New Life

Soldiers or Professional Playmates?

It was a calm morning in the base, Bumblebee had been watching the monitors that night and nothing interesting had happened meaning everyone could get some well needed recharge.

Bumblebee smirked to himself as he recalled the moment he had dropped Miko off in the Prime's quarters that night, buckets of paint galore. He'd had no issue showing the little seekerling how to hold a paintbrush and how to dip it into the paint can, she seemed really happy as well, so he took that as a sign that this plan was perfect.

"Good morning, Bumblebee," Ratchet said gruffly as he walked in with an alert Raf fidgeting in the crook of his arm.

"Bee!" Raf called happily in a soft, squeaky voice as he reached for him.

Bumblebee was quick to shoot around a stare at the sparkling that had just shouted his name whilst Ratchet rolled his optics at the shout.

The yellow mech's optics trailed the medic as he went to go and fix some sparkling grade energon for Raf and the two other sparklings that were bound to be in here in a matter of minutes with their guardians.

"Did he just speak or am I malfunctioning?" Bumblebee buzzed confused.

"No, you heard correctly, the little demon figured out he can say your name last night and that's all I heard throughout the night," the medic huffed as he sat the sparkling on the medical berth and passed him a bottle.

"Hey, Raf! Can you say anything else?" Bee asked happily.

"Don't think so," Raf's response came out as muffled as he was preoccupied stuffing his face with the energon he had just tugged out of Ratchet's hands, "Wait!"

"Rafael..." the medic sighed tiredly as the sparkling sputtered his energon over the berth.

"That means I beat Miko and Jack at something! They might be able to move but I can speak, and that means I'll be the one to get us back to our human forms!" he cheered.

"What's with all the shouting, Raf?" Arcee cooed as she walked into the main area with Jack on her shoulders, his arms attempting to wrap around her head to hold on as his guardian crossed the room to get a bottle for her charge.

"Rafael has discovered the ability to speak," Ratchet rolled his optics but had a small smile on his face.

"Hey, Jack! I can speak!" Raf called to his friend before shoving the tip of the energon bottle back in his mouth.

Jack's bright optics widened, "Raf, this is huge. You can tell the bots that we're still the same, we just need our human bodies back!"

"Well, I haven't quite figured out how to say other words in a way that they'll understand..."

"So, what can you say?"

"Bee," Raf grinned sheepishly.

"Well, it's a start I guess," Jack trailed slowly with a sulky look.

"Cute," Arcee smiled at Raf as she moved Jack to be cradled in her arms so she could feed him.

"Not when you hear it all night..."

"No, it's definitely cute," Bumblebee shut down the medic.

Jack scowled as he snatched the bottle from his guardian, "I can feed myself."

"What's cute?" Bulkhead stumbled in clumsily.

"Bee!" Raf called with a squeak.

"Aw, little buddy can say your name!" Bulk grinned with a slightly higher pitched voice.

Arcee's optic ridges raised in surprise and a smirk came to her face at the wrecker's reaction, "Where's Miko?"

"Still with Optimus, I don't think he trusts me to look after a sparkling."