Frenzy was feeling a little bummed.

Although officially, Megatron had given him permission to get back together with Twenty Three, he kept giving him an overload of work to keep him away from her.

He was wrapped up in so many chores and shifts, he only had about ten minutes with his girl every day before he had to get in some recharge.

He wondered vaguely where exactly Megatron was finding all these jobs for him, before realizing he'd been taking over almost everybody elses shifts.

This was completely unfair.

Skywarp and Thundercracker got more spare time than him, and they weren't even here from the beginning! He was the one who'd helped unfreeze Megatron. And now the ungrateful bastard, not that he'd ever call him that to his face, was working him into the ground.

It seemed no one else was doing any work at all… well, except Starscream seemed to be permanently locked away in his lab, but he was pretty anti social anyway.

Sighing, Frenzy made his way back to their quarters, dragging his feet.

When he opened the door, he saw his femme sitting on heir bed reading a book, Ravage curled up beside her.

"Hey Rav," he greeted his sibling, before wrapping his arms tiredly around his girlfriend.

"What are you reading, girly?"

"It's that 'bible' story book Mikaela gave to me. It's quite interesting, but everyone dies," she told him, lifting him into her lap, where he lay back against her.

"Sounds depressing," he yawned. "Where's Soundwave?"

"Oh, Dad needed his help with something in Tripticon. I think they're still sorting through my old files, but I didn't really want to go, so I stayed here," she informed him, stroking the ridges on his cheeks.

He smiled slightly.

"Good for you, Tee," he took one of her hands in his, and stated playing with it absentmindedly. "I'm glad you're doing what you want… You've grown a lot stronger, you know that?"

"Really?" she asked him, curiously. "Soundwave says I still need a little more work… He says I should change my name, so I have a better sense of Identity."

Frenzy sat up, and looked in her eyes. He hadn't heard about this development.

"Only do it if you want to, Tee. Don't let them bully you into a new name," he told her seriously, but she just laughed, and cuddled him.

"I know, Zee," she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for caring, but I actually think it's a cool idea. I've never liked 'Twenty Three' as such, anyway. It's more an identification code than a name. Although I do like Tee."

Frenzy grinned at that, and pulled her close, which issued a growl from Ravage.

Get a room, the panther thought at them, tone dripping with disdain.

"We did, kitty cat. You're in it," Frenzy smirked, before giving his girl a noisy wet kiss on her cheek, sending Ravage running from the room.

Twenty Three laughed, grabbing him and shoving him down next to her.

"Zee! That tickles!" she said, wiping the energon off her cheek before it burned through her skin. She lay down next to her lover, and rested her head against his, sighing deeply. "I've missed you, Zee… You're always busy…"

"I know, Tee. It's Megatron's fault. He's giving me stupid hours," he huffed, stroking her hair.

"I'm sorry, Zee. I can talk to Dad if you want," she offered, but he shook his head.

"He'll just make it worse," he sighed. He really didn't want to talk about this now… This was his only time today with Tee… "So, you thought of any names yet?"

"A few," she answered. "But I'm still trying to figure out which one I like best…"

"Maybe I can help. What are they?" he asked, eagerly.

"I was hoping you'd offer," she laughed. "Well, I found the name 'Eve' in that book. She was the mother of the human race. Then there's 'Beta.' And Soundwave likes 'Entrance.' Or 'En' for short. I'm still not sure, though."

"Beta is nice," he said thoughtfully. "Then again, so is Eve…" he purposely left out his creator's favorite.

"See my dilemma?" she asked him, amused. "At first, I thought I'd go and see what everyone else liked, but then that would kind of defeat the point," she sighed. "Soundwave says I have to choose one I like, because it's my identity, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks."

"Did you have any other ideas?" he asked curiously.

"You'll laugh," she blushed.

"No I won't," he promised, but she still looked skeptical.

"Soundwave did. And Megatron," she huffed.

"Hey I'm not them – wait, you said Soundwave laughed at you?" he asked, aghast.

She nodded seriously.

"It was mean."

"Hey, don't sulk," Frenzy grinned at her, placing a gentle kiss on her lips. "What was the name?"

"Mntrn," she mumbled.

"What?" he raised an optic ridge.

"Minitron," she said grumpily, glaring at him as he did an awful job at holding back his laughter. "Well my Dad's Megatron, right? So why not?"

"Sorry Tee," he cuddled her. "The thing is… I cybertronian, only mechs names end with 'tron.'"

"Oh, so that's why they were laughing," she blushed deeply. "I feel like an idiot."

"Hey, you're no idiot," he nosed her gently. "It's just another culture you haven't gotten the hang of yet. You'll get there."

"I hope so," she sighed.

They both looked over as the door creaked open.

Soundwave entered, once he saw they weren't doing anything too private. You could never tell, with Frenzy.

