Work Text:
“What’s so funny?” Shockwave asked. When he first turned around, Thundercracker and Skywarp stopped laughing at him, but the moment he turned back to his work they started to laugh at him again as if there was something funny about him today. "Is there something on my faceplate?'
“Mm. No,” Skywarp said, holding back a laugh. He was elbowed by Thundercracker soon after.
“He’s just being weird again,” Thundercracker supplemented. “Carry on with your work, Shockwave.”
“Okay,” Shockwave said. He raised his servo, scratching the bottom of his faceplate. Well, that encounter had left him with more questions than answers.
He had been left in charge of the sparklings for the day. Soundwave and Starscream were off doing their own things right now. Both of his lovers had requested to visit a nearby planet, but they had different plans. Soundwave wanted to check out a local music store that had some old vintage and rare items and Starscream wanted to visit a spa to refresh his polish. He claimed that ever since having their sparklings, he was starting to look dull again, and forming intense knots in his shoulder plating. He just wanted a massage.
Shockwave, however, offered to stay on their base with the sparklings. He figured it would have been easy, he never thought their sparklings were troublemakers, at least the twins—Rumble and Frenzy—weren’t with him or Soundwave, who they seemed to bond with the most, and liked to sleep in his tape deck. Though sometimes Shockwave would find they liked to sleep on top of his chassis where it was warmest.
Although it was a different story when Starscream was in charge of holding and watching over them, the most they ever did was kick and chew on his servos and wings. It was their favorite thing to do since turning their optics online. They liked to mess with him, crawling on his shoulders, and playing with his blasters in jet mode. Soundblaster, their youngest sparkling was much more docile in nature, at least he seemed to be after coming online, he also liked to copy whatever they did and be involved in their activities.
If Soundwave was taking a nap, Soundblaster wanted to join him too, no matter the place or area. He seemed to have a talent for finding Soundwave when he recharged. If Starscream was off on a flight with his trine, Soundblaster would throw a tantrum until he was included, or held by Starscream. And if he was busy working in his lab, Soundblaster wanted to see what was going on, touch it if possible. Shockwave thought it was awful endearing of Soundblaster to be so close with them. He didn’t like leaving his older brothers' sides either.
When they first started to document their sparklings charted growth, Shockwave wondered if it was normal for their sparklings to put on so much weight with each self-assigned checkup, and after some tests realized the reason was due to them in a way. The energon he and Starscream produced for the sparklings to consume was too rich and Soundwave had an accidental tendency to overfeed their sparklings, he would get lost in their cuteness, and forget they had small tanks and lacked the ability to express, or recognize when they were full.
After cutting the amount given to each sparkling, they got a little lighter overtime, much to Soundwave’s apparent disappointment, and Starscream’s silent relief. According to him, Soundblaster was getting too heavy to cuddle and his cheeks rather round, enough that there were moments his optics could barely be seen. He had mentioned it to him in private once when Soundwave wasn’t around to overhear it, the sparklings were taking a nap with him that solar day.
But Shockwave had noticed that like Soundwave, Starscream too seemed to miss how chubby all three of their sparklings were whenever he grumbled about how different they looked from their initial hatching. Once small and only able to recharge, now they were developing their own little mannerisms and personalities becoming little people. Their ball joints had started to develop, the upgrades to their motor functions were downloadable for them were already pre installed.
It was expected given their current ages for them to become wanderers, but he didn't think it was going to happen that soon, his sparklings had never taken an interest in it before and preferred to be held by him after a waking up from nap in his lab. Rumble and Frenzy didn't like to leave their younger brother alone either for too long.
So when Shockwave put the sparklings down for their initial nap in his lab, he had all of that in the back of his processors, and had assumed it would be too much of an issue once they had woken up from their nap, and even if they had become struck with the motivation to start to exploring on their own without him, the most they could move at was rather slow pace like a snail. But after discovering an empty and abandoned nest, Shockwave genuinely had no idea where they could have gone, or how long ago it was. The nest was cold to the touch when he checked it, so they must have woke up not too long after he left them and had gotten lost in his work. Maybe they didn't even nap. Maybe they had been planning to escape all along when his back was turned.
Shockwave knew they already couldn’t have gotten out in theory. The lab was shut for the most part and the doors were coded to only allow full-grown mechs in and out, and he had gone through the trouble of searching for them in whatever areas they might have hidden: desks, tables, closets.
“Where could they have gone?” Shockwave said out loud to himself. "It isn't like them to be like this."
The majority of his concern was mostly directed towards Rumble and Frenzy—due to their small stature as mini-cons, they were easy to miss, possibly step on. Although Soundblaster was around the size of the average sparkling due to his age and a little larger than his siblings, he was still considered rather small when compared to Shockwave. He was easy to miss or step on as well, and Shockwave began to worry what would happen if Soundwave and Starscream came back to no sparklings in sight. He didn't like his chances of survival right now.
