#you ever just think about the fact that a big troll could eat s cybertronian alive

[weregreatatcrime]

Oh man suddenly sucked RIGHT back into changeling kids and

It's been something I've thought about before, but the bots take a Long Time to realize that the kids could potentially eat them if they tried.

Ratchet is the first to realize. He notices the first time that he sees Raf stuffing shavings and idle screws into his bag. "Oh. They consume metal." It's worrying but he thinks it's fine, he doesn't need to worry. After all no earth metals come close to Cybertronian- there's no way they can eat that. Theeeeen there's an accident and Ratchet can't fix them because they refuse to tell him what their weird biology is like and it's a long argument later that he gets some baseline rules and explanations set up and he realizes-

Oh. Yeah. No. Raf has more difficulty than he ever has before with metal, but even Cybertronian armor can't outright beat troll teeth.

Ratchet drinks a lot of high-grade and then asks the kids specifically what their diets are. There's a lot of shuffling and pouting and winces but they tell him eventually. Ratchet makes sure they have everything they need, even if he has to go take them on trips to the junkyard.

The kids are super grateful because Ratchet also doesn't want the other bots to have that realization because it's scary enough watching the kids scale an entire Decepticon and stab them with a knife it's more terrifying knowing that the kids could basically eat them alive like a scraplet. Ratchet helps hide/doesn't mention the metal eating part from the rest of the bots and in return the kids do what they can to avoid annoying him. It's a comfortable arrangement.

Of course that plan goes out the window when Raf and Bee are playing and Raf accidentally leaves a massive bite dented deep into his arm, but hey. Ratchet tried.