#mentioned bombshell and sharpnel

[wonderwomanpleasesteponme]

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 150 YEARS

For @compaculaaa's wtfiys for the sparkling sibling au.

It has been a long time since they’ve done this, and ‘this’ being a family dinner. It has been a good 150 years since their family has been in the same place. 96 years since Archa 7 where Elita 1 was left behind to become the spiderformer known as Black Arachnia and claimed that she wanted nothing to do with her brothers who had seemly left her behind, 96 years since Optimus was expelled from Autobot Academy by his own sire when he took the fall for his older brother, Sentinel, 50 years since Optimus’ space bridge repair crew was attacked by Megatron leaving them trapped in stasis pods on an unknown planet, 3 years since Optimus’ team awoke on Earth, and a year since Ultra Magnus was attacked by the Decepticon spy Shockwave, who turned out to be Longarm Prime their old daycare teacher turned head of intelligence, and left in a coma for a year.

With Optimus’ return from Earth with a captured Megatron, Lugnut, Starscream’s dead body and the missing Autobot scientist Mesothulas. With everything that has happened to them and how badly the siblings’ relationship has deteriorated over these last few years none of the thought that this family dinner was going to end well. What they weren’t prepared for was Alpha Trion to bring out the family photo album and start telling them stories from when they were younger.

The Prime family dinner so far has been awkward to say the least to say the least so far. They had tried getting Uncle Maccadam to come, but Maccadam’s Old Oil House’s annual drinking contest ended up falling on the same the day that everyone else could agree on to meet, so he wouldn’t join them until much later. Ultra Magnus originally didn’t want to join them and leave it to just be a Carrier/Creation bonding day, as he was set to join the crew of the Lost Light captained by Rodimus Prime after stepping down from being the Magnus, but Alpha Trion had forced him into coming as he wouldn’t be on Cybertron for possibly years.

Finally Alpha Trion had enough of the awkwardness and practicality no one talking to each other. Alpha Trion pulled out a thick oldish looking book from his subspace and slammed it down on the table startling the other members of his family.

“Since nobody’s talking to each other, I think it’s time we go down a little trip down memory lane,” said Alpha Trion as he flipped through pages.

The siblings and their sire nervously looked at each other not knowing what the oldest member of their family was going to throw at them. Finally, he stopped at a page he liked and held up the book so his family could see. The picture was of Ultra Magnus up a five-year-old Sentinel so the shopkeeper of the store that they were in could see him. The shopkeeper was a tall lanky bot who looked a little like Shockwave with their clawed servos and singular yellow optic surrounded by black nothingness. The shopkeeper held up a pointed digit up towards Sentinel with a tired expression while Sentinel gave them a look that could only be read as ‘get the pit out of my face’.

“Darling, you remember this don’t you?” asked Alpha Trion.

Ultra Magnus’ face was filled with displeasure and disappointment looking at the shopkeeper in the photo. Black Arachnia and Optimus found it in themselves to snicker at sparkling Sentinel’s face while grown up Sentinel sat in between them presently. Ultra Magnus gave a sigh before saying that he does.

“I hardly doubt that any of you kids would remember this, but this was when Optimus had that weird obsession with trains and clocks, and wanted a clock that was also a train, I had just wanted to buy a cheap plastic toy train and the glue a small pocket watch on it, but your sire was having none of that and insisted on getting a costume one made,” said Alpha Trion before pausing the story to take a sip of his drink.

“After the war there weren’t many places selling physical clocks that weren’t apart of kitchen appliances, because every bot switched over to using their internal chronometer, so your sire ended up searching all over the planet looking for someone to make this clock, and the only bot who makes costume clocks anymore turned out to be Whirl, who was apart of the last platoon he taught when he was just a drill sergeant,” said Alpha Trion laughing lightly.

That would explain their sire’s sour mode when he saw Whirl in the image. They’ve all heard stories of how all their sire’s Autobot bootcamp students going on to be great and decorated war heroes. So, one having end up as a simple shopkeeper selling and making clocks would be like one of them becoming a dock worker and not going into the military or in a science field.

Optimus felt embarrassed to have his childhood obsession with trains and clocks, of all things, brought up again after having long grown out of it. At least Sari and Bumblebee weren’t there to hear that, because knowing them they would mercilessly bully him for it, albeit playful bullying. Both Sentinel and Black Arachnia gave the faintest of ghost smiles upon being reminded of Optimus’ childhood obsession.

Alpha Trion started flipping back through the book before finding another photo he liked. Once again, he held the book up high for everyone to see.

