Don't Try This at Home

A Transformers Movieverse Fanfiction

They say a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the globe can cause a hurricane on the other. While one might contribute the ruckus currently occupying the Leader of the Autobots to the chaos theory, it would be unjust to blame an innocent tropical insect. This bit of chaos had been caused by a sound only slightly louder; not the flap of a wing but the sigh of a child.

O

O

1000 hours

Military Housing Unit NV 578

Current Residents Epps

With a sad little sigh a lanky boy sagged down onto a beanbag in a large garage. He rubbed his close cropped black hair and looked over at a little girl in a princess outfit playing with a doll house. She was on her knees, several large sheets of cardboard protecting her from the concrete, wielding what looked suspiciously like G.I. Joe action figures around a tea party. For a moment the brown little face of the watcher brightened, but soon he fell back against the leather bag.

"I'm bored," Fred Epps declared to the world in general.

"Do you want to come play tea party with me?" Annabelle Lennox asked polity pushing her tiara back a little further on her blond hair. She knew it was the right thing to do. Mommy always said to share her toys. But Freddy always tried to make the partiers fight, and that was no fun.

"Noooooo, tea parties are boring," the boy pouted.

Annie frowned at him. He didn't used to think that. Not when Uncle Hide would come over and play. But Uncles Sides and Sunny never let her put the special hats on them, never held the tea cups. She shot a slightly resentful look at the two empty spaces on the garage floor. They were often away doing mysterious things. Even if they did have funny stories when they came back it wasn't fair.

Just as she was thinking that there was a squeal of tires from the driveway and two gleaming Lamborghinis slid into the garage. Neither of the children was yet old enough to question how a car could squeal around a corner at ten miles an hour, but somehow Sunstreaker managed it. Fred leapt up with a grin and scampered over to stand in front of the other Lambo.

"Hey! It's two of our favorite sparklings!" Sideswipe called out.

"What's shaking kiddos?" Sunstreaker asked.

"I was bored but now you guys are here!" the boy said eagerly climbing into Sideswipe. "Do I get my pendant back now?"

"I wasn't board. I was playing tea party!" Annabelle exclaimed happily. She could never stay upset at the twins. She jumped into Sunstreaker's open door and sat down primly on his driver's seat.

"So what were you guys doing?" Fred asked eagerly.

"I'm sorry that's classified," Sides purred happily as he settled down on his shocks.

"Sunny, Sides," a voice called out and a dark head popped out of the man door. "There you are."

Monique Epps smiled down on the sports cars as she stepped into the garage.

"I need to walk these cupcakes over to Shareeka's party," the woman began.

"And you want us to watch the kids? Sure thing," Sides called out enthusiastically.

"We won't let them out of our sight!" Sunny agreed.

"Okay you remember the rules?"

"Always!" Sideswipe said sincerely.

"Good, I'll be back in about half an hour."

"So what do you kids want to do?" asked Sideswipe.

"Let's go race on the test range!" Fred said, in the other twin Annabelle eagerly agreed.

"No, I'm pretty sure that's on the 'don't do' list," Sunstreaker replied sadly.

"Let's watch Mythbreakers then!" the boy compromised, to a chorus of agreement.

The seats in the car reclined slightly and a 3-D projection appeared on the wind shield. Just as the title screen was rolling there was a cry from Annie.

"Fred, come over here to watch."

"No, you come over to Sides! He has better seats."

"No he doesn't! They're twins silly!" she protested.

"Hey, hey, none of that now!" Sideswipe spoke up. They had been through this argument several times before and he wanted to avoid it if at all possible. "It is my turn to have you kids. Right Sunny?"

The yellow mech grumbled but reluctantly agreed and opened his door to let the little girl scramble out. She scampered up into Sideswipe, bare toes curling in delight on the soft interior carpet. The girl sat primly in the passenger seat as the Autobot adjusted the height and recline angle for her maximum comfort. He knew from experience that both children would soon be snuggled up in the same seat so he adjusted it for the boy as well.

"Okay! Play!" Annabelle said happily.

The Lamborghini resumed playing the semi-scientific show for the two. He was careful to edit out the words their mothers had objected to. Though he wasn't sure why. Both of their fathers used those exact terms every day. However, when Sides had pointed this out to the women they had only replied that what might be appropriate on the battle field wasn't always a good idea at home. The Autobot still didn't get it, but he had learned long ago not to argue with the females of this species.

The two sparkling humans watched happily for awhile, laughing and chatting with their guardians over the antics on screen. As the Autobots expected, at the first sign of a disturbing scene the older child was sitting next to the younger so 'she wouldn't feel afraid'. Annie squealed with disgust when rats began crawling across soda cans. But the eyes of both children lit up and the room got very quiet as the next test was proposed. They held hands and watched eagerly as the show progressed, finally cheering at the outcome.

"We could do that one here!" Fred said exultantly. "We have a Lamborghini. We have two!"

"Yeah, but the Mythbreakers said to not try it at home," Annabelle protested.

"Unless you have two experts to help," the boy pointed out. "Sunny and Sides are the two best experts at being fast cars on the planet."

"Uhun! They're the best in the universe!" the girl corrected him. "But that might hurt them. Look what happened to that poor car?"

"Aw, a little rough landing like that wouldn't even ding Sides. He has force fields. Right Sides?"

