Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.

Summary: Oneshot, post G1 S2, complete and utter crack. Ratbat, Rumble, and Frenzy perfect the art of bad timing with a little help from the resident humans.

Rating: T

Welcome to the World

In one part of the Autobot base, Frenzy, Rumble and Ratbat were escaping from their Autobot pursuers after an espionage mission had gone awry.

In another part of the Autobot base, Spike was helping Carly to the door as she clutched her pregnant belly and gasped in pain.

It would be highly inconvenient if the first group happened to come across the second group.

X x X

Frenzy didn't quite know how they had gotten into this mess. All he knew was that plan A went down the drain, and then plan B went out the window, so they had fallen back to the ever-faithful plan C.

"Why," Spike said, in an eerie, calm tone as he helped Carly down so that she could lean against one wall of the elevator. "Why do you guys always default back to just nabbing humans whenever your plan of the day fails?"

"'Cuz it works," Frenzy said, folding his arms and leaning against the opposite wall of the elevator.

"And if it works so well, then care to tell me why we're stuck here?"

"We made the elevator go up faster," Rumble said patronizingly as he stood next to his brother. "The Autobots tried to make the elevator from ever leaving. The Autobots' stupid equipment decided to do both, and the result is we're stuck between floor A and floor B."

"So it's your fault," Ratbat said.

"You know, you really could have picked a better day," Spike said. He sighed, and then turned to Carly. He gave her a rueful smile. "Hey, you know, I think that Megatron is obligated to give us parental leave. Being taken hostage seems to be part of the package of Autobot liason."

She gave a weak chuckle. "They didn't include that in the job description." She sighed. "I hope that our kid will wait—"

And then fluid gushed out from under her.

X x X

It seemed that, as soon as a few clicks later, things were getting worse.

The cassetticons were crowded around the humans in interest. In all the times when they had invoked plan C, they had never seen this before.

Carly was on the floor, her back to the wall and her knees splayed out while Spike was on his knees beside her, holding her hand. "You idiots!" Spike yelled at the cassetticons. "What part of "her water broke," do you not understand?"

"So just fix it!" Frenzy snapped in annoyance. "It can't be that hard!"

"Look, you glitching son-of-a-gun—"

"But…Megatron's not his creator…" Ratbat muttered.

"Spike?" Carly said, looking up slowly. "Here, let me explain something to them."

Spike nodded, and Carly suddenly reached up and grabbed Frenzy's shoulder, her grip vice-like. "You know," she said, first facing him and then turning to look at his two astonished siblings. "Usually I don't resort to talking and yelling and I skip right to the gratuitous violence, but here's the scenario here: I'm in labour early. I don't have any painkillers. We're stuck in an elevator. My family is caught in one of your stupid take-the-humans-as-hostages plans! If my kid comes to harm because of your bad timing, I will gut out your gears, tear out your optics and carve out your sparks with a spoon, do you understand me?!"

They just looked at her, at the way her eyes flashed and how her fingers and nails were digging into Frenzy's shoulder. Their optics shuttered, and their sparks trembled a little, though they'd never admit it.

"…Okay," Frenzy said finally, trying to pry her hand from his shoulder.

Distantly, they heard Wheeljack say encouragingly, "Keep pushing, Carly!" as the engineer tried to fix the elevator. "Your kid will be out in no time!"

Carly's response was drowned out in an inarticulate yell.

"Damn it," Spike muttered. "You – stand over there," Spike said, pointing to Ratbat and to the left far corner of the elevator. "And you – stand over there," he said, doing the same to Rumble and the right far corner. "And you –" he said to Frenzy. "You just hold her hand."

Frenzy instinctively withdrew his hand, but Carly's hand shot out and grabbed it, anyway. Frenzy would have pulled away, but she gave another howl as another contraction came, and slammed his hand against the elevator floor.

His sensors went into overload, and he tried in vain to pry her grip loose.

Spike moved to Carly's legs, and lifted up the hem of her skirt.

"Hey, what's so interesting over here?" Rumble said, sauntering forward with Ratbat following after him. After all, they weren't going to let some human tell them to go stand in the corner.

"Can you please just turn around?" Spike said tensely, through clenched teeth.

"Well I don't see what's so—"

And then Carly gave another push, and the cassetticons saw what no Cybertronian optics were meant to see.

"It's gross! Something's coming out!"

"My visual sensors! They cannot unsee!"

"Push it back in! Push it back in!"

"What's going on over there?" Frenzy demanded, still being held hostage by Carly's iron grip.

"You don't want to know!" Ratbat wailed.

And then, with one final push, it was over.

Cries filled the elevator. Panting, Carly sat up a little straighter. "Well?" she asked Spike.

Spike looked up at her, smiling. "It's a boy," he said, showing her their son. "It's Daniel." The little one's face was pinched and wrinkly and he was crying - oh, this one was a screamer, for sure, but those cries of first breath were wonderful to their ears. And her expression changed from one of anger and concern to pure joy. Then Spike moved towards her side, holding their child, who soon calmed in their warmth, and the both of them cooed at the marvellous little thing they had been waiting for.

"Hey," he said, even though something in Rumble and Frenzy's trembling frames told him he just shouldn't ask. "Where the heck did you pull the other squishy from? And why's it so much more wrinkly and ugly, even by human standards?"

Spike and Carly looked at him, as though suddenly realizing that the cassetticons were still there. Carly thrust his hand away in disgust.

Then the elevator shuddered, and they heard the Autobots' cheers below as the elevator made its way back down.

X x X

After making another escape from the Autobots (ditching plan C and improvising plan D), the cassetticons made their way back to the Decepticon base.

On the way, they decided to do a quick check into human biology. Seeing it in abstract seemed to help with Ratbat and Rumble's trip down trauma lane.

"So a mini-squishy inside the other squishy…that means that the squishy is "pregnant?"" Ratbat asked.

"Guess so," Rumble said, shrugging.

"But that's weird!"

"They're humans," Frenzy explained, rolling his optics. "Everything they do is gross."

There was a pause, and the twin cassettes thought that Ratbat was content with that answer. But then the youngest cassette spoke again.

"Wait a click. Does that mean that Soundwave is perpetually pregnant?"

Rumble and Frenzy stopped abruptly, and all three of them looked at each other.

In the end, they decided that no one was to tell Soundwave anything.