.Chapter five.

Morning and another day of pranks was about to begin; that is… if anyone could get up from their recharge berths.

"What the?" asked Sideswipe, as he found himself glued to his berth.

Sunstreaker was in a similar predicament; he pulled this way and that, but he was not coming unstuck.

"Ratchet's doing," Sideswipe said darkly; ever since that prank Ratchet had the aerial 'bots play on the twins their relationship with the medic had been a stormy one.

"Must be; he's the only one with access to this kind of adhesive substance," replied Sunstreaker, giving up the fight against the glue.

"Besides us, bro." Sideswipe smiled despite his current situation.

Sunstreaker opened a communication line to the medic.

"Very funny, Ratchet, now let us go," said Sunstreaker over the com-link.

"Yeah, so that we can get back at yah," said Sideswipe.

"What are you two talkin' about? You have to come free me from your prank!" Ratchet replied, grouchy as ever.

"What are you talking about? We haven't done anything," said Sunstreaker.

"And we won't be doing anything until someone frees us from our sticky situation," added Sideswipe.

There was a pause until Ratchet asked, "What do you mean 'sticky situation'?"

"We're glued to our recharge berths," replied Sunstreaker.

Another pause from the CMO.

"I'll contact my men and see what I can do, so long as you contact yours and find out who strung me up like a sausage from the rafters of my room," said Ratchet.

Sideswipe snorted and Sunstreaker just smiled; the mental image was priceless.

"W-we'll see what we can dig up," Sideswipe said, trying not to laugh.

"Good," replied Ratchet, as he terminated the communication.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker opened a general communication to their men.

"Alright guys, who strung the medic up?" asked Sunstreaker.

"What are you talking about, Sunstreaker?" asked Powerglide.

"Yeah; we're the ones strung up!" added Tracks.

"Or stuck!" added Cliffjumper.

"Wait. You guys saying that you're all…," started Sideswipe.

"Incapacitated! Yes!" the twins' 'army' responded in unison.

Sunstreaker immediately opened a communication to Ratchet.

"Ratchet, are all of your men still operative?" he asked.

"No! Prowl and I did a check on everyone; we're all either 'hanging around' or 'glued down'!"

"All of them?" asked Sideswipe.

"Yes! Happy?"

"Not really."

"Eh?"

"Our whole side is down too," explained Sunstreaker.

"Same problems?" asked Ratchet.

"Yes," the twins replied in unison.

"Why do I get a sneaking suspicion that this is supposed to teach us all a lesson?"

"Well, if not teach you a lesson, at least end the prank war," said Optimus over the com-link.

"Optimus?" the three mechs said in unison.

"Hello," the commander replied; a smile extremely evident in his voice.

"You did this?" asked Sideswipe.

"With some help from the non-pranksters on the crew," Optimus replied.

"That would explain how you all got into our quarters without alerting us," Sideswipe said, as he thought about it.

"Exactly," Optimus replied.

"O-ooh. So… yo-ou gonna let us up or down soon?"

"Depends."

"On what?" Ratchet asked suspiciously.

"On how quickly you, Prowl and the twins make peace; as soon as you agree we'll let you all loose."

The twins and Ratchet thought for a moment before replying.

"Okay," they said in unison.

"Good. I'll dispatch my team to liberate you all from your specific predicaments and, Ratchet, Twins, I want to see you three and Prowl in the command room as soon as you're freed. Understood?" Optimus asked.

"Yes sir," the three 'bots replied in unison.

"Good. Prime over and out." With that Optimus terminated his transmission to the three.

When Ratchet, Prowl and the twins had finally been freed, they immediately made their way through to the command room with their releasers, Silverbolt, Skydive, Huffer and Beachcomber, close behind. Upon entering, they found the rest of the Autobots standing there too. Some were still removing sticky wads of glue from their persons and others were rubbing either their arms or legs, depending on which extremities had been constricted by their cocoon-like imprisonment. The Autobots were also still in their separate 'factions', so to speak; Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's 'army' on the right and Ratchet and Prowl's 'army' on the left with Prime and his 'army' at the far end of the room. Their releasers walked past them and rejoined Prime at the front.