The photo was another of Sentinel when he was younger, this time he was a youngling instead of a sparkling. He was sitting on the floor, arms crossed and pouting, looking clearly beaten up. Standing beside him was their sire looking disappointed in his son. Next to them was another beaten up kid and their parent. The other kid although was of a smaller frame build, but their armor looked much thicker than Sentinel’s, with a purple, black and yellow paint job and bug like features, and on top of that the kid looked clearly proud of themself. The parent was another tall lanky bot whose most notable feature was that two of their wheels were encased in metal skeleton wings with two arch shaped metal pieces below each of the wings, they had orange coloured optics, which was rare for an Autobot, and the thing holding the look together was their rust red and sliver colour scheme. The winged bot as though they were barely keeping themselves from laughing.

Sentinel’s face flushed upon seeing the picture as he stood up. It looked like Sentinel remembered clearly what led up to that picture being taken.

“Don’t you dare tell them about that!” Sentinel yelled while pointing at their carrier.

While making no attempt to hide the fact that she was laughing, Black Arachnia grabbed ahold of one of Sentinel’s arms. Optimus followed his sister’s lead and grabbed ahold of Sentinel’s other arm. Both of them pulled Sentinel back into his seat while shaking him slightly.

“Come Senty, let carrier tell us the story,” said Black Arachnia in a sing song voice.

“Plus, it had happened a long time ago,” added Optimus.

Sentinel made a face of disgust at them before snaring.

“Well it isn’t your embarrassment being outed,” replied Sentinel.

“Sentinel, it’s in the family album it’s meant to be something to look back and laugh at,” said Black Arachnia in a matter-of-fact tone.

Sentinel crossed his arms and slumped down into his chair. Optimus thought that it made Sentinel look just like he did in the picture, which made Optimus laugh.

“The story behind this, was that Sentinel had gotten into a fight with the kid next to him. Sentinel thought it was a fight he could easily win, but the kid he was fighting with easily beat him,” said Alpha Trion looking fondly on the memory.

“Your sire wasn’t even mad that he got into the fight, but that he lost it, your sire was even more upset with the fact that the kid’s carrier found the whole thing hilarious and said, ‘at least you didn’t lose’ to their kid,” said Alpha Trion.

Black Arachnia and Optimus couldn’t keep it back and burst out laughing. Sentinel glared at his siblings but that made them laugh even harder than before.

“Hot damn, they look fine though,” commented Black Arachnia.

Black Arachnia’s comment made Ultra Magnus spit his drink and for Optimus to stop laughing. Sentinel audibly ew’d at his sister’s comment.

“I’m sorry?” asked Ultra Magnus, still in shock.

“I said what I said that kid’s carrier is fine,” replied Black Arachnia.

“Elita you can’t say that about people you don’t know,” said Alpha Trion.

Black Arachnia let out a low growl at being called Elita. She scoffed and rolled her optics’ at her carrier’s comment.

“Relax carrier, I do know them, they’re the one who introduced me to Sliverbolt in the first place,” said Black Arachnia.

For everyone other than Alpha Trion and Black Arachnia this was their first-time hearing about this Sliverbolt bot. Ultra Magnus had the worst-case scenario pop up in his mind. Was his baby girl courting someone without him knowing? Ultra Magnus shook that thought from his head, there was no way his daughter got into something that serious without telling any of them.

“Who’s Sliverbolt?” Optimus asked.

“Oh, he’s just a friend, Acidbrust introduced to me at a science conference when he was helping them move some things that they needed for their presentation,” said Black Arachnia a little too quickly and while rubbing the back of her head with her servo.

Black Arachnia’s older brothers and sire looked at her speciously, already not trusting this Sliverbolt bot.

“And how do you know Acidburst?” asked Ultra Magnus.

“Oh, I met them after my accident in one of Fortress Maximus’ many labs, they were originally assigned to my case but managed to convince Perceptor to let them transfer back to the project they were working before mine,” said Black Arachnia more casually than when she was talking about Sliverbolt.

Ultra Magnus let the relief wash over him. ‘Good, so this Sliverbot bot is just a lab assistant that she met, nothing to worry about,’ thought Ultra Magnus. Unlike their sire Sentinel and Optimus couldn’t care less if their sister was courting someone or not, it was none of their business and her decision. They would only get involved in their sister’s love life if the guy she happened to be an afthole.

During the time that Ultra Magnus, Sentinel and Optimus took to question Black Arachnia, Alpha Trion flipped through the photo album again looking for another picture he liked. Finally, he found one, slamming his servos down on the table to get everyone’s attention. Once again, he held the book up for everyone to see the image clearly.

