Wow, this was angsty...so unlike me! Obviously the girl Speedy slept with in the story is Cheshire, and I made a reference to how they had a baby in the comics. Well actually, this whole story is pretty much about that. Cheshire annoys me (which is weird because I feel like I should like her), but it's only because Speedy will always be Bumblebee's bitch! Oh, and btw, when Bumblebee says "Mal", she's referring to Mal Duncan, AKA The Herald, AKA the guy in the show with the fancy horn thingy that opens up holes and stuff...at least I think so...err...enjoy!
Getting Lost Together
"I hate you!"
She gripped him by the front of his shirt and thrust him into the wall with such an immense strength it was almost inhuman. His back slammed up against the hard, cold metal, nearly fracturing his spine and knocking him out. His eyes closed temporarily, as he felt his mind drift over and back that milky line that divided the feelings of being awake and unconscious. However his pupils immediately widened when he saw her storming at him, tears in her eyes and blood dripping down her knuckles.
He coughed up some of the red liquid himself. She threw a punch, which he dodged barely, rolling across the wall like an insect trying to avoid a bird's beak. She growled, grabbing his collar again and pushing him down on the floor, jerking his head up then immediately throwing it down again. His skull felt as if it would crack—like it would split from the top and trail down, making it totally fall apart.
The pain grew to an indescribable point, as she slapped and clawed at him, all the while screaming in his face with a shaky but undoubtedly furious voice that made his ears near to bursting.
"I can't believe you'd do this!" she cried, pounding his chest with tightly clenched fists, "Y-you're the b-biggest ass-h-hole I-I've ever m-met!"
She stuttered like she was frightened—terrified even. He could feel her going cold, freezing up, but she kept hitting him like a broken machine that couldn't stop.
He felt like he was dead. His whole body laid there, unmoving as if there was no life left in it at all. His eyes were wide, his mask stretched so hard that he was sure it would tear. Blood trickled down his chin, and his cheeks were wet with her tears, and she was so close to his face now it was muffling him. He almost thought she was kissing him, until he felt another slap fly across his face, leaving his flesh raw with a pulsating sting.
Then all of a sudden, she just collapsed.
She fell, like a ragdoll, flimsy and lifeless, right onto his aching chest. He couldn't tell if the sounds he was hearing was of her continuing sobs, or just the blasting echoes in his brain. She didn't so much as shiver, she just laid there like a heavy corpse weighing him down. He couldn't feel her breathe; he couldn't feel anything.
"K-Karen!" he hacked out the words like they were water, then inhaled a large breath of air like he had been drowning for hours. Perhaps the cease of the seemingly never-ending assault had given him a chance to actually feel all the pain that had just been inflicted. She was silent atop him, but her voice was boldly ringing in his head, like the waves from a bell that had just been tolled. His blood was hot through his veins as thoughts swarmed about his mind, registering every cut, every bruise, every injury that had been newly acquired.
Why had she done it?
Speedy could only figure that she'd gone insane.
The stable, always together, level-headed Bumblebee had finally lost it. He admitted, the news he had told her was anything but ordinary, but he didn't understand why she had just exploded. It was like she was struggling inside herself for ways to deal with the things she had just learned, but she had never been faced with such a message in her life. Her body and mind had just gone into a sudden overdrive and it just loaded itself into full-blown violence which she shamelessly aimed at him.
She knew she was sad, and she knew she was angry, but at the same time she didn't know what she felt at all. It had confused the both of them, so much that they couldn't fight out of their states, as harmful as they were.
She couldn't stop, and he couldn't tell her to stop.
They had been frozen in a single mindset, and now as one of them had just burnt herself out, the other had started to come alive.
He clutched her limp wrists and flipped them over, so now he was on top. He pinned her whole body to the floor, realizing the pressure was hurting her but too angry to care.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled, banging the backs of her hands against the ground. She whimpered, eyes still shut but hurt evident in her voice.
Was she sleeping? Because she squirmed and whined as if she was having a bad dream. His expression was ferocious, and he was almost glad she couldn't see it, because the idea of her seeing him this way frightened him too.
"Karen, you better wake up!" he yelled, "You can't just put me through shit like that and not face me when you're done! WAKE UP!"
He couldn't control his rage, and he was still extremely bewildered at hers. How could she have just pummeled him like that, in a way you would never associate between two teammates—between two friends. He growled in frustration, screaming at her again to wake up, but she didn't stir.
Finally, realizing he was too exhausted to be mad with her anymore, he picked her up and laid her softly down on her own bed upstairs. He left her room and outside her shut door, he took off his mask, which was streaked with blood, and let his bright green eyes face the tower's interior with a deep and nervous melancholy that he had thought would never reach his face again.
---
He had hoped a shower would have washed off all is worries, but immediately knew it had been a foolish thought when he exited the stall with the same depressing feelings that he had entered with.
