Disclaimer: Not mine, wish they were, but I can dream. They belong to Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I've forgotten…Authors Note: The blame for this pairing lies squarely with one of my co-workers. When I told him about the challenge and asked for his suggestions… this is one he eventually came up with. My reaction certainly fitted the bill, so I tried to write it. Note the emphasis on tried… sighs Ah well…
Feedback makes friends. Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.
The first time, Ratchet ran a self-diagnostic on his audios.
The second time, he choked on his energon.
'Out of all the Autobots…' He mused '… Trust Bumblebee to pick up human habits more readily than the rest of them.' What disturbed Ratchet was that he'd never heard any Autobot talking during recharge. Well, that wasn't the thing that disturbed him the most, but he was deliberately blocking out that bit. Not unless Wheeljack wanted a late-night caller and the engineer needed his recharge. Besides, Ratchet was on duty, and as much as he would have liked to go and pay Wheeljack a visit and… well, he wasn't the sort of mech to shirk his duty, not when he had patients at least.
So Ratchet resigned himself to wandering around his repair bay with a mug of energon, keeping an audio out for Bumblebee. He'd already gone through all the diagnostics he could, checking and rechecking his own work, not being able to find any plausible reason as to why Bumblebee was talking in his 'sleep'. The repairs he'd made were minor and it was only a precaution that Bumblebee was spending the night in the repair bay. Ratchet was nothing if not cautious.
"Why me?" He muttered, cradling his head in his hands as Bumblebee started chanting again. The only sounds to be heard were the rhythmic thumping of Ratchet's head hitting his desk and Bumblebee's soft moaning.
"Oh slag…" Bumblebee yelped, desperately swerving to avoid Thundercracker's laser fire. He slammed on his brakes as Grimlock's foot plunged into view and pulled hard to the right, narrowly avoiding the Dinobot's foot as he swiftly dealt with Thundercracker. Transforming, he hid behind a rocky outcrop, thankful that his small size afforded him some protection, while he watched Grimlock send Thundercracker rocketing back into the sky, one wing badly damaged.
"Me Grimlock fix Decepticon good." He roared before transforming back to his robot form.
"Thanks!" Bumblebee called up. Grimlock didn't notice, or at least, didn't give the appearance of noticing, looking around for more Decepticons. A rumble echoing around the canyon signalled the approach of a Seeker.
"It's Starscream!" Bumblebee cried, pointing to the red jet soaring above them. "Uh oh." He muttered as Starscream virtually hovered above them before releasing two cluster bombs that hurtled their way to where Bumblebee and Grimlock were stood. Bumblebee had enough time to hear Starscream laugh maniacally before diving out of the way of the bombs as they hit the ground. As Bumblebee hit the ground and rolled, the cluster bombs impacted, shattering rock and sending debris flying everywhere. Instinctively, he curled up, trying to protect his more sensitive circuitry. Shards of rocks seemed to hit his chassis everywhere at once.
The dust settled and Bumblebee raised his head, groaning as he looked around. Grimlock was lying on his back several feet away from where they had both been standing. He crawled over, wincing as servos in his legs protested against the movement.
"Grimlock?" He asked hesitantly, fearing the worst. Testing his radio, he found that the blast had disrupted his communications. In the distance, he could still make out the battle raging between the Decepticons and the rest of the Autobots. Who would notice that they weren't among them anymore? Grimlock groaned and sat up.
"Who hit Grimlock?"
"That would have been Starscream." Bumblebee answered, idly wondering if he could crawl the distance to the battlefield. "Are you injured?"
"Me Grimlock fine." Grimlock stood up, proving himself right. Bumblebee just sighed, ignoring the pain that jolted through his circuits when he did. Sometimes, it didn't pay to be the smallest Autobot.
"Bumblebee hurt?"
"Yes, and I can't communicate with the others, and they're too far away to hear us shout, and the battle is still going. I doubt they've noticed we're not even there." Bumblebee stopped himself, vaguely aware he was beginning to ramble like Bluestreak.
"Me Grimlock save Autobot hide." Crouching down, Grimlock picked up the unresisting Bumblebee.
"Ow. You're going to have to put me down." Grimlock gently put the yellow mech down on the ground, before sitting down next to him.
"What we do now?" Bumblebee thought for a few minutes, fighting against the pain coursing through his circuits.
"I can't do much. It took too much damage from Starscream's cluster bombs."
"Me Grimlock go get help."
"No, wait… I mean… stay?" Bumblebee couldn't believe his audios. Was it really him that said that? His CPU returned an affirmative, and Bumblebee mentally shrugged. He'd been having these strange dreams recently. All he'd got when he vaguely mentioned it in passing conversation to Spike (aside from the surprise and the question 'do you really dream?') was that he often dreamed of Carly. Still, it had made him look again at Grimlock. The Dinobot was tall. Far taller than him (though that wasn't particularly hard) and even taller than Optimus Prime.
"If I could just realign the sensors in my shoulder." He muttered half to himself, trying desperately to remember Ratchet's instructions in case of emergencies. All he could remember at the moment however was the 'Get yourself the slag to me if you get hit!' and the 'Sit still and let your auto-repair systems do their work if you can't get yourself the slag to me!"
Bumblebee almost jumped out of his shell as Grimlock's hand rested on his shoulder.
"Me Grimlock help." He stated, large fingers delicately working them into the seam on Bumblebee's shoulder. Large fingers that should have been far rougher, that were now gently tracing the various wires criss-crossing his shoulder. A distant thought echoed through his mind that maybe Wheeljack had been helping them with their finesse again. Then he realised he didn't want to be thinking about that. And that Ratchet might well have something to say about it too. Although the practising the finesse bit… Bumblebee decided he could handle that, particularly as Grimlock's fingers brushed past a wire that sent a tingle right down to his laser core.
"Aaah…. AHH!" Bumblebee yelped as Grimlock withdrew his fingers rapidly.
"Me Grimlock hurt Bumblebee?"
"No no… well, yes just then but…" Realising he was chattering like Bluestreak again, Bumblebee trailed off. "It felt good." He mumbled.
"Me Grimlock try again?" The words had barely left Grimlock's vocaliser before his hand was on Bumblebee's shoulder again, fingers deftly working their way back into his shoulder seam. As much as Bumblebee wanted to reciprocate, the size difference between the two made it virtually impossible. In allowing Grimlock access to his sensitive circuitry, it meant that he couldn't twist round to reach any part of Grimlock. Bumblebee was still amazed at the dexterity the larger Dinobot was showing. As Grimlock brushed past that wire again, Bumblebee gave up all hope of reaching any part of Grimlock and surrendered himself to the feelings running through his circuits. Just when he thought he couldn't take any more, a bright flash blinded him and all his sensors overloaded at once.
"He's doing it again!" Wheeljack looked across at Ratchet, who was staring at Bumblebee's prone form on the medical berth.
"Doing what?"
"Talking. In. His. Sleep." Ratchet's head hit his desk, scattering the datapads he'd been working on. Wheeljack just laughed.
"Let the kid relive his fun. Besides, I've heard what you say when you're recharging." Without even raising his head, Ratchet unceremoniously threw a datapad in Wheeljack's direction.
"Just for that, I'm not going to tell you. Maybe I'll tell Sideswipe instead…" Wheeljack mused rubbing his fin, before ducking the second datapad heading his way.