Where There Is Smoke…

Rated:T

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC's please ask before using any part of them.

Takes place after "Legacy" but since I hadn't seen any episodes after that by the time I wrote this, I won't follow the same individual plots those episodes do.

Talking: "English or other Earth languages"

"Cybertronian,"

:Comm. link:

'Thoughts'

(Bond talk)

**(Bumblebee speaking)**

Optimus Prime stared blankly at the Star Saber as it glowed brightly in his grasp."I am receiving a message"

"From who?"

"Alpha Trion…"

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Optimus was unaware of what was going on around him as his processors were overrun by information that had been stored inside the blade of the Star Saber by the Master Archivist for him to find.

This information told him of the power of not only the Star Saber, but of two other weapon's as well—The Skyboom Shield and the Requiem Blaster—and the unspeakable power the three had when combined together.

Optimus Prime knew they were on Earth somewhere, like all the other Iacon relics, and it was imperative that these three were never found by Decepticons, with them they could wipe out entire galaxies at leisure.

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When the message ended, the Autobot leader reset his optics once and looked at his fellow Autobots , who were watching him with concern.

"Optimus, what did the message say?" Ratchet checked his leader over for any sort of damage.

"It told me of two other Iacon relics that coincide with the Star Saber; The Skyboom Shield and the Requiem Blaster,"

"So, basically, the Star Saber is part of a set?"

Smokescreen stepped forward, having drawn back when he was getting reprimanded for his actions earlier. "Yeah, The Star Saber, the Skyboom Shield and the Requiem Blaster were all weapons created by Solus Prime. According to legend, when the three are combined they form a super weapon known as the Hydra Cannon, which is rumored to be able to blast whole planets to atoms with a single shot,"

The whole room was stunned into a moment of silence which was broken by Arcee. "Okay, so letting the 'Cons get a hold of one would be a bad thing,"

Bumblebee nodded **(Oh, yeah. Very bad.)**

While the others were talking about what the Saber's message held, the monitors beeped. Thinking it was Agent Fowler calling, Ratchet answered, pretending to be one of those "Voicemail messengers" the humans used. "Hello, you have reached Omega Outpost I. Sorry we missed your call but if you leave your name and contact information…"

:Ratchet, this is June Darby. I am outside, and I know you're all in so open the door and let me inside.:

Sensing there was no room in her tone for argument, he reluctantly complied. "Heads up, Nurse Darby just got here,"

"Who?" Smokescreen had never met Nurse Darby himself.

"Nurse June Darby is the only adult human that frequents our base besides Agent Fowler. She is also Jack's mother, which means I do not think it is a mystery as to why she is here,"

"Umm, 'Mother'?"

Arcee shot him a devious smirk "Oh, that's right, you don't know a lot about humans yet. In other words, I believe Jack's Carrier would like a few words with you,"

Smokescreen froze up as realization hit him and a human woman with slight resemblance to Jack—same hair, only long and tied back, and same eyes—came around the corner and marched up the stairs to the humans' area with her fists clenched at her sides and an irritated look on her face.

Once she reached the edge, she looked right at Smokescreen. "Are you Smokescreen?"

Everything about this woman reminded him of a Cybertronian Carrier whose sparkling had been put in harm's way by somebot that was supposed to be looking after them, Smokescreen nodded and took a tentative step forward, actually fearing for his well-being under her piercing gaze.

June crossed her arms across her chest "Just what did you think you were doing? Not only could you have gotten Jack into serious trouble with those pranks you pulled, you willingly brought him with you to someplace where the Decepticons could have been with no back up… You boys could have been killed!"

Optimus stepped in "Nurse Darby, I understand your concern for Jack's well-being, but while the actions taken by our new recruit were foolish, the reason they had no back up was because we had been led astray by a false locator beacon into a "dead zone" in communications and had no way of knowing this until Ratchet bridged himself to our location and told us himself,"

"So, basically, the Decepticons were playing 'keep away' with you and Jack got caught in the middle?"

Smokescreen sighed in relief, now that attention was off him for a while.

June's head snapped back in his direction. "Oh, I'm not done with you yet. Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done and I'll deal with you in a minute,"

"But…"

Her eyes narrowed as she pointed to a corner of the room "Corner, now."

