Naughty

Fore note and disclaimer: All unfamiliar names are my OCs from another one of my fics that is still in the development stage and will be posted…sometime in the near or distant future. I unfortunately don't own Transformers. I don't know why I have to state that obvious fact… This disclaimer/fore note will persist for all chapters so I don't have to bother my lazy self to type it out again.

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At a mere 2 vorns old, Ironhide had become the terror of the Autobot base in Iacon. Though walking was still a little uncertain, he could crawl all day long at an alarming speed. That, paired with his curiosity and fearlessness, made for what everyone learned was a really bad combination. He had sent more than mech into near stasis lock by spontaneously disappearing while under their watch. More than once his guardian, Kup, had been called off duty to search for his wayward charge, only to pull him out of air ducts, random closets, out of supply containers, from under furniture or computer equipment, occasionally another mech's private quarters, twice from the medbay of all places and once was brought back by none other than Sentinel Prime himself after the mechling had found his way to the Autobot commander's office.

But as nerve wracking as it was, a sparkling will be a sparkling and they all couldn't help but smile whenever the black youngling scooted by, usually trailed (chased) by Kup or another mech who was supposed to be watching him. He was all innocence, despite his short dubious past, something that wouldn't last long if the war escalated like everyone knew it would.

However there was one habit that Ironhide had developed that was of particular concern to everyone; an obsession for chewing on things. The teething itself wasn't a problem, all sparklings did that to figure out what things were, but Ironhide had decided that he liked chewing on wires in particular. Kup supposed it was because the wires were softer and, being as flexible as they were, were fun to play with as the sparkling gnawed on them. That they were small enough to perfectly fit into a small mouth was just another strike. Unfortunately, the black mechling had no idea just how dangerous it was to chew on wires and Kup was positive he was going to find the sparkling lying on the floor one orn, twitching from a massive electrical shock, something that made his spark seize with fear.

To prevent such an accident, Kup rounded up as many mechs as he could and they went through the entire base and either wrapped exposed wires in a special metal casing in hopes of discouraging Ironhide from chewing them or moved furniture in front of them to where even the tiny sparkling couldn't squeeze through to get to them. Unfortunately, they couldn't get to all the wires in the base, so Kup made sure that everyone knew to keep an eye on Ironhide whenever he was in their care and to take all wires away from him should he manage to find one. To keep the sparkling happy, and to keep their audios in one piece, Kup found toys that Ironhide could chew on.

For the most part the plan worked. Being a youngling and prone to trouble, Ironhide managed to find several wires that the adults missed but he was quickly pulled away by vigilant guardians and the wires were either wrapped or hidden. Several orns went by without any wire incidents and without the black mechling getting zapped, allowing several mech's air vents to cycle a relieved flush of air and stress levels to plummet. Kup was finally able to more or less fall into recharge easily and didn't worry so much about a zapped sparkling giving him a spark attack. But, in their relief, they forgot the cardinal rule; sparklings were ALWAYS finding trouble.

Kup had just gotten off duty and had retrieved his charge when he received a comm. from Download, the Autobase's security director.

"Sorry to bother you, Kup, but I got something here you probably want to take a look at." Download said.

"Can you get Alpha Trion?" Kup asked, "I have Ironhide with me."

"He's in a meeting with the High Council…you know how that goes." Download groaned, "You can bring Ironhide. This won't take long."

"Alright, I'll be there in a klik." Kup sighed and glanced down at the sparkling in his arms, "All right, you, we're gonna go see Download. Behave yourself in there, ok?"

Ironhide chirped but otherwise gave no indication that he WOULD behave. Kup sighed again. He wasn't going to get a better answer than that. He wished he hadn't relieved the mech who had been watching him a moment ago. Couldn't be helped now though.

Carefully, Kup punched in an access code and walked through the door to the security room. Ironhide was practically vibrating with excitement in his arms. He was strictly forbidden to enter the security room without Kup specifically and it was easy to see why. The room was filled with glowing, blinking, humming, beeping and otherwise very interesting looking equipment. There were buttons, levers, slots, and thousands of other things that were just begging to be touched. It was practically a sparkling playground in there. Desperate to go see, Ironhide squirmed in his guardian's arms, whining plaintively.

"Alright, I'll put you down, but NO TOUCHING!" Kup told his charge sternly; making sure Ironhide was looking at him, "Hands to yourself."

Making sure the door was securely closed, though he was sure Ironhide would stay in the room, he placed the sparkling on the ground and turned half his attention to Download, who watched the exchange in quiet amusement. Curious as ever, Ironhide immediately scrambled off, a blinking monitor catching his attention. Kup continued to keep one eye on his charge, making sure the youngling didn't mess with anything, as he continued his conversation. However, Download turned and motioned to yet another monitor, pulling several images up. Immediately, Kup turned his full attention to the screen, unaware that Ironhide had suddenly lost interest in the blinking lights and had chosen that moment to crawl into the small space beneath a control console.

The room's lights didn't reach under the console but the soft glow from various pieces of machinery allowed Ironhide to see where he was going. He crawled around a bit, not finding anything particularly interesting, until he suddenly found himself behind the console in the small space between it and the wall. Looking around, he let out a happy trill when he noticed that he was sitting surrounded by wires, none of which were covered. He happily pounced into the tangled pile and grabbed the first wire he touched, shoving it into his mouth, and began to gnaw on it, making contented little grunting noises.

"I don't think this would be considered a high threat, but we should definitely keep an eye on this. I'll let Alpha Trion know, thanks Download." Kup said, finally breaking away from the screen, "Alright, Ironhide, time to…ah, slag. Ok, where did you go?"

At that moment, there was a series of pops, a loud SNAP! And a BANG! Followed by a yelp and then the room went dark. There were several more distinctly electrical snaps and pops and one last BANG! And the monitors went dark and silent. Several roars of surprise and outrage from the hall suggested that the power was out there as well.

There a moment of silence as Kup and Download turned their headlights on. Then the realization of what had just happened hit Kup, making his fuel tank twist uncomfortably. He then remembered that the security room was one of the few places they had not gone through with wire wraps since Ironhide normally wasn't allowed in there. He put the two and two together and, with growing dread making his spark tremble, practically began tossing surveillance equipment aside. Download normally would have deactivated any mech for even THINKING about touching his equipment like that but he had come to the same conclusion as Kup and found himself right alongside the frantic mech, calling desperately to the sparkling. But there was no answer, not even a click, which only served to scare the two mechs even more.

Finally, they found him. He had been knocked backwards by the force of the shock and was now sitting on his aft, little currents of electricity still running over his body, still a little jerky, but somehow, miraculously, seemed to be unharmed otherwise. The very sorry looking Ironhide looked up at Kup with big optics that clearly said, "Oops."

The Autobot CMO, Welder, comm'ed Kup with his usual impeccable timing, "Lemme guess…Ironhide found the one wire we missed."

"More or less…yeah. He looks fine though."

"That's lucky considering how big a shock he must have gotten."

"What?"

"I think this marks the end of him ever chewing on wires again." Welder chuckled, "He shorted out half of Iacon."

~END~

A/N: See, 'Hide??? That is why they told you to NOT chew on those wires! XD I had so much fun writing this…and not just because it's the first thing I've been able to write in MONTHS (freaking muses took the summer off). But I really like this one. Sparkling Ironhide amuses me to no end.