Chapter Text
★
The world feels like vibration. You understand this before you understand light, warmth and the hands that hold you.
The crimson one is a constant burning force. He holds you most often and his talons go rigid with terror and his vents cycle too fast. When you press your own servo against his chest plating, the vibration there is frantic, desperate and something sharp that makes your own spark stutter in sympathy.
The blue one is thunder. His voice rolls out low and resonant and his frequency settles something in your spark that you didn't know—or understand—was unsettled. He makes things for you. Nests, he calls them. It is a strange word, but they are warm, cocooning spaces lined with soft things pilfered from realms you cannot fathom.
“There you go,” Th blue one says and tucks these treasures around your frame. As you chirp your first moments of gratitude, his biolights pulse in a pattern that feels purely like relief.
The purple one is chaos. He blinks out and back without warning, heralded by a shriek of ripped space and a frostbite chill that makes you wail until the scarlet one snaps at him.
"Skywarp, you absolute idiot! Be careful!"
“The sparkling is perfectly fine.” He looks to you, nestled in your basinet. “Besides, it probably doesn't even know what we're doing anyway."
The purple one is wrong. You grasp everything almost perfectly now, even if your internal processing runs on a completely different standard than others. That’s simply how sparklings are, and in your case, you’re no different. Though, his bewilderment is quite natural as a Cybertronian has not laid optics on a sparkling in ages.
You’re rare to your species. You know this. Yet, you know you aren’t some gift sent down by a deity. Right now all you can think about is energon, being held and leaking coolant until your optics hurt.
"That's beside the point, Skywarp—The sparkling... knows!" The red one hissed.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I…” He pauses as he feels you reach out. “I can feel it.”
“You feel it?... That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” The purple one scoffed. Yet, even as he says that, the purple one returns to you with treasures and trinkets.
He forces them into your small servos and watches carefully as your biolights flash in wonder, while his own faint violet lights mirror your delight. And his talons flutter over your chassis like he's trying to locate a malfunction, or his optics click through diagnostic menus he never really knew how to properly read.
Then he’d take his turn in holding your small form carefully and teleporting in tight circles while his chaotic frequency becomes a lullaby that somehow soothes you, just as much as it terrifies you.
Thundercracker watches from his personal berth, his optics following you both as he sips a nutrient-rich blend of fuel with a stoic, deadpan expression. Yet, even to your perceptive gaze, a faint, subtle twitch of his lip plates gives him away. Skywarp’s ruby optics are wide with mischief, but his movements are feather-light as he teleports with you.
“You're crazy, Warp,” The blue one says, shaking his helm with amusement.
“Oh, live a little. They’re having fun!” He chuckles.
You appear in a sudden snap of displaced air, hovering just inches above the table, before vanishing and reappearing by the quiet vent. It’s a dizzying, exhilarating game of peek-a-boo as he keeps each micro-jump contained to the living area, knowing you both need to stay quiet.
You lets out a tiny, delighted chirp each time, your little wing nubs fluttering furiously in excitement. Skywarp just chuckles under his breath, bopping you on the nasal ridge, while Thundercracker finally lowers his cube, unable to hide his fond grin at the chaos.
You coo in Skywarp’s arms. Then your belly starts to groan, causing you to fidget.
“Uh, wha…what are they doing?” He questioned to his trine member. “TC, help me. Is it going to explode?”
His sudden panic has the blue one laughing. “I think they’re just hungry…”
Just as Thundercracker says that, Starscream comes into their shared quarters, looking like actual scrap.
“Whats all this fuss about?”
Skywarp tells Starscream something, but you’re barely incoherent as you root on the purple seekers chest, your little tanks grumbling in protest.
Somewhere along the line, the blue one rumbles in frustration, tearing through datafiles and muttering about nutritional requirements and thermal regulation and the grunted-out question of: “Why is there no sparklingcare manual in the Decepticon database?”
Until he finds a med-grade energon line in the wall. Thundercracker has no idea when that got there. He doesn’t think he’s seen it before. But he still takes his chances and moves anyway.
His servos spark with borrowed tools as he reroutes it through a filtration unit built from scrap. He dilutes the output, tests it on his own glossa and grimaces at the sweetness before offering the drop to you.
“Fuel.” Thundercracker tells you and you warble, intrigued by the concept of fuel.
He guides you, carefully. The first taste is shocking—electric, warm, humming against your intake like a spark-kiss. You chirp, startled, then you smack your dermas greedily while your biolights pulse in time with his thunder-rumble as he feeds you drop by careful drop. Skywarp and Starscream watch from a distance.
★
The medic arrived without warning. The door parted with a venomous, hissing sigh, admitting a towering, lean frame of varnished scarlet red and white. He glided forward with the cruel grace of something that fed on suffering and instantly fixed his optics on you, his expression curdling with revulsion.
"What," he says, his voice like polished metal dragged across stone, "is that?"
