Pairing-> Ratchet and Inferno fighting over Firestar
Rating-> PG


Firestar gazed into her mirror in silence, staring down her reflection as she tried to figure herself out. Not long ago, she had been perfectly happy, diving her time between her missions and spending time with her boyfriend, Inferno. He’d been so happy when she finally agreed to come back with him to earth, and at first it had seemed like a fantastic idea. She soon found it to be otherwise however, that day when Inferno was on a special mission with Ironhide and many of the others. The base had been left virtually empty, with the exceptions of a few dinobots and Ratchet the medic. Bored, Firestar had taken to wandering the hallways of the rather expansive ship. At least it was enough to keep her entertained for a while. It was only a matter of time before the red femme wandered past the medbay, and faced with nothing else to do, decided to take a peak inside.

It was clean and orderly, just like you would expect a medbay to be. Firestar stepped inside and, seeing no one, began to take a closer look at the numerous instruments that were places about the large room. As she was wandering the medbay, she passed a door that was partly ajar, and something within it caught her eye. There was something glowing in there, and it was strangely alluring. Turning slowly to face the door, she wondered if she should take a closer look. The area behind the door seemed to be completely black except for the purple-pink glow that the mysterious object was giving off. She looked over her shoulder to check and see if anyone was around, and sure enough, the coast was clear. She decided to investigate the glow. She slipped inside the room without touching the door, and found herself face to face with a jar full of beautiful, pinkish purple crystals. She couldn’t help herself from whispering to herself,

“What are these…?” as she reached out to place a servo on the surface of the jar.

“Energon crystals.” Came a voice from across the dark room. Firestar froze in place at the sound of the voice; she couldn’t see anyone in the dark.

“Who’s there?!” she questioned, standing in a rather aggressive posture. There was the sound of metal scraping over metal as a form raised itself up on the other side of the room. Without a word, it placed a servo to the wall and flicked on the lights. It was Ratchet, and now she realized that this was his bedroom. She’d never meat the medic personally, only heard about him. She assumed he spent most of his time here in the medbay, and this was her first time in there so obviously she hadn’t seen him before. He was a clean shade of white with red accents. He had a cold, but intelligent expression on his faceplate, which, now that she got a look at it, was quite handsome. The femme and the medic had chatted for some time in his room, mostly about the energon crystals. Firestar found that the longer she talked to him, the more she was admiring his cold disposition; he was so professional. Eventually it began to draw near to the time when Inferno would be returning, and Firestar knew she should go to wait for him and meet him at the door. But for some reason, today…a part of her didn’t want to. Ratchet had ended up giving her an energon crystal to take with her, since she seemed to like them so much, and sent her on her way. And as she turned back to say goodbye to him, the ghost of a smile crossed his pale lips as he nodded a farewell to her and closed the door. It had been absolutely stunning.

She had gone out to meet Inferno as she usually did, and although she was definitely happy to see her boy again, she just couldn’t seem to push the image of that small smile on Ratchet’s faceplate out of her processor. Even as Inferno recounted the events of the mission he’d been on, she found her mind still standing in that dark room again. She’d hung out with him for a while before going to bed, hoping to push the images that were haunting her out of her mind long enough to sleep.

That was three days ago. And now she was sitting in her room, waiting for Inferno to come pick her up for their date. On her shelf was the energon crystal she’d received from Ratchet, sitting in a place of honor under a glass dome she’d gotten from Wheeljack. Apparently it was a part of a machine he was working on, but he was absolutely positive that it wasn’t needed so he’d insisted she take it. About ten minutes later the lab was on fire and Wheeljack had been blown clear out the window, just a normal day at the Autobot base. Firestar couldn’t help but giggle a little at the memory, she liked Wheeljack well enough; he made her laugh. But right now, he was not one of the main mechs on her processor.  She cast a rather longing look at the energon crystal before there was a knock at her door.

“Come in!” she called, tearing her eyes away from the crystal in exchange for the entrance. The door slid open and there stood Inferno, smiling a cheesy grin at her and leaning in the doorframe.

“Is the little lady ready to go?” he asked playfully, extending a servo for her to take. Firestar smiled at him and said,
“Just give me a minute, I’m almost done.” She turned back to her mirror and picked up a small, buffer-like object. She began to carefully shine her freshly painted lips, making them shine attractively. Inferno strolled into the room and flopped down on her bed, his harms behind his head as he gazed over at the femme.

“You look great tonight.” He complemented. “But then again, that’s no surprise. You look great every time I see you.” Firestar smiled in response, not wanting to ruin her buffing job by speaking. “Hey…what’s that?” asked Inferno after a bit. Firestar put down the buffer to look where he was pointing. It was the energon crystal. Inferno got up off of the berth and walked over to the precious looking object beneath the glass dome. “It sure is pretty.” He observed, shifting so as to look at it from another angle. “Where’d you get it?” Firestar gulped and picked up a cloth to wipe off her faceplate.

“Well, it’s an energon crystal…and I got it from Ratchet.” She could feel the uneasiness that spawned from her answer. She turned to see Inferno still examining the crystal, although he had his back to her now. It was quiet for a while longer as she finished up her cleanup job and announced that she was ready to go. Inferno didn’t turn around for a few seconds, and when he did, she saw him push away an uncomfortable frown in favor of his usual cheesy grin.

“Alright then! Let’s go!” They went out into the hallway, their arms linked. Firestar couldn’t help but notice how Inferno seemed to try his best to stay clear of the medbay.

