Chapter Text
Raf tied his shoes slowly, the screaming of two of his sisters echoing through the house. The TV blared with a cartoon that three of his younger brothers were watching. His mom and oldest sister were arguing in the kitchen again. Dad was already at work.
No one paid any mind to the only quiet kid in the house. Raf snagged his backpack, scribbled a quick note to leave on the table explaining where he was going, and trudged out the door.
No one noticed.
His two older brothers and the last of his younger brothers were kicking a soccer ball around the yard.
They didn’t notice either as Raf passed and trotted to the yellow car waiting by the sidewalk.
He ignored the hollow feeling in his chest as he climbed into Bumblebee’s passenger seat. “Hello, Bee,” he smiled.
The autobot beeped a greeting back cheerfully, then smoothly transitioned to chattering about his plans for the day and what happened after Raf went home the night before. Every now and then, he would use a recording instead of his code, or pause so that Raf could catch up. But the pauses were growing less and less necessary as Raf practiced understanding Bee’s language.
Raf felt the feeling in his chest subside as they conversed. He loved his new friends.
The base was nearly just as chaotic as his home had been.
Arcee and Optimus were preparing for a mission. Ratchet worked on attaching some kind of remote monitoring system to them.
Cliffjumper was regaling Jack and Miko about some mission or other he’d taken with ARcee. Bulkhead was nowhere to be seen, but the distant crashes from the training room hinted at him being there.
Bee beeped an apology to Raf. He had to go out on patrol and also find Dreadstorm from wherever he’d decided to exercise his alt-modes.
The silver Autobot never stayed still long, and if they didn’t give him enough work to do, he’d always end up wandering off to blow something up or race around in his vehicle modes.
Raf wondered about that sometimes. Was he just restless? Did he dislike people? Or was it a cultural or biological thing they didn’t know about? He never asked, though. Every time he tried to talk to the massive bot, he’d chicken out.
Who wouldn’t when faced with those burning red eyes?
Besides Miko, anyway.
Maybe she was amygdala-deficient?
“Where are you going?” Raf leaned against the metal railing of the human’s platform as he asked the Autobot leader.
Optimus turned his full attention to the boy, never failing to make warm feelings bubble up in Raf. “We are investigating the location of the capsule we recovered yesterday. In the hopes of discovering what it is intended for.”
The twelve-year-old gasped and pressed closer to the large alien. “In the Arctic?”
“Indeed,” Optimus confirmed.
“I’ve never seen snow before,” he smiled hopefully. “Can I come with?”
“I would invite you to join,” the bot said slowly. “However, the conditions are too extreme, even for us autobots.”
Raf’s smile slipped, but he managed to keep it from disappearing. “That- makes sense,” he admitted.
It did. The Arctic was really cold. He didn’t want to make Optimus feel bad about leaving him behind. He was used to it.
Prime started towards the ground bridge only to pause and look back. His voice took an odd note to it. “But- I will bring you back a snowball.”
Raf brightened. “Really? Thank you!”
He ignored the guilt over bothering the bot. One snowball wouldn’t burden him too much anyway.
******
Ratchet watched Optimus and Arcee disappear into the ground bridge.
The tiny human boy wandered away after they left.
Good, Ratchet did not want to deal with the organics right now. He had enough on his plate.
He moved to shut off the bridge, only to reel back with a shout as the monitor sparked and shorted out. “The frag-” he snapped his jaw shut after remembering there were young adials present.
“What was that?” Jack asked, standing up from the couch.
Miko gasped. “Are we under attack?”
She sounded far too happy about that.
Cliffjumper frowned. “Is everything alright, doc?”
Ratchet scowled and examined the machine. “Everything’s fine,” he snapped. “And don’t call me doc!”
Cliff and the kids exchanged a look and a shrug before turning their attention back to their annoying prattle.
Ratchet grumbled under his breath as he dug into the monitor’s systems, looking for the issue.
A thread of anxiety built up in his spark.
The ground bridge couldn’t be inoperational right now. The Arctic was not a place Autobots could be stranded in the long term. The snow and ice would get into their seams and freeze, causing the frame to lose its heat too quickly. The engines and processor would slow down until they completely stalled, and then the spark would sputter out.
They could withstand the conditions for a time, but not long. Optimus and Arcee had monitors attached to their frames that would let them know when they had gotten too cold, and they needed to return to base, but if there was no bridge, then there was no way back.
Ratchet cursed quietly as he found the problem.
One of the circuit boards was broken. It looked like Bulkhead had taken a bite out of it.
Frag. What caused this? And how could he fix it?