Smokescreen doorwings lowered submissively as he slumped with a brief "Yes, ma'am," and trudged over to the corner and sat on the ground facing away from the others, who were shocked by this act of obedience and started talking amongst themselves.

"Did you see that?"

"He never listens to us like that,"

Optimus looked over at the usually arrogant and headstrong mech and back at June, who was walking closer to them. "Now could someone please tell me what has been going on?"

"Smokescreen recently came to Earth in an escape pod he stole from a Decepticon ship. Since then he has been helping us locate and retrieve the remaining Iacon relics which is helpful since he worked at the Hall of Records himself. However, since he had much to learn about Earth and its customs in order to remain under the radar, we asked that Jack teach him since he was usually the responsible one. As you can imagine, that didn't go quite as planned."

"No kidding,"

After much consideration, the Prime continued. "Which is why I will be reconsidering Jack as an appropriate partner for Smokescreen until he can act more mature and not draw the human children down any dark paths; The issue of him needing a suitable teacher still standing, and after what we have just seen, might I ask if you could be the one to teach him?"

"Me?"

Arcee counted reasons off her digits "You are more mature than Jack so you won't pull pranks like they did, You have more experience therefore you have more to teach, and you got that punk to listen better than we ever could,"

**(And you lost your car in that tornado during the Unicron incident.)**

Bulkhead looked down at her with confusion. "Hey, yeah, how have you been getting around without your car?"

Catching on to what he meant since she didn't understand Bumblebee "I've been getting rides with Jack and Arcee or I walk. Thankfully it's a small town so I don't have to walk as far,"

"It's settled then, Smokescreen, front and center,"

Smokescreen got up and came to stand in front of everyone. "Smokescreen, due to recent events and the fact you are still lacking knowledge of Earth and human customs, you will be Nurse Darby's guardian for the time being. She will also be teaching you what you need to know to remain hidden from the human population and, to prevent what happened with Jack from repeating itself, I will be giving her the authority to tell you if you get out of line and I expect regular reports from both of you. Is that understood?"

June nodded her understanding "Yes Optimus,"

Smokescreen saluted "Optimus Prime, sir, I know I seriously fragged up last time, but I swear I will do better. Thank you for giving me second chance,"

"At ease, soldier. For now, I believe Nurse Darby should be heading home as it is late in the evening,"

Nodding, Smokescreen transformed into his vehicle mode and opened a door for her while she descended the stairs back to ground level.

"Hmm, already knows to hold the door for a lady, that's a start." She looked up at Arcee "You coming home tonight too?"

Arcee went rigid when she realized what this meant. "OH HELL NO! You mean we're going to have to…?"

Smokescreen chuckled "Guess this means we're roomies, huh, Arcee?"

Arcee growled at him before transforming and speeding out of the base.

"What? Was it something I said?"

June climbed in and fastened her seatbelt. "Let's just go, you can ask her about it when we get there,"

Smokescreen closed the door and was about to peel out of the base like he usually did… he got about nine feet before squealing to a stop.

"Just checking to see if the brakes work,"

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On the way back to the Darbys' house, after they got over the awkward silence the two got to know each other better; June told him about her work as a nurse and some of the things that happened with her and Jack in the past, Smokescreen told her about his family back on Cybertron, his training in the Elite Guard and how he went from guarding the Hall of Records to landing on Earth.

"…And I think Prime and the others might have told you the rest,"

Smokescreen pulled into the driveway and made his engine quieter so he wouldn't wake anyone and let Nurse Darby out.

"Thanks for the ride. Normally I park out here when Arcee's in the garbage but if that's a problem for you…"

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine. Arcee's probably still mad at me anyway so I think I'll just give her space for now,"

June grabbed her bag as she got out and gently shut the door. "Goodnight, Smokescreen,'

"G'night," Smokescreen used his proximity scanners to check the area for potential threats while his new Charge walked up to the door and let herself in before powering down for recharge.

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The next morning

June was running late for work and didn't have time to walk to the hospital. However, Arcee had already taken Jack to school so she would have to find another way. After locking the door and trotting down the drive, she spotted the blue and white sports car with red pin striping parked outside.

