#most of this is a word dump copied from discord dms pls excuse the rambling

[alcorian]

thinkgni about transformers agere…

earthspark bumblebee who regresses in secret to cope with the stress of suddenly being a co-parent to 7 children when he barely feels like an adult himself

when the kids are out for the day, he sits in the barn and regresses. acting like a sparkling, playing with the little human tools, drawing in the dirt, fluttering his wings in ways that are natural but that he was eventually taught was rude/distracting, and chewing on scrap metal (i hc that sparklings eat a lot of metal, and adult cybertronians still can, its just not necessary to eat as much) (dottie wonders why there are tin sheets with bite marks in them on their property. is one of the terrans alien-teething or something?)

bee being found by alex while regressed and panicking because he thinks alex is gonna judge him, especially because alex looks up to him and primus there are so many people who look up to him all of a sudden--

he's trying to become big again but he cant do it super suddenly, so he just starts to cry, the sparkling in his mind getting overwhelmed. hides his helm in his hands and rotates his wings down to look small, a subconscious "please dont be mad at me" in his body language

and alex isnt 100% sure what's happening but what he does know is that he doesnt want bee to be upset, so he starts trying to calm him down. he picks up on his childlike state and starts using methods that used to calm his kids down when they were smaller. he uses his softest voice, gives him a gentle pat on the knee (because he cant reach his shoulder, even when bee is trying to be small) and helps him take deep breaths. maybe he has a funny little routine he used to do to distract the kids from whatever was making them hurt, or a uniquely terrible dad joke that always made the kids snort and giggle through their tears.

once bee is a little more present, no longer crying, and somewhere in between big and little, alex asks him whats going on and bumblebee tries to explain but some of his big-kid words are still difficult so he starts and stops a couple times trying to find the words. he finally says "acting like a sparkling helps me. when im sad. please dont be mad. i dont do it around the kids."

he's worried that alex will think he's being irresponsible, or weird, or weird and irresponsible. but alex just listens to him ramble about why it helps and what he does when he's little. he slowly starts to use bigger and more "mature" words until he's finally out of littlespace entirely.

alex assures him that he doesnt have a problem with bumblebee doing this, and he's sure dottie wont either, and its actually a really creative way to deal with stress. and he says he doesnt have to hide out here in the barn, he can always hang out with alex while little. alex "what's one more kid, i already have seven" malto