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Lennox didn't think much of N.E.S.T.'s new resident Decepticon psychopaths.
During those first couple probationary months he'd been a nervous wreck, just waiting for one of them to stamp on his men, or blow up a hanger, or rip another one of the Bots in half. That no such trauma had yet come to pass felt more like luck than it did any genuine intention of their's to change for the better and learn not to kill things for fun.
They lived in one of the older hangers, far, far on the other side of the island -now a restricted area for obvious health and safety reasons- and it was often easy to forget they were even there. Unless the screaming and fighting started up, then it was hard to ignore them tearing chunks out of each other in the sky.
"I thought they were on the same team?" Lennox was munching his way through a bag of chips as he and Optimus stood on the beach, watching Starscream pummel Megatron with an uprooted palm tree where they were fighting in the shallows.
Megatron fell with a snarling curse, a wave crashing over him.
"They have a lot of pent up aggression," Optimus murmured, watching with narrowed optics, like he couldn't quite figure it out himself. "I suppose it's better to let them take it out on each other."
"No room in the budget for couples therapy?" Lennox joked, as Starscream threw down the palm tree and stomped back to shore, shaking his wings free of salt water, leaving Megatron flailing as another wave crashed over him.
"It would take many human life-spans to even scrape the surface," Optimus muttered in such a deeply regretful tone he obviously knew much more than he would have liked about their messed up relationship.
That they were even here was still a mystery to Lennox. They didn't go on missions with N.E.S.T, or even just the Bots, but they were free to come and go as they pleased, blasting off into the sky with no regard for air traffic control. Epps said he'd been in a chopper that had nearly span out because Starscream had shot past less than a metre above it's main rotors. Their simple presence was a disaster waiting to happen. A death toll in waiting.
Even he didn't have the clearance to know why the last (and therefore most cockroach-like) of the Decepticons hadn't been taken prisoner and put down for good the moment they'd stepped foot on Diego Garcia. And he couldn't even begin to imagine what the shit the government wanted with two aliens who had, in the very recent past, declared open season on all organic life. But Prime had vouched for them, and if he was able to get past the fact that they'd literally killed him, Lennox couldn't really make all that much a fuss about it.
Didn't mean he had to be friends with them though.
The feeling was obviously mutual, as neither Starscream nor Megatron paid any mind to humans of any rank or importance, including visiting government officials. They hated everyone. People they didn't even know, just because they were people.
With the sole exception of one human.
A teenage girl.
"Babysitting?" Epps exclaimed when they realised she wasn't joking and she really was cleared to be wandering around the restricted section rolling a old tire. "For the Con's?!"
"Those nut jobs don't have kids," Lennox held his gun a little tighter at just the thought of Megatron and Starscream multiplying.
"Yeah, haven't you seen them?" Mikaela frowned. "Starscream doesn't keep them locked up."
Lennox blew air past his lip, "I think we'd have noticed-!"
"Wait," Epps clicked his fingers, eyes widened in realisation. "Not those creepy little metal skeletons?"
"They're called hatchlings," she rolled her eyes at them impatiently- typical teenager. "And they're not skeletons. Starscream says they haven't formed armour yet, so they're just kinda delicate-"
"What the-?" Lennox held up his hands, struggling to process so much information at once. "You and Starscream, speak? About babies?"
Mikaela just arched a single unimpressed eyebrow- because casually conversing with a ten-thousand year old war criminal and cooing over his unholy offspring with him wasn't abnormal at all.
"Aren't they- but won't they-" Lennox gestured helplessly. "Lets say I believe you, and those horrible little things we see crawling over them are kids... You're left alone with them, and no one even thought to arm you?"
"Why would I need a gun?" Mikaela squinted.
"Because you're 'babysitting' feral killing machines?" Epps deadpanned.
"No, they're sweet," Mikaela argued, and Lennox's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "They're still learning."
"Learning what?" Lennox heard his voice become shrill, but there wasn't much he could do to stop it. "How to be more efficient killers?! Who's idea was this?!"
"Optimus's," she said angrily, clearly offended. "And I do a good job, guys. Even Starscream says so."
