Chapter 5, Check-ups and First Steps

3 months later.

(From Optimus's point of view)

I was reading a newspaper that morning when Phoenix crawled past me.

She tried to stand up to face me, but she fell flat on her face. She didn't cry, but she just giggled to herself.

I put down the newspaper and picked her up.

I lifted her to my face where we saw optic to optic. She started to feel my head, grabbing hold of one of my long antennas and she yanked it, yes it hurt but I didn't mind.

Then she felt my large nose and pulled that.

I smiled happily, she had tried to copy it a few times before but she always ended up making a funny face that made me laugh. But this time, she smiled like me.

"Hey Ariel, Phoenix just smiled at me. Come and have a look." I shouted.

My wife came in to have a look and she cried. "Well, I'll be she's smiling, good girl."

I then felt something tucking on my leg; we all looked down to see Draco pulling a part of my leg armour.

My wife picked him up and put him on my lap along with my daughter.

My daughter then pushed Dracoagongo, he pushed her back and then they started fighting with each other. Thankfully we pulled them apart before any damage was done.

Sibling rivalry, I should know. Megatron and I fight and argue all the time, even to this day.

Then Ariel looked at her diary for the day and yelled. "Oh Primus!"

"What is it dear?" I asked.

"Today's check-up day for the children at the doctors, and it's at twelve o'clock and it's now... fifteen minutes past eleven."

I looked down, expecting to see my kids but they had vanished.

They both hated the doctors, why, because a month after they were born they got the Cosmic Rust Jab. You know to stop them getting it and you should have heard them, they were crying for two days straight afterwards.

And now they're gone!

"Phoenixie, where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are." I said as I searched for them.

Hopefully, this won't be a problem when they're older.

I looked under all the draws and stuff. I found her in last place I'd look, under the sofa and I asked her. "Are you going to come out?"

She shook her head.

"Please?"

Again she shook her head.

Then an idea came to mind. "You can have a lollypop if you come out and go to the docs."

She thought hard about this and then she crawled out.

But Draco was harder to find, not long after I had found Phoenix I heard. "Found him!"

"Where was he?" I asked my wife.

"Under the sink in the kitchen!"

How did he get there without us knowing?

When she brought my son into the living room, he was struggling but when I told him about the lollypop, he stopped.

Ariel looked at the clock, it said 11.30 a.m.

"Well there's no time for walking, let’s get down to the ground floor."

On the ground floor.

When we got out of the door of the apartments Ariel transformed.

Her transformation was a sporty Cybertronian pink hover-car.

I did a wolf whistle, she said shut-up as I loaded the children into the two seats that she had and fastened their seatbelts.

I transformed into my silver and blue Cybertronian truck mode. We then started to make our way to the doctors.

We travelled along the highway, carefully driving along and making sure we weren’t going over the speed limit.

Then we got to the doctors.

I transformed and got the children out Ariel’s transformation, she then transformed herself. We then carried our children into the doctors.

We got there with 5 minutes to spare, which was good because we didn't have to wait long.

"Optimus and Ariel Pax?" The nurse called.

Yes, my last name is Pax; well actually it's my wife's last name. Myself? I don't have one that could ever remember.

We got up and went through.

In the Doctor's Office.

"Well, well, well. It's good to see you four again." First Aid said.

We put the children on the table and they starting fighting again.

"Do they always..." He started to ask.

"YES!" We both answered.

He looked at them; he then looked very confused and asked. "Which is which?"

I pointed out that Phoenix was the one on the right and Draco was on the left.

"How do you keep track of which is which, they both look exactly the same to me?" He asked me.

I then told him that my daughter always crawled to me first, since I was the first person she ever saw. And Draco was a bit of a mama's mech. The young doctor laughed at that last comment.

As he examined them, he kept asking questions like, "So, they've started crawling then?" and. "Have they started walking or talking yet?"

He checked their Sparkbeats, Energon pressure, audio receptors etc. Basically their overall heath.

When the examination was over, the doctor said sorry to the Sparklings about the jab a few months ago.

Phoenix then handed him her rattle in forgiveness, but he wouldn't accept it.

We had just picked them up and were heading out of the door when she shook her rattle.

I put her to my face to see what she was saying; she then put the rattle in her mouth and sucked it.

Oh the lollypop, I nearly forgot about that.

"First Aid, you don't have an Energon lollypop for them both, do you? It's just I promised them it if they came." I said.

"In fact, yes I do."

He opened a small draw with a whole load of them; he got two out and handed them to my children.

We thanked him and we headed back home.

4 months later.

(From Optimus's point of view)

By this time I had went back to work and was working overtime as the Science Division leader.

I wasn't forced too, I just needed (and wanted) to make for lost time. Usually I started work at ten o'clock and finished at six o'clock. But recently I’ve been coming home as late as nine o’clock.

Ariel wasn’t too happy that I was coming home at nearly nine o’clock instead of six. And Sentinel Prime keeps telling me that I’m overworking myself.

Anyway the day started out like any other normal day, I went to work in the morning and I came in that night, a bit tired.

I put my briefcase on the Energon Coffee table and looked for my wife, she was in the kitchen.

I said good evening to her and kissed her on the face; she half pushed me away and said. "Ditto. How was work today dreary?"

I replied that it was fine and then I asked about my children.

She turned to face me and said. "Draco's fine but Phoenixfire's been trying to learn how to walk on two legs, but she's getting nowhere. Would you find her and help her out? Shout me when you've found her."

So I started to look high and low for her, but then I found her sitting on the floor of the twin’s nursery, surrounded by toys.

She turned her head around to face me and she waved, wiggling her little fingers at me.

I sat down besides her and asked. "So, you've been trying to walk then."

She looked up at me and nodded her head. I patted her on the head and she smiled.

Then Draco crawled up behind us and sat down besides us.

"Ariel, I found both of them!!"

I looked behind me to see my wife saying. "Here Phoenixie, come to mummy!"

Phoenix saw her, tried to get up on her two feet and fell flat on her face.

She did this three times and every time she fell.

We then switched, Ariel held my daughter while I coaxed her over to me.

My wife then let go of her and she started to walk towards me, slowly, bumbling but she was walking.

"Good girl, come on. You can do it, just a little bit more!" I said.

It took ten minutes for her to walk seven foot. But in the end she put her arms out to hug me (as she was still walking) and she tripped but I grabbed her.

"You did it! Well done Phoenixfire!" I said and her response was a giggle.

I hope you haven't forgotten that Draco was watching all this and when he saw that she was getting more praise, he tried to walk.

This ended in him falling... Backwards on his bum. And of course he started crying his head off.

His sister rolled her optics as if to say 'cry-baby'! She wasn't kidding.

I was hoping that Draco was going to stop this crying.

He didn't, why?

Because he saw that his sister had started laughing at him.

As my wife picked him up, he jumped out of her arms and back to the ground.

Within seconds, both brother and sister had started fighting.

That's the only problem with having twins. We broke them apart without trouble.

I knew this was down to the usual brother-sister rivalship as usual. I personally know this rivalship well, though Magnus, Megatron and I were older than when normal rivalry starts.