"They’ll tear me apart and make me sleep in the lab for the next three solar cycles," Shockwave deduced quietly. Suddenly, he heard a little squeal coming from somewhere from under his desk and as he headed towards it to check underneath there was nothing there. “Weird,” he said.
Abruptly there was another giggle somewhere and he set off to try and find it until he heard someone say, “Bububuiii!”
The last thing Soundwave expected to see was the lab in disarray. Starscream’s massage still had an jour or two left before he was finished with everything, so he decided to come back a little earlier, to sneak a few kisses in with his sparklings. But instead of seeing his sparklings and Shockwave. He saw Shockwave standing in the middle of unturned desks, spread data pads, and a frantic EM field.
“What happened?” Soundwave asked, worried.
Shockwave ignored him, barely able to stand still. His finials flipped in all sorts of different angles, indicating his distress over being unable to find something. “I—if I told you, you’d turn into Unicron, Soundwave.”
Soundwave felt his faceplate scrunch up when hearing that. Turn into Unicron? When did Shockwave learn a sense of humor, maybe he had been hanging around Megatron too much.
“What?” Soundwave said, confused. “I don’t know what that means…don’t make me scan your electrical impulses to see what your hiding right now, Shockwave.”
“Stay calm and listen to me carefully when I say this, Soundwave. I lost the sparklings somewhere in the lab,” Shockwave said, inaudibly. He dropped his gaze to the floor, he felt like a failure right now. He had been tasked with keeping an optic on his sparklings, yet he had managed to lose them. "I think they tricked me into putting them down for a nap and decided to wander off the moment my back was turned."
“What,” Soundwave said. “Repeat that?’
“I accidentally lost our sparklings and now Starscream and you are going to kill me for losing track of them because I was too absorbed in my experiments for today!” Shockwave exclaimed. He grabbed Soundwave by the shoulders and started to shake him back and forth. “I didn’t even mean to lose them, I left them in the nest area like I always usually do and then I got lost in my work…now they’re gone and I’ve already torn the whole place up, but they’re impossible to find.”
“You lost what. You lost our sparkling!?” Starscream shouted. He immediately dropped the shopping bags in his servos and ran towards Shockwave. “How do you lose three sparklings, Shockwave—! Not even Skywarp is that bad when watching over them and he’s Skywarp for Primus sake.”
“Starscream said he would back later,” Soundwave said. “Was that a lie?”
“I was only lying so I could go and buy some gifts for us and the sparklings, but now I don’t even know if there are any sparklings to give things to!”
“I didn't know they would vanish while I was doing lab work. Honestly,” Shockwave said. “I swear though they’re probably still in here somewhere, maybe they’re hiding in the vents, or maybe they managed to sneak out, but I highly doubt that because I keep picking up their signals through my carrier protocols. Also I swear that I keep hearing them somewhere near me, but I... What?"
Starscream and Soundwave were staring at his pedes. They were staring at his pedes silently too, servos over their respective mouths or mouth guards.
“Nothing,” Starscream said, raising an optic brow at Shockwave’s pedes. “I think the sparklings are fine.”
Soundwave nodded in agreement. “Yes, they are more than fine right now. Shockwave can put his worries at ease now…”
“Huh?” Shockwave said, dumbfounded.
But Soundwave and Starscream continued to stare at his pedes as if there was something there. As he tried to look, Shockwave realized that he couldn’t see his pedes, the flat edge of his chassis was blocking it. Slowly, he stuck a single pede out and froze. Rumble and Frenzy were sleeping there, snuggled tight into one another, Soundblaster curled on the other and deep in recharge as well. And when he walked over to find a mirror, he began to realize that all three his sparklings had been resting on the top of his pedes the entire time, sleeping like little nano bites.
Starscream shook his helm while Soundwave walked over to stare at their sparklings and pick them up until they were in his arms, flopping over one another like little wireless membranes.
“Shockwave not at fault,” Soundwave said, attempting to comfort him. “Sparklings must have crawled and stayed on his pedes or frame earlier…while he was working and fell into recharge.”
“I told you they’re little demons,” Starscream said, huffing. He walked over to look at his sparklings, nudging Soundblaster’s cheek before taking out a cloth to wipe some of the drool that had formed on Rumble and Frenzy’s chins. “But no one wants to believe me!”
“I have been bested by my own sparklings…” Shockwave droned on as Soundwave rubbed his back and Starscream laughed at him. “My own sparklings of all things have defeated me by abusing my lack of perspective due to my wide chassis and frame…”