He ejected his cassettes, Ravage included, and knelt down beside the bed.

Knowing what was expected of her, she transformed him into his human form, and he crept into the sheets next to her. Frenzy had a death grip on his woman, glaring around her at his creator.

Twenty Three, herself, was a little surprised a this. They seemed to be getting along most of the time.

"Zee, what's wrong?" she asked him, giving his ribs a tickle.

"You laughed at Tee. You made her feel stupid," he growled at the navy haired human.

"Hey, if you were there you would have laughed too," Rumble cut across his creator's retort. "I was in him at the time, you weren't even there."

"You did laugh too, Zee," she reminded him, holding him close. "No more fighting, Zee. You'll have another long day tomorrow. Go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," he whispered, nodding tiredly into her, drifting off.

"Don't take it personally, Rumble, he's just tired," she told him, flipping the bed sheets up so he could climb in next to Soundwave.

Since she'd adopted, or been adopted into such a huge family, they'd had to get a massive size bed in, for all of them to fit in it, as the cassettes generally preferred to bunk with their creator.

They'd also installed a couple of bars high up on the wall for Buzzsaw and Laserbeak to sleep on. Ratbat, however, preferred to sleep in cassette form next to Soundwave.

Twenty Three felt a gentle prodding at her mind, and allowed Soundwave access.

Apologies, I didn't intend to make you feel stupid, he said completely honestly. I didn't mean to –

It's okay, darling, she sent back, turning her head around to give him a gentle kiss. I know.

Twenty Three let out a huge yawn the next morning, and was slightly sad to see Frenzy had already left.

Ah well, Megatron had given him a job, so he had to do it.

She felt the bed shift, and looked down to where Ravage was stretching.

"Morning Rav," she whispered, smiling as she heard a gear pop. She looked over a Soundwave and Rumble, still sound asleep.

Ratbat transformed where he was, and would have crushed his creators face if Twenty Three hadn't grabbed him, and relocated the youngest cassetticons to her lap.

"Ratty, you have to be careful around Sounds when he's a human. You could squash him!" she told him off, but regretted it as his eyes grew, and he started to cry.

"Hush darling, it's okay," she whispered, rocking him back and forwards.

"What happened now?" Soundwave groaned, waking up, himself.

"Sorry, Sounds. You can go back to sleep if you want," she ruffled his hair.

"Negative. I'm awake now," he blinked tiredly. "What's wrong with Ratbat?"

"I almost squashed you!" he wailed, despite Twenty Three's attempts to calm him.

Soundwave collapsed back into his pillow, and groaned.

"It's okay, Ratbat. Just try not to kill me next time," he muttered, knowing the tears wouldn't stop until he gave his vote of confidence.

Immediately, he seemed to calm down.

"I've got to reevaluate Silverstreak today," she told her lover, who rolled onto his back.

"Fun..."

"Hey, you can get some more sleep if you want, Sounds. Just don't be grumpy with me," she huffed.

Soundwave blinked. He supposed he was being a bit grumpy. It was just a little difficult to shake off the bonds of sleep in his human form. Still, he knew a way to wake up…

He tackled Twenty Three, and pinned her to the bed, the mattress bouncing softly.

"Sorry, darling," he whispered gruffly. He liked that word of hers. "I didn't mean to seem grumpy…"

Ratbat squawked from in between them, and Soundwave, raised one arm to let him escape, before re-pinning his woman in a searing kiss.

She grinned against him, noting in amusement the cassettes were fleeing – all except for Rumble, who was still asleep next to them.

"Man, he sleeps through anything," Twenty Three giggled, nudging the human on top of her. "What do you say we take a page out of his book and prank him?"

Soundwave's eyes widened, then he grinned wickedly.

"Frenzy has been an awful influence on you, my dear," he nuzzled her neck.

"Hey, I don't agree with pranking in general, when it could hurt someone," she informed him seriously. "But Rumble knows we love him, so by his own reckoning, he should be expecting it."

Soundwave raised an eyebrow. "How exactly does that make sense?"

"Frenzy and Rumble told me they pranked the other decepticons as a form of friendship, and that's what made it okay," she shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense to me either, but they deserve it for explaining it that way. I doubt they ever thought I'd want to prank them."

Soundwave grinned, feeling outrageous. She always brought this side out of him.

"Let's do it."

Rumble went to visit Frenzy in the communications room. It was unlikely that he'd managed to get himself any energon yet, so he figured he'd use that as his excuse.

He passed Skywarp in the hallway, and for some reason the seeker burst out laughing.

"What's so funny, jet-head?" Rumble asked, confused, but the seeker just doubled over, unable to keep himself under control.

Shrugging off the incident as Skywarp's ever unreliable logic circuits, he continued on his way.