Later that night…

Inferno walked into the medbay in search of Ratchet. Ever since seeing the energon crystal in Firestar’s room, he’d been a bit uneasy about the situation. Not necessarily because someone else gave her a present though, because as far as he was concerned, everyone should be giving her presents! But it was the fact that the giver had been Ratchet that bothered him. Ratchet never gave anyone anything except for a hard smack with a wrench, and the concept of him suddenly changing his ways for Firestar just didn’t seem to fly with Inferno. He saw Ratchet sitting at the computer, typing efficiently away as he often did. Drawing in a deep sigh, Inferno approached the medic and asked,
“Hey Ratchet. Listen, can I talk to you for a second?” The medic clicked a final few words into place before closing whatever he was working on and turning to the red mech.

“Are you injured?” he asked plainly, most likely out of habit. Inferno shook his head and took a seat in one of the stools next to an examination table. He looked down at his hands folded in his lap for a bit, trying to think of what he should say. But Ratchet spoke first. “She’s beautiful.” Inferno’s optics widened. He slowly dragged his gaze from his servos to the medic, who’s back was to him again, his head bent over something that was shielded from Inferno’s view by Ratchet’s arm and torso.

“Come again?” pushed Inferno, now beginning to worry. Ratchet put whatever he’d been looking at into his chest compartment and turned to Inferno, his expression oddly distant.

“Firestar. She’s beautiful, and I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about her.” Inferno felt his mouth starting to twitch into a scowl.

“What about my gal?” he asked in a voice that was beginning to resemble a hiss. The medic stood from his chair and crossed his arms.

“I don’t think you treat her as well as you should.” Stated the medic plainly.

“I treat her fine!” Responded Inferno, his voice now verging on a roar. The medic cocked an optic and asked,

“Oh yeah? What do you two do together? Don’t answer that, I already know. You talk about YOUR missions. You bring her where YOU want to go. Everything’s YOU YOU YOU! When if you ask me, it should be HER HER HER!” Inferno stood up, knocking over his stool in the process.  He didn’t say anything, he was too angry, the only thing he could think to do is land a solid punch right in the medic’s mouth. Maybe he could shatter the white mech’s jaw before he even got the chance to try and kiss Firestar. He didn’t blame her for this, she obviously didn’t know he was thinking these things, but this meant war against Ratchet. Punching out, Inferno did land a bunch, but it wasn’t in Ratchet’s mouth as he’d wanted. Instead it struck the ambulance in the chest, causing the chest compartment to pop open and something small and thin to flutter gently out on to the floor. Inferno paused just long enough to see that it was a picture of Firestar before screaming in rage and running at the medic again. By now Ratchet had regain his footing and was grabbing his dreaded pipe wrench up off of one of the tables. But Inferno didn’t care, he lunged forward all the same, receiving a heavy smack to the head but taking down the medic in the process. The two mechs rolled and scuffled on the floor, each trying their best to inflict potentially fatal wounds upon their adversary. Suddenly, they froze in their wrestling positions as a voice wafted in from the door of the medbay. It was Firestar.

“Umm…did I miss something here?” she asked, cocking an optic at the two of them and folding her arms. Both Ratchet and Inferno gained a slight blush on their faceplates at the sight of the femme, and she watched in confusion as they scrambled off of each other and sat about five feet apart. They looked a lot like sparklings who’d just been told by their mother to go sit in time out in the corner. She sighed deeply, she knew this was going to happen sooner or later, or something like it anyway. Might as well deal with it now. Closing the door of the medbay, Firestar stepped in and pulled up a chair in front of the two mechs. “Alright, so…who wants to start?” she asked, her arms and legs crossed as she waited for a response. There was a brief silence before Inferno whined,

“Baby, he says I don’t treat you right! But I do, don’t I? You have fun with me, right?!” Firestar sighed and said,

“Alright, you really wanna know? Yeah, I have fun with you Inferno, but would it kill you to suffer through a chick flick every now and then for me? Or take a walk together instead of me listening to you talk about your battle missions?” Inferno looked down at his feet, pushing his fingers together cutely.

“HAH! I told you so!” exclaimed Ratchet, pointing an accusing finger at Inferno.

“And YOU!” said Firestar, looking at Ratchet. The medic froze in place as he waited for the femme’s wrath to ensue. “You’re hot, and don’t think I don’t notice it, but I’m Inferno’s girlfriend. And it’s funny actually, until a few minutes ago I really didn’t think you had any interest in me, but then I walked by and saw you two rolling around on the floor like Wheeljack after his machines explode and I didn’t think there could be any other reason. Well…at least I know my interest in you weren’t for nothing.” Inferno’s jaw gaped at her statement before he lowered his head and began to crawl towards the door. “Where are you going?” called Firestar from her seat, turning to look at the red mech. He turned around to look at her with watery optics and mumbled,

“I’m going to bed so you can be with Ratchet…” He pushed against the medbay door as Firestar glanced at Ratchet who shrugged. Getting up from her seat, Firestar grabbed him by the leg and dragged him back over to his previous position. With a wink and a smile Firestar said,

“I think I have a better idea. Can you two say, improvised double date?”

The next day, three autobots were spotted together in a remote field. They were having a picnic, and the femme seemed to be the center of attention. There were several small scuffles of who was going to knock over the ice cream truck when it came by in order to get Firestar her favorite type of popsicle. And when the truck finally did come by, the mechs were so busy mauling each other that Firestar got up, kicked it over, (to the delight of many children) and got her own ice cream.