It was another quiet afternoon at base. Stupidly quiet. Jack and Arcee were out on a ride, bulkhead and Miko were offroading somewhere in the desert, and Raf was doing his own thing on the computer. The other two pairs were so close with each other, and they were better for it. Bumblebee watched Raf from behind. He seemed to be editing a text file. 'Count on Optimus to give me the boring one. Wait, no! I like Raf, Raf isn't boring. He just needs some help coming out of his shell sometimes'. 'what's something I can do to get his attention?' Bee thought to himself. Making a big noise or movement would just startle him - so that wouldn't work. 'Maybe I could give him something, like a little gift! That might work. But what should I get him? And where will I find it, whatever it is?' Bee decided to go to the forest, maybe there would be something nice there. He told Optimus where he was going on his way out, and groundbridged off without another word.
The forest was overall pretty barren, just like the rest of Nevada. Bee's saving grace was the little stream that ran through the woods; there were little yellow and white flowers blooming in the grass near the water's edge. He picked 10 of each colour, carefully tied them together with one of his spare cords (transformer equivalent of bandaids.), put them in his storage compartment and headed back to base.
"Bee!" Raf exclaimed as he groundbridged in. "Where did you go? Optimus wouldn't tell me where you went, so I got worried". "I'm sorry, bud. I didn't mean to worry you." Bee trilled in response. "I brought you a gift, though." "Wow, Really? Thank you!" Bumblebee clicked open the compartment and delicately picked up the flowers by the cord, Handing them to Raf. "Wow, thanks. That's really thoughtful of you, Bee". Raf really couldn't have predicted this if he wanted to. Although it's very nice of Bee to bring him flowers, Raf knows that bots don't do anything without a reason. "Hey Bee, do you want to go for a drive? Maybe we could finally find a path up one of those mesas." "OH YEAH, LET'S GO" he beeped excitedly, before shifting modes. They rocketed out the tunnel onto the desert's backroads.
"Why don't we stop here" Raf suggested as they neared the edge of a cliff. He hopped out and Bee changed modes again, so he could fully enjoy the view. Raf sat down on the edge of the cliff. He felt rigid, not knowing how to start this conversation. "Heeey, are you okay? You seem nervous." Bee keened. "It's just… It's unusual for you to bring me a gift like that, you know?" Bee shook his head. 'it's not that weird, is it?' Now bee was getting nervous. "Bee, are you sick? is Optimus planning something big that Jack, Miko, and I can't know about yet?" "No, I'm not sick, and Optimus Isn't the scheming type. He'd tell you what's going to happen if there was something in the works." Bee beeped. "Then what's going on? Autobots don't do anything without a reason for it!" Raf said tersely. 'Oops. that was way meaner than i wanted it to be.." "I'm sorry, Bee. I'm just a bit confused is all. I'm not mad at you." Bee sat down and hung his legs over the cliff, mirroring Raf's position. "Okay, here's the truth. I see Jack and Arcee, Miko and Bulkhead doing fun stuff with each other all the time. We almost never do stuff like that. It's not like I blame you for not wanting to do those kinds of things, because it's not your fault for being more of an alone-type person. I just feel like we should do stuff like that to build our friendship, but I don't know what to do." Raf was taken aback. He had never really paid much attention to the relationships between the other 2 bots and their kids, let alone his relationship with Bee. "I'm sorry for making you feel isolated, I hadn't considered that. Sometimes it's hard for me to know what's going on with other people. what they're feeling or thinking is like a foreign language to me. So it's hard for me to read you too, you know what I'm saying?" Bee nodded. "The thing is, I don't really know what we could do that we'd both enjoy." Raf continued. 'driving around is good, but i really like just talking to Raf.' Bee thought. "Maybe to start, we could just talk like we are right now. I love learning about human culture from you, Raf". Bee said. "That's actually a pretty good idea. The only thing is, because you're much taller than me, I feel like i have to shout everything I say." Raf replied. 'easy fix' Thought Bee. He extended his servo down to Raf. "You can sit on my shoulder if you want. That way you could talk normally!" Bee chirped. Raf stepped onto his servo and carefully climbed onto his shoulder, gently hooking his feet under some of Bee's neck cables. They talked for hours. Earth's weather, Human social rules, and how those rules were different around the world were some of Bee's favourite topics.
Bee dropped Raf off at home, late. His parents were only mildly upset as they were more or less used to this happening. "See you tomorrow, Bee." Raf said as he waved goodbye. "Bye-Bye, friend!" Bee chirped as he pulled away from the curb.
"Where did you get those flowers?" Raf's mother asked him. "Bee gave them to me." "Oh isn't that sweet! You two seem to be such good friends." 'yeah, we are' Raf thought to himself as he headed off to bed.