Lennox stared dully.
Epps shifted his footing awkwardly, but a smirk was pulling at his mouth, "Does he pay well? Maybe I can get a transfer?"
Mikaela flipped her long dark hair over one shoulder and turned away with a disgusted noise, disappearing back inside the dreaded hanger with the tire, where the 'hatchlings' were presumably being contained in their parent's absence.
"What's the tire for!?" Lennox regained his ability to speak in time to call after her.
"To chew on!" Mikaela's disembodied voice shouted back.
Lennox had seen their teeth. So yeah, it was probably a good precaution to have chew toys around.
Mikaela's flippancy aside, it was weird. The whole thing was weird. He'd thought they'd been dealing with a dysfunctional Decepticon marriage, in reality, it was a dysfunctional Decepticon family. And if Megatron and Starscream hated each other so much, why have kids in the first place?!
"They don't have gender," Epps scowled, a few days later in the mess, taking a big bite of his sandwich and speaking through the mouthful. "'Hide tol' me."
"I didn't say Starscream was the 'girl', I just said I think he's the 'mom'," Lennox pointed his banana at him.
Epps tossed the sandwich down in exasperation, swallowing his mouthful, "You think that fucking robot gave birth?!"
Lennox felt himself grow flustered, "I didn't say that! I meant it like, like he's the one that looks after them-"
"Mikaela does that."
"Not twenty-four-seven," Lennox began peeling his banana. "And trust me, parenting is all day, every day. Mikaela's only here on the holidays and weekends."
"How much looking after can they need?" Epps muttered, scowling into the middle distance. "One of those little assholes chewed the track-plates off a tank last week. They're already lethal."
"To us maybe." Lennox shrugged, thinking back to that night he'd been on beach patrol and seen a disgruntled Megatron flick one of the hatchling's off his shoulder, watching it thud into the sand fifty-feet below without so much as a flicker of concern. Father of the Year, watch out.
"They still need watching." He said. "Protecting, I guess."
(From their own bad parents.)
At least now whenever he was feeling insecure about his own capabilities as a father to Annabelle, just looking at Megatron was a huge confidence boost. No wonder Starscream was always bitching, and hissing, and throwing palm trees at him.
"I just wanna know how they made them." Epps stroked his jaw.
Lennox paused with his banana half way into his mouth. He withdrew it awkwardly, clearing his throat, "That's a hard pass for me."
"In case they make more," Epps argued. "If there's some secret Decepticon-making factory somewhere..."
Lennox stopped himself short from suggesting that if there was one, and it was probably between Starscream's long raptor-like legs.
"They share a room," he said instead. "Sleep together."
"That's because there was no where else to put them and Optimus doesn't want them in the main hanger. In case they 'accidentally' step on someone," Epps argued.
"Or they didn't want to be in the main hanger. Maybe they wanted some privacy?"
"To do what?!"
"...Make more little Decepticons."
Epps looked ready to throw his sandwich crusts at him. Lennox bit into his banana with a smirk.
Lennox didn't actually believe that Cybertronian's were capable of reproducing like mammals could. But it did still bug him. 'Hatchlings' implied that someone, somewhere had laid giant metal eggs, and a running joke around base was that Starscream kinda looked like a big angry chicken, but maybe he was overthinking things, making connections that just weren't there.
He never got close enough to the Decepticons to take a look (thank God), but Optimus and Ironhide were pretty tall and whenever he stood at ground level next to them, he did find himself having to stare up past their codpieces to see their face. What was worrying was that there were seams on the paneling, like they were made to open, and maybe there was... stuff under there.
"Do you guys lay eggs?" He finally cracked and asked Ratchet. The Autobot's medic glanced up at him, intrigued.
"Just, yes or no," Lennox cut in before Ratchet could begin a lecture of the finer details of Cybertronian reproduction. "I don't want details."
"No," Ratchet growled. "We don't lay eggs."
And so at last, Lennox knew peace.
'Hatchling' was likely just some random english noun the Cybertronian's had picked for their young. Maybe their young were built into protective shells, hence the need to 'hatch'. Whatever the reason, at least he could finally banish the traumatising mental image of a big ugly Con squatting and bearing down to produce their horrific monstrosities once and for all.