'Well, this is just bittersweet; the very bot I'm supposed to be mad at is my new guardian,'

Carefully walking up to the still vehicle "Smokescreen?" she gently patted his hood.

Smokescreen slowly powered up his systems and started to transform. "Hmm, huh? What?"

Seeing the disaster in the making, June tried to get him to settle down before anyone else saw. "Smokescreen, calm down, you can't transform here, someone will see you,"

Remembering where he was, the mech settled back down on his axels. "Oh, sorry, what did you need?"

"Well, if it isn't too much trouble, do you think you can give me a lift to work? Jack and Arcee already left,"

"Sure, hop in," he popped his door open, then June noticed something; Smokescreen was parked right in the middle of the driveway, how did Arcee get past him if she was in the garage?

Then she noticed the tire tracks on the lawn and the dirt and grass on Smokescreen on that side.

'I told them not to drive on the lawn…' "Hang on, you got grass on you," she wiped the worst of it off with her hand.

"Huh? How did that get…" he noticed the tire tracks and figured out what had happened, then he chuckled darkly. "I see how it is. Well, two can play at that game,"

June got in and stomped on the brake while she put her seatbelt on and shut the door.

"OW! What was that for?"

"Don't think I've forgotten the little prank spree you brought Jack on."

Smokescreen grumbled to himself. "It's not like anyone got hurt,"

"No, but those pranks you pulled that involved other people's vehicles count as vandalism, which is illegal."

"Really?"

"Really,"

Smokescreen hadn't realized it was that serious, he thought the others were just glitching because he wasn't all serious all the time. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that,"

June slowly pulled her foot off the pedal. "I guess that's one of the things Jack didn't get to teach you yet,"

Smokescreen rocked on his suspension, the closest thing he could get to a nod or a shrug while in vehicle mode, and slowly backed out into traffic.

"Well, if I'm going to teach you anything, first thing we need to do is see what you already know,"

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"Okay, turn signal here," June could see the sign for the hospital ahead.

"Are we turning here?"

"No, but we need to let other drivers know ahead of time so we don't cause an accident. We're turning at that sign that says "Outpatient and surgery entrance" so you might want to slow down so you don't…"

SCREEEEECH!

June screamed when they whipped around the turn and pulled up to the doors.

"Okay, here we are. Huh, so this is a human medical facility?"

June pressed her hand over her chest and took a few deep breaths to keep her heart from pounding its way out of her chest. Once she was able to breathe again, she grabbed her bag off the floor board. "Well, Smokescreen, for the most part you're doing pretty good, you just need to be a little more careful and less reckless,"

"Not bad, right?"

June smiled kindly "No worse than Jack was when he was still learning," That was almost a little too much like when Jack was learning to drive in her opinion.

"Awesome, you want me to pick you up later?"

June thought about it. "My shift gets done at ten tonight, if you're still available then, sure."

"Alright, what is your comm. frequency in case we need to contact each other?"

June reached into her pocket for her phone. "I don't have an actual comm. link, but Ratchet fixed mine and the children's phones so they were compatible with the Autobots comm. systems. My number is…"

She gave him the area code followed by the seven digits of her cell phone number, which he downloaded into his comm. systems and memory banks. "So what is your…?" She stopped when her phone buzzed with an unknown number on the Caller I.D. "Is that you?"

"Yep,"

She opened the phone and read the text that simply said. "Call me ; )" and put the phone away after saving the number in her contacts. "Alright, see you later,"

"Later," he opened the door for her.

She got out and gently closed it. "Thanks for the ride,"

"No problem," he waited until she was on the sidewalk before driving away. Out of habit she called after him "Drive safely," but he was already gone.

As she turned and walked up to the doors, she shook her head 'Between him and Jack, It's going to be like dealing with two teenage boys from now on, isn't it?'

As Smokescreen drove back to base, he mentally smiled to himself. 'Maybe this whole "guardian" thing doesn't seem so bad, after all,'

AN: Well, this is my first fic that isn't entirely G1 continuity. Although it might have a few G1 elements later. Catch any references? Comments, questions, suggestions and predictions are always welcome. Any flames will be converted into energon to be made into energon goodies for the nice people that review. Until next time…

Hugs and mugs,

Lady Quickshift