Set later in the day after Bee storms away from Smokey when Smokey makes that crack about the claw becoming Magnus's "signature" just like Bee's impaired voice box is his.

First time writing these characters so…hope it went well!

Disclaimer; I own none of these characters.

It's Enough

Desert days were as hot as desert nights were cold, even to a giant metallic alien. The moon wasn't out, providing no light in the vast nothingness of the desert plains. Stars only made the mech feel smaller on the inside, reminding him of his brief time in space onboard the Decepticon cruiser.

Smokescreen was no stranger to loneliness, but it didn't feel any better than usual. He had royally fragged up when he made that joke earlier - but how was he to know Bee would take it so harshly! He had meant it as a compliment, but looking back, it was easy to see how he could have offended the scout.

Since the incident, as Miko had taken to calling it, there hadn't been any sign of the scout. Bee had gone for a drive to cool off, but had kept his comm. link online, so as not to go completely off the grid.

At least, that was how Ratchet had phrased it. Then again, whenever Smokescreen tried to contact Bee, all he met was static.

He supposed he deserved it.

Stewing in his self pity, he dropped his cheek to his forearm, closing his optics. He was in an incredibly vulnerable position - laying on his front on top of the silo in the middle of the night with no light source - but he was doing just fine so far, and there was a cave in the back big enough for him to run to should there be a problem.

He was fine. Honest.

Aside from the cold. His doorwings were incredibly sensitive to the harsh temperature changes that happened within such a short amount of time on this planet, and this is by far one of the coldest nights he had experienced. Still not as cold as the vacuum of space, but Smokey hadn't taken any space walks while in Decepticon activity. But he could imagine.

A low rumbling sound echoed in the flat plains off to his right, which startled Smokescreen into an upright position, gracelessly scrambling to his peds. With the new paint job, Bee was harder to see in the dark, but the highlights of yellow did enough.

This was the real reason he had come all the way to the top of the base. To rehearse the apology he knew Bumblebee deserved. And instead he had spent his night looking up at the stars and contemplating why he was being so stupid.

He almost missed his chance, so lost was he in his thoughts. But as Bee drove closer to the entrance, Smokey took it upon himself to jump down to Bee's level.

"Hey, Bee! Got a sec?"

The scout would have kept going, ignored him completely, but something in Smokescreen's tone made him stop. Not if you have another insult for me, I don't.

Smokescreen sighed and stepped a bit closer, now standing between Bee and the entrance. "It's nothing like that, honest. I just…I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I didn't know that you were still…yanno, what your human said. Attached to your voice and all that."

Bee backed up a little bit, beeping apprehensively. Whatever. No harm no foul. It just hurt when you said it, you know?

"Yeah, I get that now. But…wouldn't you rather someone talk about it rather than no one at all? Everyone doesn't speak about it and gets this sad look in their optic whenever someone mentions it. It doesn't bother you?"

A lot of things bother me, Smokescreen. Some more than others. Right now, my biggest problem is you. The scout transformed, doorwings hiked up tight in a show of irritation. Why you feel the need to go sticking your olfactory sensor into other bot's business, I have no idea. But you have no right. You're still new here; working under Alpha Trion or not, we are a team. And you can't go around digging up the rest of the war that we'd rather forget, when like it or not, we're so close to the end.

Smokescreen leaned back, his doorwings dropping against his back in shock. "Just because you're mute doesn't mean that the rest of us have to be!" He knew from Bee's startled beep and immediate pulse of anger through his EM field that he had gone too far, but he still had more to say. So what if this wasn't turning out to be an apology - he deserved to have someone listen, just for once.

"Everyone here claims to be on a team, that we have to work together, but so far the only team player I've really seen is you. At least you gets things done. If I so much as look in the wrong direction, Arcee is ready to shove her gun against my back. Ratchet never leaves the base, Bulkhead is busy trying to be the liaison between Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus, and, while I am deeply honored to be on his team under his supervision, Optimus is keeping secrets too. If we're supposed to be on a team, why does it seem like everyone else has a secret agenda that they're not telling anyone else?"

Bee fell silent, still angry with what Smokescreen had said, but slowly starting to understand the source of Smokey's aggression. He had spent all of his career ready to fight for the Autobot cause, only to be set up as the guard for Alpha Trion. Then he arrived on Earth, expecting comradeship and the glory of battle, only to find less than adequate resources, almost losing Optimus for good, and a team that reflected the desperation the war had inflicted upon them.

It wasn't the best of circumstances, and Bee couldn't help but see a bit of himself in the other mech. Young, wanting to prove himself, but not sure how to do it.

Smokescreen hadn't had the experiences Bee had had that made the scout grow into the mech he was today. And Bee had a feeling that if Smokescreen had - or, conversely, if Bee had not - then they would be a bit more like each other.

As it stood, Bee had fought a war for the entire time Smokescreen was in stasis, had had his voice box ripped out by Megatron, stood by his team as they fell apart over and over again, due to deaths of friends past and enemies reborn, and Smokescreen…had not.

…I understand what you mean. I still don't appreciate that crack about my voice, though. Nor about the mute comment. And I'd really like it if you didn't bring it up again because I can't guarantee that I'd just walk away the next time.

Smokescreen almost sighed in frustration. Why was it that no mechs seemed to understand that the best way to get over something was to a, do something about it, or b, talk it out. Bee couldn't fix his voice box with the resources they currently had, so the next best thing was to at least let the emotions out, rather than fester. But before Smokescreen could continue on his tirade, Bee held up a servo.

With that said, if you have anything you'd like to, well, voice your opinion on, I'd be more than happy to listen.

"Are you saying that I'm the one with the problem? No, I'm not - everyone else needs to just talk more about it! How else am I going to know right from wrong if no one is going to talk to me?!"

Maybe if you gave other people a chance to talk, you'd learn more.

Smokescreen blinked, optics sliding to the side. He..hadn't thought of that before. Maybe he was the one that needed to talk out his thought process before going through with anything… Or, just to have someone to talk.

Tell you what. You wanna rant or ask questions, I'll be your mech. And in return - you let me talk some? I try not to in the base, 'cause none of the humans - except Raf - understand me, and with us getting closer with them, I don't want them to think that I'm talking in some kind of code.

"But…you are? That's how you speak?"

Bee gave Smokescreen a withering look. A code for malicious plans, Smokescreen. Like we're planning on turning on them or something. I dunno, I just get self-conscious about it. I would speak some Earth language to them if I could, but this voice box doesn't download languages well. So code it is.

Smokescreen blushed a bit at his assumption. "Right. Okay, now I get it. So…could we, do that whole, talk-and-listen thing now? I still have more that I wanna say, and…I kinda-"

Don't wanna do it in front of the others? Me neither. I get it. Bee looked up, his doorwings relaxing back to their normal position. Where were you, up on top of the silo?

"Yeah, it was the only place I could find that Arcee's glare couldn't reach."

Bee let out a laugh at that. She is small but mighty. If you want, we could go back up there. It isn't that hard of a climb.

Smokescreen nodded, his doorwings perking back up at the realization that he hadn't blown things with Bumblebee like he had thought he had. "Okay, that sounds great! Yeah, lets do that!"

The duo started back up on the climb, one coming up with things to say while the other came up with ways to answer the impending questions. It wasn't exactly the best situation - after all, this level of comfort was only really with one other mech - but it was better than nothing.

After all of this time in silence, it was more than enough, for both of them.

It's an extremely slight relationship, you'd have to squint to see it, but I like how I wrote it. Leave a review! :)

3 Huntress