#allor

Funniest typo I found while editing:

When Bee first emerged from the Well of Allsparks, he was not taken in by Optimus & Co. immediately. Instead, he was first raised by and bonded to a small group of mecha (I think maybe from Praxus? Can't check because I don't have my notes with me; ultimately it's not that important where exactly they lived) that perished in a Decepticon attack while Bee survived.

As Bee was still very young at that point, his spark was not stable on its own (like not AT ALL) and, when Autobot Search and Rescue Teams arrived, he was basically fluxing really badly. His spark was on the brink of teetering out and, in its panic, reaching out for ANY adult Cybertronian around in a really desperate attempt to stabilise itself. It just kinda happened to be Ratchet who first came close enough for Bee to latch onto. Which was also very lucky because Ratchet had the knowledge to stabilise him.

I imagine that it was kinda awkward when Ratchet kinda randomly brought Bee home from the rescue mission after that. Especially because he not only bonded to that sparkling, but also got attached to him really fast. Just: "Hey. I found this sparkling and I have only had him for half a cycle, but if anything happened to him, I would first kill everyone in this room and then myself"-typa energy.

At first, they (as in the Prime polycule composed of Optimus, Ironhide, Elita and Ratchet) planned to acclimate him to someone else and send him to neutral territory. But, then everyone else also got attached to Bee, too, and so, they ultimately decided to keep raising him. (It probably also helped their decision that, at that point, it became obvious that not even neutral territories where safe from being attacked by Cons.)

Bee has not (yet) formed sparkbonds with his other caregivers for several reasons. However, the main one being that his spark simply was not stable enough to do so for a very long time. Even though he was found and rescued by Ratchet, Bee's spark was ultimately still without the necessary support from adult sparks for a kinda long period of time. As in: it's a miracle he even survived that long on his own kinda amount of time. And that took a toll on his spark, making him prone to fluxes and growing pains and always a little delayed in growth and just, generally, unstable.

Eventually, that would smooth over and settle, but before that happened, they were afraid that introducing more sparkbonds before Bee's spark had settled would upset what precarious balance Bee's spark had found with Ratchet and harm him more than help him.

And then, by the time they were sure that Bee's spark had set, the War had escalated even further and it was hard to arrange the cerenomy. There was always someone that was sent onto a mission somewhere and even if they had time together, it was always short-lived. Then, at some point, there was also Tyger Pax and after that Bee's spark was, once again, not stable enough for bonding. As it turns out, being tortured almost to death is not very conductive for your health.

Then, they left Cybertron with the Ark and by the time a bonding ceremony would have been viable again, they had to evacuate the Ark and Ratchet, Optimus and Bee were separated from Ironhide and Elita (and Roddy who was also raised by the Prime polycule, but is older than Bee and was officially taken in by them shortly before the start of the War).

And now that OP, Ratchet and Bee are stuck on Earth without the other three, they might have the opportunity and ability to perform a bonding ceremony with only the three of them, but... they kinda don't want to. Like, it's a whole family thing - all of them or no one. It would just feel wrong to do it without the others. And, just because they are not bonded, does not mean that they are less of a real family. They have, after all, been a family for a very long time now. So, they are waiting for when they get all back together to perform the bonding ceremony.

Optimus, Ironhide and Elita absolutely do act just as much as Bee's parents as Ratchet does, though. They are just not bonded.

I'm sorry that it's so complicated. ^^" Honestly, I am not even sure when or why I made it this complicated. It's not that relevant to the plot.

I think that maybe it was in response to plotting out another story (Champions Aren't Born) and realising that I was going to have to focus more on Bee and Optimus' relationship there than I first anticipated (not a bad thing, I'm really excited for that, too; just different from what I first wanted to do with that story), so I wanted this one to put Bee and Ratchet in the foreground.