Finally reaching his destination, he entered the comm. room, hailing his brother.

"Yo Frenzy, I got you some energy!" he grinned, taking the two cube's over to the desk.

"Hey, thanks, Rumb- Hahahahahaha! Look at your face!" his brother cracked up.

The look on Rumble's face was priceless.

"What's going on? Everyone's acting crazy today," the red twin complained.

"Look…" Frenzy directed his brother over to a shiny area of metal, that doubled as a mirror.

Rumble groaned when he saw his face.

It was covered in marker. He had a black mustache, panda eyes, and red 'kiss marks' all over his head.

"Damn your girlfriend," he hissed, rubbing the marks off, making black and red smudges all over his face.

"I'll talk to her about it," Frenzy laughed, his day much brighter. At least this showed him Twenty Three was accepting his prankster ways, perhaps even encouraging them… Not that he had much time for it these days…

Sighing, he picked up his energon cube, and began sipping it, while his twin tried to get the remains of marker off his face.

Twenty Three was sitting on Soundwave's shoulder, regarding her femme. She had to decide today whether she was a lost cause or not.

Sighing, she looked over at Thundercracker.

"When's Skywarp getting here?" she complained. Of course, she could just find him via her telepathy, but she preferred not to use that skill, especially after Soundwave had told her that decepticons never trusted telepaths. She didn't want to lose all her friends, after all.

Thundercracker shrugged. "He should've been here ten minutes ago."

Suddenly, the door opened, and Skywarp dragged himself in, still laughing.

"Sky? Are you okay?" Twenty Three asked, a little concerned. His cooling systems seemed to be in overdrive.

"He's fine," Thundercracker grinned. "This only happens when he sees something really funny. What happened? This looks like more than you just spiking someone's energon."

That set the black and purple seeker off again.

Twenty Three and Soundwave looked at each other, knowing what he probably saw, and shared their amusement through their link, while remaining serious in appearance.

"Skywarp! You're late for a meeting! We're supposed to be evaluating Silverstreak! I need you sane!" Twenty Three whined at him.

"It's Rumble, you should have seen it… All over his face," he rasped, trying to gain control of his cooling generator.

"Tell me later," Thundercracker nudged him, noting the impatient expressions on the others faces.

"Okay, okay, okay," Skywarp said, taking some deep breaths through his vents. "So, Silverstreak, right?"

"Yes," Twenty Three said, turning back to the femme. "How has she been progressing?"

"Well, she's a lot more stable," Skywarp began. "As in she won't just break down and cry, and she has been picking up on all my moves pretty fast. But you have to give her pretty descriptive instructions. She doesn't have very much common sense."

Twenty Three was suddenly thrown back to her conversation with Frenzy by the riverside.

"I didn't have much common sense in the beginning either," she said quietly. "I have faith she may learn, if she has a friend like I did."

She looked at the two seekers beside her.

"Would you be willing to teach her common sense? Will you look after her?" she asked them.

"No way!" Skywarp denied, his hands up in front of him. "She's less annoying than before, but I don't want anything else to do with her!"

Twenty Three sighed, then looked to the blue seeker.

"Me?" Thundercracker asked, surprised. "I-I don't even know her! No way! If Skywarp can't, what makes you think I will?"

Twenty Three felt sadness ebb from the immobile femme, and looked at her more closely.

She was showing no outward emotions…

She realized sadly her creation was very much like herself during her days at sector 7.

She could feel emotions, but she didn't know what they were, and was pretty much incapable of expressing them.

She couldn't let her be melted down for scrap… But she didn't have the time to teach her herself.

Suddenly, an unlikely idea struck her. She shared it with Soundwave, not wanting to voice it out loud just yet.

It is possible, Soundwave replied. Megatron's permission required.

She nodded absentmindedly.

"Silverstreak, you are off duty for the rest of the day. You may practice your fighting techniques if you like. Just don't leave the base. Dismissed."

Silverstreak nodded, and left obediently. Twenty Three watched her leave sadly, before turning back to the seekers.

"Skywarp, thank you for training her. I really appreciate it," she told the seeker with a small smile.

"It's not as though I really had a choice," Skywarp answered, embarrassed. He was never thanked for simply fulfilling a duty, and it just felt weird.

"I know, but I still appreciate it. If there's anything I can do for you, just ask," she grinned at him.

Thundercracker frowned. Skywarp hadn't really done that much… He could have done it easily. He decided he'd be the next volunteer if Twenty Three ever wanted another favour… unless it was something long term, like teaching a drone the ways of the world.

So...

I have to decide on a new name, so I'm taking votes. (If you have any other original suggestions, fling them my way)

Send me a private message if you don't want it in the reviews

And as for Twenty Three's plan for Silverstreak? Next chapter...And I promise it will be longer O.o

Cheers and... REVIEW XP