” Starscream snarled. “I have to say, this one is much less feisty than the bug. To be fair, though, that one was a little… out of his helm.” A sneer split his face as he held Smokescreen up by his door wings and clenching the grip tighter. A shout arose from said mechling, a tiny drop of coolant following. His little legs kicked the air but did not hit their mark, too short to reach.

Optimus felt his anger reemerge and began to run forward, a wordless shout pointed at his enemy. The long blade in his forearm extended and he slashed down with the force of a titan. The blow was deflected by one of the missiles on Starscream’s arms, sending vibrations through the seeker’s entire frame, though his other servo remained tightly grasped around Smokescreen’s doorwings.

He pointed his arm at the Prime, quicky shooting off two of the red projectiles in a quick defensive response. Optimus managed to swing the blade in time to smack one to the side, where it hit a rock and exploded. The chunks of earth rained from above and managed to distract both combatants just in time for Optimus’s arm cannon to shoot two bursts of energy at the gray mech. Starscream’s second shot managed to clip the side of Optimus’s helm and, by some stroke of indescribable luck, took several nanoseconds more than usual to explode, taking only one ‘helm fin’ and some exterior metal with it.

Optimus felt his processor rattle within its confinement, but forced himself forward through the nausea. He took in Starscream’s injured state and located Smokescreen, who lay several yards away. The Prime took two steps and used his colossal momentum to kick the scrambling seeker in the abdomen.

Starscream looked up with half-terrified, half-viciously angered optics and transformed faster than Optimus could follow. A high-pitched whine of machinery cut through the aura of the stagnant area as he jetted from the ground, dust billowing beneath his boosters. The Autobot leader shot several more energy rounds at the retreating form before turning, perhaps too quickly, a searching look in his optics.

Smokescreen was heaving violently, standing but bowed over, servos clutching his chest plates. Even from such a height, Optimus could hear the harsh ventilations coming from his systems. He leant down and gently slid a servo beneath the sparkling’s legs and back struts before jogging back to the still-activated ground bridge. The run through was a blur as he glanced at the frail form in his arms.

As soon as his armored foot touched the concrete floor of the base, the ground bridge was closed. Arcee hurried to the leader’s side to grab the injured ‘bot from his arms and carried him to the medical bay. Ratchet gestured for Optimus to follow him as he swiftly (albeit stiffly) trailed behind Arcee.

The medic brushed an arm over the medical berth to clear it of random objects (most of which, Optimus noted, were the sparklings’ toys) and gestured toward Arcee. She plopped him down so he was sitting.

Immediately, Smokescreen’s legs curled toward himself and his gasps became more ragged, more strained, as he looked at Ratchet pleadingly. The medic was pulling open a drawer and roughly pushing its contents around until his servo clenched around a small, tubular device.

The device was pressed to Smokescreen’s lip plates.

“Breathe in,” ordered Ratchet, surprisingly calm. Smokescreen did as he was told and held his breath until the medic gestured that it could be released. The sparkling coughed- gagged, even- and let more coolant run in rivers down his cheeks. Arcee sat next to him and pulled his small form into her lap, one arm protectively rested around his front and the other servo gently petting the top of his helm. Her touch seemed to calm the little ‘bot down substantially, and Ratchet looked away to glance at Optimus.

“We need to check your responses. You could have lasting damage from whatever happened to your helm,” he explained. Optimus reached up to touch the area and felt jagged edges of shattered metal. There was little pain, however, so he nodded at his medic.

“Of course.” The servo slid down slightly to rest over his optics, rubbing the spots just above his brow plates in an attempt to relieve the pain coursing through that region.

Smokescreen had fallen into recharge. Optimus let his glare land on the orange plating just above Ratchet’s optics instead of looking directly at them; he couldn’t blame him directly.

“Why was Smokescreen able to follow me? Who opened the ground bridge for him?”

Arcee, however, had no problem glaring back. “He opened it himself, sir. By the time we were finished with Bee and his little tantrum, he was already gone. You were walking through just as I was about to go in after him.”

Optimus met Ratchet’s optics. “Is he stable?”

“For now,” came the ragged reply. The medic crossed his arms over his chest and began to walk out of the med-bay. Optimus followed. “These two are so much harder to analyze. I just don’t know how to fix them yet.”

The Prime rested a servo on the shorter mech’s shoulder. “You’ve done everything in your power, old friend, and I have complete faith that you will continue to fight for our smallest teammates with every scrap of determination you’ve shown so far.”

A small smile graced Ratchet’s faceplate. “I sincerely hope so.”

They came upon Bulkhead, who was seated in front of what Optimus thought to be a storage closet. As far as he knew, this particular closet was empty save for some old wooden crates. He paused with Rachet and regarded the green mech.

“Bulkhead,” he began gently. “What are you doing on the floor?”

Said mech grumbled. “I’m on beekeeper duty. I was voted in unanimously. Voluntold.”

A loud crashing sound escaped through the crack underneath the door, followed by a high-pitched yell.

“Is that Bumblebee?” Optimus inquired, slightly disappointed but decidedly glad that the little tornado was contained. “You are keeping him… in a storage closet?”

Ratchet shifted his weight onto one leg, arms still crossed. “Yes. We threw some scrap metal and scraplet husks in there so he can entertain himself.”

Somehow, the Prime doubted that “entertainment” meant anything less than ripping them to shreds. “I wish to speak with him.”

Ratchet huffed. “Yeah, right. All we’ve gotten out of him through the door is that he wants to ‘kill us all’ and ‘eat our mesh’. Mostly empty threats.”

Optimus let out a hum of thought. He entered the code and quickly stepped inside the closet, ignoring Ratchet’s “yep, yep, yep!” of disapproval until the door closed behind him.

It took his optics a short while to adjust to the darkness of the closet (the fluorescents seemed to not be functional). Bumblebee was on the floor, gnawing on the spherical helm of an offlined scraplet. His optics, red as usual, were trained on Optimus’s own cyan ones.

And just as Optimus opened his mouth to speak, the nanosecond before sound was to escape his vocalizer, he was stopped dead in his intent. He could have sworn there was a flicker of something in the young mechling’s optics. Was it blue? Was it just his wishful thinking?

“O-O-Optim-mus-sss-s.” Bumblebee’s voice was distorted and flickered between the same hiss as before and his normal (but at this time, slightly fearful) vocalization. His small servos dropped the dented scraplet, letting it bounce away from his equally little pedes. The round, space bridge-esque optics whirled bright cerulean for half a second then flickered back to red.

No. Definitely not wishful thinking.