"Boys," Optimus said in his serious yet not-going-to-bite-any-helms-off way.

The twins, Ratchet and Prowl let out a sigh of defeat and then walked up to him. They looked up at their commander and he gave them a look and a nod, which clearly conveyed what he wanted. They nodded and turned to face their 'adversaries'.

Prowl and Ratchet were the first to extend their hands to shake their respective twin's hand.

"Truce?" they asked in unison.

"Truce," the twins said in unison; Sunstreaker taking Prowl's hand and Sideswipe taking Ratchet's hand.

Optimus and his 'army' smiled at the two pairs; finally things could return to normal.

Just then Sideswipe extended his free hand to Prowl; Prowl looked at it quizzically.

"We've got to make sure we're all at peace here," Sideswipe said with an innocent and well-meaning lopsided grin; something Prowl hadn't seen for a while due to the prank war.

Prowl nodded and took Sideswipe's hand in his free hand; Sunstreaker and Ratchet, following their partner-in-crime's lead took each other's free hand. The four nodded at each other and then released each other's hands.

"Good, now there's just one more thing," said Optimus.

The other Autobots in the room looked at him.

"I think you all know I can't let this go without some form of disciplinary action," Optimus continued.

There was a unanimous groan from the Autobots.

"Yah did this ta yerselves," said Ironhide.

"Quite," agreed Optimus.

"I'll go fetch the paper picks, Ratchet," said Prowl, as he turned to leave.

"Good idea and don't forget the bags," Ratchet said.

"Yer not gettin' off that easy, Prowl," said Ironhide, folding his arms across his chest plate.

"Huh?" Prowl and Ratchet asked, looking up at the red mech.

"The four of yah will be given a… special assignment; pickin' up papers just ain't gonna cut it this tahm."

The four looked at each other warily; what did Ironhide have planned for them?

"This is low! Even for Ironhide!" complained Sunstreaker, as he, Sideswipe, Prowl and Ratchet made their way into town as a mini Autobot convoy.

"Yeah, I mean, even Prowl wasn't this harsh!" added Sideswipe.

"Thank you, Sideswipe, but maybe it's time I had a word with Ironhide about new disciplinary techniques," said Prowl.

"What? No! Sunny! We gotta keep him away from Ironhide! If we have to do anything even close to this again… I don't know what I would do!"

"Oh hush up, the lot of you!" growled Ratchet, "It's bad enough that we have to do this, so I don't need the added torture of hearing you whine, Sideswipe!"

"Agreed," Prowl added.

With that the red twin put it on mute and the convoy continued on their way in silence.

A few hours later, Ironhide decided to contact them from his post in the park, while he kept an optic on the paper pickers Optimus had assigned to him; namely the rowdier members of the twins' and Ratchet and Prowl's prank armies.

"How yah boys doin?" he asked, with a smile.

"How do you think we're dong?" came Ratchet's hushed, but extremely irritable reply.

"Aw, c'mon, Ratchet; Ah thought, as a medic, yah would love kids."

Ratchet grumbled something under his breath.

"Oh! Hey, hang on a sec, Doc; Ah got muhself a lil problem ta deal with," said Ironhide, as he spotted Blades and Slingshot sizing each other up.

"Take all the time you need," Ratchet replied.

"Thank yah kindly. Slingshot! Blades! Knock it off an' get back ta work! Yah understand!" Ironhide barked across the park.

The two named 'bots cringed, but did as they were told.

"Sorry 'bout that, Ratchet; where were we?" Ironhide asked.

"Let me just say that, before you bark orders at another 'bot, CANCEL YOUR TRANSMISSION TO ME!" Ratchet exclaimed.

"Ah sincerely hope that the kids ain't with yah now, Ratchet."

"Fortunately, no. I was able to excuse myself to take the call; much to two Lamborghini's dismay." Ironhide could hear that Ratchet was smiling.