He had cleaned all his cuts and scratches, although the bruises still hurt like hell. He draped a small face towel over his shoulders and foraged through the freezer for some ice. Finding some eventually, he dumped four or five cubes into a plastic bag to form a make-shift ice pack. He had also cleaned his mask, and set it back on his face. Although, it felt foreign over his eyes, almost like it didn't belong there. He then shut himself away in his room again, sitting on his own bed in utter darkness, thinking.
He was going to be a father.
He didn't know if he loved the mother.
He didn't know whether he should go back, or stay with his team.
It was going to be his child.
He had lied to himself. He knew exactly why she had exploded earlier. He just didn't want to accept it.
A soft knocking sound drew him out of his muses. He stared at the door, knowing exactly who was behind it, but not wanting to see her at all.
His motions were shaky, like he was trying to argue with his own body about what he should be doing. His legs brought him to the door without consulting his brain first, and before he knew it, his hand was reaching for the knob…
It closed around the cool orb and turned, pulling aside the screen and revealing a face stained with tear lines and fatigue.
"Can we talk?" asked Bumblebee meekly.
He studied her in the doorway. She was so much smaller in physical and mental presence at this moment than he had ever seen her before. She bit her lip nervously, and her eyes were big and childlike. Was this really his Bumblebee? It couldn't be.
She fumbled with the long sleeves of her pale yellow robe nervously, shaking her head to toss a long wet curl out of her face. Her wings fluttered behind her anxiously.
His arm twitched and a bruise on his shoulder ached painfully.
"No."
The door slid abruptly, shutting in her face. She knocked softly on it again.
"Please." she whispered, her voice barely audible. She was so desperate to speak to him. An hour ago, the girl that had been thrashing his body seemed like a totally different person to her. She cringed as she thought about every punch that he had taken, ever kick and slap that head flown across his face, and how he had done nothing to stop her…
He had called her by her real name.
"Roy, please!" she cried urgently. Tears welled up in her eyes again, and she wiped them away furiously, not wanting to cry in front of him again.
The door slid open again and his hand shot out and gripped her shoulder.
"Don't ever call me that!" he yelled, a terrifying seriousness present in his voice. She was shaken, but nodded hastily.
"What do you want?" he asked, withdrawing his hand. She rubbed the spot on her shoulder where it had been.
"Can you please talk to me?" she asked.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, and Bumblebee felt the need to step back just in case he lunged at her.
"You've got some nerve," he said, "to ask me that after what you just did."
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed, unable to hold back any longer, "I didn't know what I was doing! I…I was just so angry!"
"So that's your excuse for beating the shit outta me?" retorted Speedy, "You're some bitch, Karen, you really are."
"I said I was sorry!" she begged, putting her hands on his bare chest. Her eyes pleaded with him, but he bore no sympathy.
"Get off me," he said, thrusting her away from her, "leave me alone."
"I just wanna talk!"
"We're done talking!" he yelled, "I don't know what your problem is, and I don't care anymore. Just leave!"
"I just—!"
"Shut up, Karen!"
"I just wanted it to be me!"
She stood there, chest heaving. She cringed as she heard her own voice echo through the tower. Her eyes were hopeless, and she felt the same way inside. Staring at him fiercely, she realized she was out of ideas and silently pleaded with Speedy to somehow just understand.
He was speechless. His masked eyes were still enraged but no words were coming out of his mouth, and as he tried to analyze what she had just said, her knees buckled and she just fell into him. Her fingers clutched his shoulders and she just hung there, weakly draped over him like she had lost all ability to stand.
"Why…why couldn't it have been me?" she continued to sob miserably, "W-what were you thinking, Roy? What?"
He wrapped his own arms around her to steady them both.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked her.
"You know!" she screamed, "Just tell me the reason why. A-am I not pretty enough or something? Do I not play up to your playboy status? What's the reason, Roy? Why did you pick her over me?!"
She buried herself into him, and he held her tighter, not sure what he should do or say in order to improve the situation. To be honest, he was still a little confused. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
"You're pretty." was all he could say to attempt to pacify her. He knew it was really moronic, but he couldn't think of anything else. She stopped and looked up at him with watery eyes.
"But just not as good as her, huh?" she said, frowning sadly.
"No, I didn't mean—look, Karen, I don't know what…"
"Of course you know! You know exactly what I'm talking about! I just want you to tell me why, Roy. Tell me why you did it!"
"I…" He spoke for the sake of just acknowledging her question. He didn't really aim to answer it; he didn't know how.
"I thought you loved me," she whispered quietly, "but I guess I was just being stupid…just like I was stupid with Mal."
She barely breathed the last part out, and Speedy thought she was going to faint again. He pushed her back and gripped her arm with one hand, and brushed a long, damp curl of hair out of her eyes with the other.
"I am nothing like him," said Speedy, "so don't talk about me like I'm one of your low-life ex-boyfriends."
"Don't talk about yourself like you're some sorta saint," she said angrily, "if you were than you wouldn't have gone and slept with her! You wouldn't have done…done that with her!"