"That," the crimson one says, stepping between you and the newcomer, his wings high and rigid. "Is not of your concern. Your sole function is to assess the patient and provide a medical assessment. Nothing more. Now, tend to your instruments and keep your polished opinions to yourself.”
"Medical assessment? To a… Is that a sparkling? Aboard the Nemesis?” Knock Out's derma plates curl and then his laugh comes out sharp and brittle at the realisation of where they are and what all of this means. “Starscream, you've finally lost what's left of your processor. Megatron will—"
“I know what Megatron is capable of.” Starscream steps closer as his talons curl into fists. "But mark my words... if he finds out about this, it won't just be my helm on the block, Knockout. You will go down with us all.”
Knock Out's optics dilate, sweeping from the blue one to the purple one. He studies the way they’ve positioned themselves, locking down the space around the nest and you without a single wasted movement.
"Fine," he spat out with his derma curled. "But if it dies on my table, I will be blaming all three of you.”
You don’t die.
Knock Out handles you with sneering delicacy. His digits are frigid and exacting as he monitors your spark, energon flow, and internal heat.
He grumbles to himself and the observing seekers—who crane their neck cables like inquisitive, brooding herons—about protoform frailty, substandard nurseries, and the sheer buffoonery of seeker trines. Yet, his ministrations remain flawless. And when you peep in surprise at his icy touch, his optics flash once, dim and peevish, before he pulls away.
"It’s imprinted,” he announces as he wipes his servos off.
“That’s it?... it’s just imprinted?” Skywarp questioned.
“No.” Knockout gives him a look. "The sparkling has bonded to your trine signature, not an individual. It will require all three of your frequencies to stabilize. And if it is removed by any one of those signatures, It’s spark will instantly destabilize."
There is silence as Knockout says that. And the three seekers look at each other with something passing between them that you cannot parse, and in truth, that frightens you.
"All three," Thundercracker muttered.
"All three," Knock Out confirms. "Congratulations. You're creators. Terrible, war-criminal parents, but creators nonetheless."
He pauses at the door, looking back. "I’d destroy you myself before Megatron could, but the sparkling isn't responsible for its incompetent caretakers. So keep it alive, or I will ensure your disassembly is exceptionally slow."
Knockout leaves you four to it with a short grimace. The door seals and the three seekers stand in quiet shock. Then the purple one—Skywarp—giggles.
"Creators. He actually said the word. We’re creators!”
"Shut the frag up," Starscream attempts to hiss, but it comes out breathless and powerless. He stares at you, the glowing crimson of his optics falling into the same rhythm as yours as his talons tremble.
You chirp to them and reach out to him. Skywarp coos to you as your optics grow heavy and you yawn. The last thing you see is Thundercracker’s smile and the colour of red until you awake once more, in your nest.
You feel both uncomfortable and lonely. And you know that sleep has become a challenge without them around you.
The nest is warm, yes. The blankets are soft and there is nothing wrong. But the world is too quiet and empty when you cannot feel them around you. The three seekers had been in a pile of limbs, all pressed together in a ball of their own until you started to fuss and wail when you lack the attention you need. Your biolights strobe in distress patterns that makes your spark ache.
“Screamer…the sparklings leaking coolant,” Mumbled Skywarp, nudging Starscream.
The red mech emits a low hum of annoyance, brushing the blue mech’s arm from his waist as he slides out of the medical berth. Looming over you, his bright optics spin and sharpen, adjusting as the deep lethargy fades.
He casts a sharp glare downward, but as he catches your faceplate—twisted in fatigue, and distress—his frustration melts away, and he lets out a quiet, defeated sigh. You’ve won his spark already, though you just don’t realise it yet.
“Come here…” he mumbles as he scoops you up against his chest plating.
You reach out, grasping at nothing as your wails escalates until the blue one releases a tired, frustrated vent and joins you on your too-small berth, his chassis pressed softly against Starscream's other side. The purple one teleports in, complaining loudly, but his violet frequency slots into the harmony like a missing tooth, and suddenly—
There is quiet.
Skywarp cradles your helm, almost protectively as he remains on the opposite side of Starscream. And Thundercracker smiles to you before his optics flutter and his vents cycle rhythmically and quietly enough to not disturb you.
They don't move all night.
Starscream pretends to hate it. But his talons trace lazy circles on your back, and when you stir, his frequency adjusts in soothing patterns before you can even cry.
Thundercracker's thunder-rumble becomes a constant blanket of sound, and his servo rests on Starscream's wing joint, possessive and terrified. Skywarp chatters nonsense in his sleep, teleporting in micro-jumps that make the berth shake, but his chassis is warm now where it presses against Thundercracker's back.
And in the early solar-cycle, Soundwave stands in the doorway. He says nothing but he looks at the four of you, tangled and overlapping before he turns on his heel and leaves.
He does not tell Megatron.
The trine waited for the impending doom of Megatron coming through their door. But nobody came. Skywarp and Thundercracker do not ask why Soundwave did it. But Starscream wanted to know why.
He never could let things go, even if he should have known better.