Chapter Text
“You know,” Cody began with the kind of curious tone that made most of his family roll their eyes or the Rescue Bots look on in abject confusion (and possibly horror), “I never thought that other people from outer space would also know English. It’s kinda neat when you think about it! I know a lot of people on Earth speak it, but—”
Boulder chuckled and carefully deposited the half-repaired race course obstacle he’d been readjusting next to the Burns’ firehouse. His laughter rumbled out through his large metal frame and warmed Cody to the core even from several feet away at the Graham- and Doc Greene-approved distance. Even still, Cody couldn’t help but feel a little put out.
When Boulder noticed Cody’s frown, he amended, “I’m not laughing at you, Cody.” He offered a hand, palm up, for Cody to clamber onto and be eye-level with Boulder. Cody accepted, and Boulder continued, “The other Rescue Bots and I downloaded a human languages file after Optimus found us. I laughed because I remembered when Graham asked me the same question about how we spoke English a while back. I find the variation in how different cultures approach language so fascinating!”
“You…downloaded a file to learn English?"
“Right into my processor,” Boulder agreed, “and a bunch of other Earth languages too! I never thought that one planet could have so many. Bumblebee has been an absolute spark, er, lifesaver, when it comes to translating slang and new English vocabulary. He certainly knows his way around human radio!”
“Bumblebee helped you guys learn English? That’s so noble…” Cody paused, considering as he sat with a dull metallic thump. “Hold on. So if you had to learn English, what did you speak before you came to Griffin Rock?”
“On average, Rescue Bots download more language files than most other bots, just in case we needed to help out non-Cybertronians. But way back when on Cybertron? I suppose the best translation in English would simply be ‘the Cybertronian language.’ There are also a few so-so translations of Cybertronian-specific words that don’t have an exact English equivalent.”
Cody’s eyes went as round as quarters. He began to ramble and flap his hands so excitedly, Boulder had to readjust his hold so Cody wouldn’t fall. “Can you say ‘Cybertronian’ in Cybertronian? I wanna hear! Wait, can you teach me Cybertronian? It’d be so noble to talk with you how you talk with us! I promise I’d be the best student ever and…what’s wrong, Boulder?”
Boulder’s orange headlight eyes flickered, the lenses shifting and refocusing. “It’s…it’s not so simple, Cody. Cybertronian and human anatomy are very different. Graham and I discovered that humans must not have the necessary components to speak Cybertronian. Graham wasn’t able to, not for lack of trying. He told me he had to drink hot tea and eat something called cough drops for ages after his first attempt. Although I’m not sure why he’d want to eat pieces of cough since that’s what he was trying to stop in the first place.”
Cody giggled. “Cough drops aren’t pieces of coughs. It’s kinda like how you and the other bots use motor oil to make your gears run more smoothly, I guess. For humans, cough drops smooth out an achy throat.”
“Hm…I suppose that connection makes sense. That being said, I don’t want you hurting yourself, even if your spark is in the right place, Cody.”
Cody reluctantly nodded, making Boulder’s stiff lower jaw curve into an almost-smile. Some human expressions didn’t quite translate into Cybertronian ones, Cody had noticed. A lot of things didn’t translate between the Burns family and the Rescue Bots, but they’d all worked together pretty well so far, even with the occasional hiccups. As Cody hummed at Boulder’s—admittedly sensical—reasoning, his brain raced at a million miles a minute.
Even if Boulder wouldn’t directly teach Cody how to speak Cybertronian, nothing was stopping Cody from observing and learning on his own! He just had to be a little more observant than usual and ask more casually curious questions. But not too many, otherwise Boulder and the other bots might catch on to Cody’s plan!
“Okay, Boulder.” Cody looked up at Boulder sheepishly with the sweet puppy-dog eyes that his family could never quite say “no” to. “But can you still say something in Cybertronian? I remember some kids at school saying that they felt more like themselves in Spanish, or Ukrainian, or Farsi, or whatever else since that’s what they learned before English. I just think it’d be noble to learn what you guys sound like!”
Boulder’s headlight eyes shuttered and dimmed slightly, softening his expression. “Sure thing, Cody. I’d never deny a young spark so eager to learn! So long as they didn’t get hurt, of course. What would you like to hear?”
There was that word again: spark.
“Maybe something about ‘sparks?’ You and the other bots reference them a lot. What are they?”