"I didn't know what I was thinking then. I wasn't myself!"
"What the hell kinda excuse is that?" she fumed, swiping his hand off of her, "You got her pregnant! You're going to be a father!"
"Don't you think I know that already?" he snapped, stroking his temple with his forefinger.
"If you knew the consequences, you wouldn't have done it in the first place!"
"But that's exactly it—I didn't know it would happen!"
"So if you knew it wouldn't happen," she cried, "you would have done it anyway?"
"No—I—we—"
"You don't care about other people's feelings," she yelled at him, "you don't care who gets hurt as long as you get what you want, when you want it!"
"Karen—"
"You chose a one-night stand over me, and I've always loved you!"
Her wings were whizzing furiously and she had a fiery stare to match. He stood there, dumbfounded at her words with his body torn on what he should do. Half of him wanted to argue back with her, saying that he loved her too, and the other half wanted to slam the door in her face and forget all about this craziness.
His mind raced for the correct way to assess this.
Somehow it ended up in a kiss.
He drove his lips into her own, fueled with everything he felt at that moment: anger, sadness, a desperate need of guidance, a passionate need for her. He was ultimately disappointed when he felt no movement from the other side, as if all this was for nothing. He didn't break away though; he stayed there, eventually pulling her back into his warm embrace of which she did not protest.
She was obviously stunned, but fit into his arms like a puzzle piece.
She tilted her head upwards. He could feel the hesitation in her response, like she wasn't sure what she was doing was right. So he would have to convince her.
He pulled her inside, the door sliding shut behind them. They ended up on the bed, mostly because of his forcefulness.
"S-Speedy." she said, her body trembling underneath his. He wondered why she had switched back to his codename, but didn't really care enough to ponder it further.
"What?" he asked, face buried in her neck.
"This doesn't make it better. This won't change what you did with her—"
He pulled back. Looking straight into her brown eyes, he spoke with a strictly no-nonsense tone she had never heard him use before.
"All right BEE-otch," he said, "I'll tell you the truth."
She made a sort of half-nod at his words, waiting for him to continue.
"That night, I really wasn't myself. I was in a different city, on a mission, by myself. She was there, mainly to take me out, but she got a little carried away in seducing me. I was feeling drunk, the hotel was upstairs, she looked really hot, and then we just fucked, okay?"
He hadn't meant for it to come out so harsh, but he didn't regret saying any of it. He couldn't beat around the bush, and deep down he knew she didn't want him to. As hard as it was to look at the heartbroken expression on her face, he figured that it was better this way. After all, it was the truth.
"S-so that's all it took?" she asked, "A few beers and her in a skimpy outfit? Your love for her—"
He shot back down, kissing her neck roughly, to the point of almost biting it. His lips trailed up to her ear, and whispered huskily into it.
"Listen, BEE-otch," he growled, "I'll admit that I did it knowingly, but don't you ever think for a second that she or that night meant anything to me, understand?"
The tears had started flowing again.
"But Speedy, how can I?" she said, "You're…you're going to have a child with her. You can't just forget about her."
"I will for tonight." he said simply, pulling off the sash of her robe. He tugged her right sleeve, and it went with ease, beginning to reveal her chest. She clutched the cloth just before it disappeared completely.
"But what about tomorrow, Speedy?" asked Bumblebee, "What about for the rest of your life?"
"I won't abandon my kid," he said, starting to get irritated with her, "but I'm not going to lie and say I love her."
"What are you going to do? What's your plan, Speedy? You don't know where she is and she's carrying your baby!"
"I don't know, Bee!" he yelled in frustration, "What do you want me to say? I've been trying so hard to make you happy! I don't love her, I love you!"
"If you loved me you wouldn't have slept with her in the first place! You would have slept with me!"
"I was trying to protect you!"
Suddenly she was solemn again. His eyes were manic with passion and fury and every fleeting emotion he had felt that night.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you think that I wanted to? Do you know how many times I was horny, and you had just stepped out of the shower, wearing nothing but a short white towel? Of course I wanted to sleep with you, but I couldn't! We're a team—it would have screwed everything up! Plus, just think if you were the one who was pregnant!"
"I would have been glad to carry your child…I love you."
"And I love you too, but we don't have time for all that. We're just teenagers, and not only that we're teenage superheroes."
"But you're still going to be a father, Speedy. You're going to have to take care of it."
"I know, Bee, I know," said Speedy tiredly, "and I'll deal with that when the time comes. But for now, I just need you know that I care about you more than any other girl I've met in my life. I know I hurt you really bad when I had sex with her, and she's probably pissed as hell with me too. I won't leave her to take care of that baby by herself, but other than that she means nothing to me. Fuck, the only reason she was there was because she was sent to kill me. I don't care about her feelings. I care about yours."
Bumblebee rolled her head to the side, and looked out the large window next to Speedy's bed. She stared at Steel City. Their city.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is," said Speedy kissing her cheek softly, "is that I'm sorry."
END