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“How do Cybertronians know if they’ve met their soulmate?” Carly sat on the table in front of Ironhide and sipped at a mug of warm cocoa as he drank his energon.
“Soulmate?” Ironhide asked, perplexed. Then he considered the files that Jazz had compiled about the species and followed up with, “That like a sparkmatch?”
Carly cocked her head to the side, considering. “Yeah, I guess it would be.”
“Takes a medic or someone with a real fine audial, like Jazz. Our sparks resonate on the same frequency.” Ironhide sipped his energon as she looked thoughtful for a minute. “Why, how do you do it?”
“There’s a spark, literally. And then you both have matching scars wherever you were touching.” She sighed. “Chip and Spike have them on their feet, and Sparkplug’s is on his back.”
“Chip and Spike?” Ironhide felt his brows lift. “How’d that happen?”
“They were toddlers, apparently. Sparkplug didn’t know the details, and Spike wouldn’t talk about it when I asked.” Carly shrugged. “It’s platonic, anyway. Which is good, because Spike is nuts about Bumblebee.”
“Yeah, but you still sound sad.” Ironhide lowered his cube and really focused on the human in front of him. “How come?”
“I just…” She sighed. “It’s stupid, because it shouldn’t define me, but I just know all these people who’ve met their soul mates and the best I’ve ever gotten is static electricity.”
“Ah, you’re young for a human, Carly. You’ve got time to find them.” Ironhide wrapped a comforting hand around her. “Even if they’re a Nebulan or something.”
“What’s a Nebulan?” He smiled as she took his bait, and he happily changed the subject.
Now wasn’t the time to tell her that Wheeljack’s spark had shifted its pulse to match her heartbeat, anyway. That would be for the engineer to figure out how to do, once Ratch let him out of the medbay.