The photo was of a Black Arachnia when she was Elita 1 as a young child. Elita appeared not to be happy whatsoever. Laying around her were some of her childhood dolls, and next to her was another youngling who appeared to be holding one of Elita’s dolls and giving Elita a questioning look. The youngling was a femme of a larger build, she also had the same colour scheme as the kid that Sentinel had gotten into a fight with only with slight barely noticeable alterations, on top of her helm was two large grey horns and a red visor covering her optics. All of this gave the youngling Decepticon look.

“As all of you know Elita used to be a bit of a brat when she was younger,” started Alpha Trion, “this was when we decided that you kids needed some friends who weren’t also children of high council members, even though I don’t think that you even got along with most of them.”

Sentinel, Optimus and Black Arachnia remembered their creators painful attempt at getting them to try to make more friends. All the younglings that they tried to get Black Arachnia to befriend all liked to rough house and run around screaming when she didn’t, the kids Optimus was forced to be friends with were way too into horror and gore to be healthy for younglings their age when he couldn’t stand that kind of things at all, and Sentinel could not get along with anyone outside of council kids at all back then. It was a disaster to say the least.

“Elita couldn’t stand the kids we set up playdates with, especially Shrapnel here, because according to Elita she was ‘too wild’, which is funny to look back on when you realize that Shrapnel is also Acidburst’s creation along with the kid, Bombshell, in the picture with Sentinel I just showed you,” said Alpha Trion while smiling.

Now that was kind of funny knowing that Black Arachnia was friends with Acidburst themself and with someone they introduced to her. Black Arachnia had changed quite a lot since childhood especially when her accident happened, so it made sense that she was able to get along with bots that before she normally wouldn’t have gotten along with. Sentinel made a mental note to look up Bombshell’s name in the Autobot database to see what he had been up since their last meeting. Optimus also wondered what they were up nowadays, so he also made a mental note to look up each of Acidburst’s creations on the database.

Black Arachnia cringed thinking about her past behaviour, it was just too embarrassing to be something that she would do now with her disfigurements. She also felt even more embarrassed because her creators were cooing over how cute she used to be as a sparkling and her brothers laughing slightly at it.

” Well, since you told us about our childhood, how about you tell us about yours?” asked Black Arachnia, “it only seems fair.”

Alpha Trion laughed at his child’s comment. Ultra Magnus was worried about this because he knew, judging off the stories he was told by Alpha Trion and Maccadam, that his conjunx and his siblings were menaces to society when they were younger.

“Of course, my child, because unlike some bots I am not ashamed of my childhood misadventures,” said Alpha Trion.

Alpha Trion flipped to the front of the book where the pages had yellowed, and the edges of the paper were heavily damaged. That section of the book was very thin, making everyone else realize that because this was so long-ago Alpha Trion probably didn’t have that many photos of his siblings that survived the years. After a shot time Alpha Trion, found a photo that he liked. Alpha Trion looked sadly at the photo before holding it up for the rest of the family to see.

The photo displayed a youngling of about 13 vorns old, with a dark almost purple blue and black paintjob, a crown like headpiece and a flowing purple cape with stars all over it, but the thing that caught everyone’s attention was the fact that the youngling’s face was obscured was a blinding that travelled down to their chasis, sitting down in front of a fountain. Behind the youngling and fountain in the sky, clear as day was two older younglings sword frighting each other. The two younglings were being lifted into the sky by the thrusters in their pedes, they were quite obviously flyers. The one on the left had a white and magenta paintjob with gold highlights, with rather untraditional wings making it obvious that they weren’t a seeker or any kind of jet. The one on the right had a primarily red paintjob with some white here and there and some purple on their helm, without a doubt the figure in the picture was Alpha Trion when he was a youngling.

“You’re a flyer!” yelled Sentinel in shock.

Black Arachnia froze when she realized this, now that she thought about it, she had never saw her carrier transform for all she knew her carrier could have been forged a monoformer. Suddenly a lot of things made sense for Optimus now knowing the information that his carrier is a flyer. Like how he was able to master flying around with his jetpack on Earth so quickly despite never having flown like that before and why Slipstream had thought that he was Starscream. Sentinel did not like flyers at all, mostly because it seemed like all of them were Decepticons, but he did like the jettwins because the council had complete control over them, so the information that his own carrier was a flyer it him the hardest. Ultra Magnus had known about Alpha Trion’s altmode since they started courting and will forever be guilty about the fact that he made it practically illegal to be a flyer or have an altmode that was warframe aligned on Cybertron, even though Alpha Trion was the one who suggested the law as a way to end the war.