When Boulder didn’t immediately respond, Cody’s brow scrunched together, and he gently knocked on Boulder’s palm from where he sat. With a dull thump-thump-thump, Boulder shook off his faraway expression.
Boulder’s chest rumbled softly as he explained reverently, “It’s…it’s what makes us, well, us. To humans, you might call it our heart, but ‘soul’ might be more accurate, enclosed in a protective sparkchamber in our chassis, or chest. If that light is snuffed, then we return to the Well of Allsparks before our next journey in the universe. Our sparks connect us in a way that’s hard to explain in English, Cody. Sparks are…everything.”
“Noble,” Cody said in awe.
That word hung in the cool morning air. Birds chirped overhead in a cloudless sky. From a cracked-open window, Cody could just make out Dani and Kade’s faint bickering about who used the last of the milk for breakfast.
With a deep breath (Do bots even need to do that to keep functioning? Cody wondered.) in, Boulder did the Cybertronian equivalent of clearing his throat. Cody heard some internal mechanisms transforming and shifting away, resulting in the omnipresent humming all the Rescue Bots emitted growing twice as loud.
Cody had no idea what Boulder said, but the air of positivity and enthusiasm Boulder exuded on a regular basis seemed to wrap around Cody like a warm hug with each whir, click, and hum. Cody’s whole body seemed to buzz, like that one time he got a little too close to the speakers at one of Mayor Luskey’s dramatic town hall speeches.
“You sound so…wow,” Cody said breathlessly, hugging Boulder’s thumb tightly for support. “What’d you say?”
Boulder began to speak in a few Cybertronian clicks before shaking his head and smiling at Cody. In English, Boulder’s voice still carried an underlying hum, but Cody could still understand him just fine.
“I said, ‘Hello, sweet sparkling. What a curious young spark you are!’ That’s as near a translation I can figure.”
Cody giggled and thanked Boulder for the compliment. Then he mulled over that unfamiliar word and asked, “What’s a sparkling? Is it one of those Cybertronian words that doesn’t really have an English equivalent?”
“Good memory,” Boulder praised, tone endlessly warm with that underlying hum. It almost made Cody want to curl up for a nap, right there in Boulder’s hand. “‘Sparkling’ would be what most Cybertronians would call you, Cody. A more casual term might be ‘bitlet’ or ‘bitty.’ ‘Sparkling’ is what we call our children just past newspark age.”
“There are Cybertronian kids?! Are any my size? What are they like? It’d be so noble to meet some and be friends and—” Cody paused when he felt Boulder go still. “What’s wrong, Boulder?”
Boulder smiled sadly. “The war has changed a lot of things, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” Cody said quietly, fidgeting with his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry, Boulder.”
The Rescue Bots didn’t mention the Autobot-Decepticon war very much, especially since they were in space drifting in stasis for most of it. And now, they’d been sent by Optimus Prime to protect and learn from humans in Griffin Rock away from the war. Even still, reminders of the war still reared their ugly faces like the bots hiding their Energon rationing or their somber faces after Optimus’ tenser check-in calls.
“It’s not your fault, Cody. While the circumstances of our arrival in Griffin Rock weren’t the best, I, for one, am glad to have met you and your family.”
“I am too.” Then, Cody got an idea. “If it’s not too weird or disrespectful or anything, you guys can call me ‘sparkling’ if you want to!”
Boulder chuckled, like he knew something Cody didn’t. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Then, of course, because nothing can be peaceful in Griffin Rock for too long, the firehouse alarms blared.
Boulder and Cody’s comms erupted to life with Chief Burns ordering, “All hands on deck! The water main ruptured downtown.”
Heatwave’s voice then crackled to life in response, “Understood, Chief. Rescue Bots: roll to the rescue!”
As Boulder let Cody down so he could run off to run communications at the command center, Cody couldn’t help but notice the faint mechanical whirs and hums traded back and forth when Boulder and the other bots rolled out. Cody wondered why no one else in his family had pointed out those sounds before, but that didn’t matter now. After all, Cody Burns was on the case, and he wouldn’t stop his language-learning mission until he could speak Cybertronian with the Rescue Bots! He’d just have to hide the actual speaking part until the bots realized it wouldn’t hurt him like it did with Graham. Surely it wouldn’t, right?
Besides, it was the least Cody could do to help the Rescue Bots feel more at home after all their effort to protect his.