From the moment the conversation had started the twins had been discussing the possibilities over the comm. The maneuver described in the show did not appear to be difficult. In fact it could prove useful in battle if mastered. A quick search of the local area via Google showed a near perfect site for the experiment within easy distance. It was a little long at five hundred feet of water but they were sure they could make it.

"I don't know Fred. It does look like it might ruin our paint jobs," the Autobot said uneasily, replaying the scene of the car's rough landing.

"Hey! We'll land way better than that," scoffed his brother, "and the way the road is set up we'll be landing on pavement not scrub."

"Oh, do you think we can do it?" the girl asked eagerly.

One look at the happy gleam in her eyes and the last doubts were washed out of Sideswipe's mind.

"Let's roll!" he declared.

Fred had the presence of mind to scrawl a quick note for his mother before jumping into Sideswipe.

O

O

"Now! Let's see if we can skip a Lamborghini across a pond," Fred declared as they stood at the edge of a small lake.

A powerful river had once flowed peacefully alongside a two lane highway, until one sudden winter's storm had changed the course of the waterway. Now five hundred feet of shallow lake water separated one stretch of asphalt from the other. It only took removing a few logs and rocks at either end that some county worker had carelessly left there to make the scene perfect.

For safety's sake the twins insisted the two human sparklings sit the first round out. Fred and Annie protested a bit and the Lamborghinis felt quite proud of themselves for being mature enough to say no. The children walked up to the shore of the lake and skipped the more conventional flat stones while they waited for the show. Not that the twins ever let them wait long.

In perfect tandem the red and yellow sports cars came shooting around the corner. They accelerated across the straight stretch leading up to the lake with a musical roar. Shooting past the humans the Cybertronians flew out over the water. The first impact sent waves of water spaying out in every direction, by the second and third impacts they had broken their perfect synchronization. But both Autobots made it all the way across the lake, skipping just like the stones flung by the children. Fred and Annie cheered wildly. Barely slowing down the two cars shot down the opposite road just far enough to gain enough speed and came flying back over.

Back on the children's side of the lake Sunny and Sides popped their doors open and let the kids climb in. Each Autobot took great care in providing for the kids safety. They strapped them in with multiple seatbelts, carefully molded the seats to support their fragile spinal structure, and then elevated the seats for the best view.

"Are you ready?" queried Sunstreaker revving his engine.

"Yes!" Shouted Fred.

"Are you set?" purred Sideswipe wriggling his steering wheel.

"Yes!" squealed Annabelle.

"Then let's go!" roared out the twins together.

The humans screamed with delight as the powerful Cybertronian engines accelerated. For safety's sake the twins had decided to take the jumps one at a time. Sunny took the lead as Fred always insisted on letting Annie go first. She let out a loud shriek as the Autobot hit the water and flew into the air. Each bounce drew another audio receptor piercing noise.

"Again! Again," she cried when Sunny slid to a stop on the other side. The water was forcing itself uncomfortably up into his undercarriage. There were small fish and invertebrates of all sorts crawling all over the vain mech. But as long as his princess was smiling the Autobot would keep doing as she asked.

O

O

Two very dirty Lamborghinis rolled up to the base housing. The children were chatting away over the comm. system and all four were laughing. Suddenly the two Autobots fell silent. Fred glanced up to see what had silenced to gregarious Sideswipe. The boy felt something hard and heavy settle in his stomach. Standing in the garage with twin expressions of fury on their faces were his and Annie's moms.

"Uhoh…" he heard the girl whisper over the radio.

The Cybertronians knew better than to run. Slowly they came to a stop in front of the females and opened their doors. Fred climbed out first and stood before the women nervously. Both mothers gave their respective children careful examinations. Once they had determined the children were safe and whole each was handed over to an older Epps girl for a bath. Once the children were gone Monique and Sarah turned on the Cybertronians.

Both Sunny and Sides had transformed and were sitting cross-legged in the garage, heads hanging. They weren't exactly sure what they'd done. But they had clearly worried the mothers, and that was forbidden. As they expected the tongue lashing was long and involved; the women tag teaming so the string of accusations and reprimands was nearly constant. Not for the first time Sideswipe found himself wondering how such a small creature could be so intimidating. Protests that the children had been perfectly safe only seemed to infuriate the women more. So the twins suffered in silence. Finally Sarah Lennox made the mistake of letting Sunny answer one of her questions.

"Why did you think this was a good idea?" she demanded.

"I just wanted to make Annie smile," the miserable Autobot said softly looking at the floor.

The garage suddenly grew deathly quiet. The brothers looked at each other nervously then up at the women. Sarah and Monique were sharing stricken looks. Annabelle had been devastated when Ironhide had been killed. The first time she had smiled after his death had been when she met Uncle Sideswipe's brother. Her mother drew in a long breath.

"Just go tell Optimus exactly what you did and let him deal with you," she finally muttered.

The Lambos transformed and tore out of the garage at full speed.

Monique let out a small laugh and shook her head.

"Dang girl, how do you argue with something like that?"

"Oh, I'm sure they were fairly safe," Sarah snorted, "but those two idiots have got to learn to ask permission before they go off like that."

"Which two?" her friend asked with a sparkle in her eyes.

The women parted ways laughing to go dispense justice to their respective offspring.