"Then Ah better not keep yah; how's the museum though?"

"Peaceful, apart from the kids."

"I noticed yah didn't mention the twins."

"They were included in that remark."

Ironhide chuckled, "Alright Ratchet; I won't keep yah from yer fun. See yah and the others back at base later."

"Yeah. Ratchet out."

"Ironhide out." With that the pair terminated their transmissions to each other and went back to their previous assignments.

Several weeks later and everything was back to normal, even the relationship between the twins, Ratchet and Prowl.

"Hey, uh, Ratchet," said Sideswipe, as he and Sunstreaker entered the med-bay.

"Yes?" asked Ratchet, as he and Prowl, who had come to talk to the CMO earlier, looked at the pair. Not surprisingly the scene before them was one of extreme familiarity. Sunstreaker, who was sporting an interesting gash in one of his head fins and a few more minor injuries on his person, was trying to keep his twin up off the floor due to the fact that said twin only had one leg to stand on; the other was dragging limply behind him.

"Think you could, uh… lend a hand?" Sideswipe asked with a sheepish grin.

"Don't tell me; jet judo," said Ratchet, as he turned to face the two and folded his arms across his chest.

"In a way."

"'In a way'?" Prowl asked, an optic ridge raised.

"Let's just say that we won't be practicing on the aerial 'bots again anytime soon," Sideswipe replied.

The CMO and tactician just nodded in understanding. Ratchet walked over to one of the repair berths and Prowl moved to the other side of the 'bay where he wouldn't be in the way.

"Come on; get up here," Ratchet said in a reasonably calm voice.

"You're not going to yell at us?" asked Sideswipe, as Sunstreaker helped him across the med-bay and deposited him on the berth.

"No, I'm not."

"What's the catch?" Sunstreaker asked suspiciously.

"No catch, Sunstreaker. To be honest, during our prank war,… I missed the pair of you coming to me for repairs. Every time a report of a particularly messy prank came in, I half expected to see the pair of you coming in to me, but all I got was the prankee with a new prank idea."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked at each other, surprised by the news; they never realised that the medic felt that way about them. Ratchet noticed the look and smiled at the pair.

"You're my boys and only Prowl or myself have the permission to beat up on you," Ratchet said.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker smiled back at the CMO; it was kind of nice to know that their two favourite targets actually liked them.

"So… does this mean we're getting off easy?" Sideswipe asked Prowl hopefully, while Ratchet got to work on his dead leg.

Prowl smiled amusedly at the red twin.

"Not a chance; Ratchet will throttle you if you tell anyone about that… sentimental speech of his, but everyone will know immediately that I've gone soft if I don't give you some kind of discipline," he said.

"Ahh," the twins groaned.

"But it won't be as harsh as taking kids on a field trip again."

"Thank you," Sunstreaker said; he had not enjoyed that one bit.

Prowl smiled at the pair.

"I'll leave you to your work, Ratchet," Prowl said with a small smile.

"Right," Ratchet replied with a nod.

Prowl nodded a goodbye to the twins and then took his leave.

"He's right you know," Ratchet said, not looking up from his work.

"What?" asked Sideswipe.

"About what?" asked Sunstreaker, as he leaned on the berth.

"I'll do you both a damage if you so much as mime what I said to you now; got it?" Ratchet asked, his voice regaining it's 'dangerous' edge.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker smiled happily at hearing the familiar tone.

"Got it," they said in unison.

"Good. Now hold still, Sideswipe! I can't very well fix this leg if you keep swinging that one!"

Sideswipe smiled again and stopped swinging his leg so that the CMO could get on with his work. Ratchet smiled to himself as he noticed the obedient response from the red warrior, but he wasn't the only one smiling. Over in the surveillance room, Red Alert was smiling happily to himself as well. Sure, being head of security had it's downside like having to guard against Decepticons and spies, but it's upside was that monitor duty was like watching Earth soap operas twenty-four/seven and everything was ten times better; from the 'actors' to the 'storylines' and everything in-between.

.The end.