“This was when one of my brothers, Vector, and I had gotten into a fight over something I had long forgotten about and we ended photobombing a picture our carrier was trying to take of our youngest sibling, Orionus,  in front of a fountain in the newly founded Metroplex, unseen in this image is Beta laughing like a manic as she climbed a building to try and join our fight while our oldest sibling, Prima,  tried to break up our fight,” said Alpha Trion while laughing remembering his siblings and his antics when they were younger.

Everyone took some time to fully process that story. Getting into a fight with one of your siblings and accidentally photobombing their carrier as they tried to take a picture of one of their other siblings seemed like that Sentinel, Optimus and Black Arachnia would do. Ultra Magnus looked like he was glad that his conjunx was no longer like that and has since grown into the role of wise old mentor.

“Who’s Beta?” asked Optimus, “they aren’t in our family tree.”

Alpha Trion’s optics went wide at the question before realizing he was the one who brought up Beta in the first place, before a sad look came across his face. Ultra Magnus looked concerned for his conjunx, he knew that Beta was a sour topic for Alpha Trion. Alpha Trion had only mention Beta a servo full of times, he could count the number of times Alpha Trion mentioned Beta to him on one servo, but from what he knew, Beta was a freedom fighter in the early days of a war long forgotten to modern day historians and later a general in the Destrons army, the combined forces of the Autobots and Decepticons’ military back when they were a single faction.

“Beta was my only conjunx before bonding with your sire, she died long before the Autobot/Decepticon war had begun, the only reason why she wasn’t in any of the family trees was because back then we only added conjunxs to the tree after they had a creation with the family member they were bonded, and well, Beta and I never had any creations during the time we were bonded for,” said Alpha Trion sadly.

This was the most information that Ultra Magnus had ever heard about Beta. He always suspected that Alpha Trion had been involved before, but the elder bot had never told him about any of his past lovers, and he had no interest in finding out about them. The siblings also became sad upon learning about their carrier’s dead conjunx, everyone knew that losing a bondmate was one of the most painful things that could happen to someone not only because they were losing someone, they loved but because they were also losing apart of their spark as well.

Before they could become even more depressed by this information the dinning room door suddenly slammed open. Everyone immediately turned their heads to who had opened the door. Standing in the doorway was Uncle Maccadam and an unknown bot with a white and sliver paintjob who looked like in another life they could have been a flyer but appeared to have a sports car altmode.

“Hopefully, I’m not too late,” said Uncle Maccadam, “also I found this one pacing around outside, he said that he had wanted to talk to Black Arachnia.”

Black Arachnia looked surprised to see the sliver bot there before blushing and turning her face away from him. Ultra Magnus saw this and did not like the picture that was forming in his head.

“Hi,” said the newcomer while waving, “the name’s Sliverbolt.”

The boys and their sire were surprised to hear that this was Sliverbolt because he did not look like a lab assistant, especially one that would be in a biology lab. That was when they noticed his Autobot insignia was that of the Elite guard but there was a thin line of red surrounding it signalling him to be a member of the Autobot Airforce. That was when it hit Ultra Magnus on who Sliverbolt was, he was the youngest Airforce captain, even though when he was just a pilot, he wasn’t named the youngest pilot because that title belonged to a monoformer by the name of Nyx and was the commander of a small team known as the Airealbots despite having a fear of heights. At least he was someone that he could keep tabs on and not some random shopkeeper, but that still doesn’t mean he trusts Sliverbolt’s intentions with his daughter.

Sentinel looked grumpy to find out that Sliverbolt was a member of the airforce but Optimus was just glad to meet someone who was able to make his sister happy after her accident. Sliverbolt looked nervous to see all of Black Arachnia’s family there, he obviously wasn’t expecting a family dinner to be going. Alpha Trion waved at them to join them at the table. It took everything in Ultra Magnus to not turn the family dinner into an interrogation by questioning Sliverbolt about his relationship with Black Arachnia.

The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly. Even though Ultra Magnus and Sentinel were staring daggers at Sliverbolt and Uncle Maccadam annoying the ever-living spark out of Alpha Trion. They spent the afternoon playing boardgames and going over more photos from the photo album with Sliverbolt sharing a few stories about his team which made Optimus respond with stories of his own team. All in all this afternoon made them realize that there was still hope for their family despite all the tragedy their family faced in recent years.