And sleep soundly at night, knowing that more of them wouldn't suddenly be popping up out of nowhere because Megatron and Starscream got along for a day and decided to get handsy with each other.
Until a month or so later, when he was trying to read a report in the main hanger and Epps' elbow jabbed him hard in the ribs. "Ow, Jesus-!" He snapped, scrabbling to catch the paper fluttering to the ground. "What-?"
He scowled at Epps, but Epps was staring towards the hanger entrance with his neck craned all the way back. Lennox abandoned the disorganised papers and followed his gaze.
Starscream was ducking inside.
The soldiers near the doors scurried away from him, their grips shifting on their weapons as the jet's huge wings seemed to take up all the space above. There were further, increasingly panicked sounding noises when behind him, Megatron's towering frame ducked in, claws hooked and teeth bared. Even taller than Optimus, his head only just cleared the rafters.
"What are they doing?" Lennox was taking his own self-preserving steps back as the two Decepticons stalked further into the human-crowded space, dark optics scanning for something, or someone. "Are they lost? Are they here to kill us-?"
Siren's whooped and to Lennox's relief, Ratchet's altmode whipped around the consoles and workstations to pull up in front of Starscream, stopping him in his tracks. The jet bristled in annoyance.
"I told you to wait outside," Ratchet growled at him, transforming abruptly. Upright, he set his hands on his hips, but at nearly half the jet's size, it didn't have much effect.
"Outside? Where anyone can see?!" Starscream exclaimed, his wings moving on his back expressively.
Lennox couldn't recall having ever actually heard Starscream speak english. His preferred form of communication was hissing, snarling, and shouting at Megatron in aggressive sounding Cybertronian. He had a harsh, shrill voice, so different to Megatron's rumbling timbre.
"As opposed to in here, where anyone can see?" Ratchet challenged.
"Then banish the humans," Megatron ordered, looming behind one of Starscream's wings. "Before I do so for you."
Lennox heard Epps flick the safety off his gun.
"Chill out," He muttered out of the corner of his mouth, subtly pushing Epps' gun back down.
"I don't know why you're here at all, Megatron, you're not allowed within fifty feet of any human without supervision," Ratchet growled as his scanner activated and blue lasers rushed up and down Starscream's frame.
"What's wrong with him?" Lennox asked, recognising the lasers as a medical scan. He stepped forward cautiously, studying Starscream's complicated frame. "Is he sick?"
He tried not to sound too hopeful.
"Worse," Megatron declared operatically, and it was the first time he had ever directly spoken to a human on base.
"Worse?" Starscream hissed dangerously, before he could elaborate, "It's your fault-!"
"It takes two to tango, as the humans say." Ratchet interrupted joylessly, before they could start trading blows. "And yes, you're right. There are two dozen additional spark signatures detected. Congratulations." He intoned flatly.
The reactions to ...whatever Ratchet had just told them varied considerably. Megatron visibly slumped and seemed to shrink by a full metre. Whereas Starscream straightened up proudly, puffing out his chest.
"What... What's happening?" Lennox looked at Epps in the hope he had an answer. "Two dozen whats?"
"I think he's pregnant," Epps said numbly.
Lennox shook his head, "He's not fucking pregnant, he-"
"Pregnant is an acceptable term in your vocabulary, yes," Ratchet agreed flippantly, bringing reality crashing down onto Lennox.
"...What?!" He shouted, voice echoing through the hanger. Two Decepticon glares landed on him, but he didn't care. "You!" He pointed at Ratchet. "You said your species didn't lay eggs."
"Eggs," Starscream himself scoffed. "Pods, human. Hatchlings gestate in pods. Far superior to your prehistoric egg nonsense."
Lennox fisted his hands in his own hair and pulled on it, "Did you say a dozen?"
"Two dozen," Ratchet said, like it was no big deal, transforming away his scanners.
Epps knocked his shoulder against Lennox's, smiling like he was taking this all in his stride, "Guess you were right about Starscream being the mom, huh?"