Something To Ask
Disclaimer: Hasbro's not mine, not making any money from it.
Summary: Autobot Sam has something special to talk to Bumblebee about and asks Jazz fo help.
Pairings: Sam and Bee, Prowl/Jazz.
Acknowledgement: A missing scene between chapters 6 and 7 of A Spark of Life by LittleMewLugia. Giftfic.
Sam woke in the Med-bay and found himself staring at Jazz.
"Where's Ratchet?"
"Recharging." said Jazz with a smile.
"About time too." sighed a voice behind him. Cliffjumper, a red mech, was sitting at a workbench. "That guy's got a very efficient engine but he always pushes it. Just goes down for one hour of recharge, if that. So we turn the dial up to 6 hours.
We can always get him out if we're attacked. I can man the Med-bay for minor injuries."
Sam chuckled, then said:
"I'm glad you're here Jazz, there was something I wanted to ask."
"You wanna ask me something?"
"You seem pretty streetwise. It's something Ratchet said."
"Come to the R&R room and we'll shoot some Pool. I think better on me feet."
"I don't know how to play."
"Then I 'll teach yuh. 'Bout time you saw more than a Med-bay wall or a private room and hard roads.
Ironhide's bin saying he'll be teaching yuh t'fart, but there's time for that later on."
They went in and Jazz strode over to the Pool table, checking himself out in the 30 ft mirror someone had supplied to the base.
"Lookin' good!"
Sam checked out his appearance too. The AllSpark glyphs looked all right on his cheeks now and he would get used to his new appearance. It seemed all right to be black and silver now instead of flesh-coloured. He could also get a sense of proportion now, he'd only had Bumblebee and Ratchet to compare his size to. Most 'bots seemed bigger.
"Most of 'em 're bigger than us" he said.
"Welcome to the Association of small giant robots, or Minibots Sam.
I'm the president!"
Jazz got them both some Energon and chalked up a cue with a big cube of chalk clutched in his expertly pointed fingers.
"If'n it's not too private, this is the best place t'talk. No-one'll pay us too much attention.
Now what wozzit yuh wanned t'ask?"
Sam gathered his energy into his vocal processor, the robot equivalent of taking a big breath.
"What's a spark-mate?"
He heard a nearby 'bot, probably Mirage, choking into his Energon.
"Y'asking me?"
"Yes."
"Wall you've come to the right 'bot. I know duh Scene.
A spark-mate's someone you like bein' with all the time, jamming with in the dance hall, hangin' in their or your room, as well as on the battlefield or just in town. Day or night, up or down, you can't get them outta your mind. They'll always help you and unnerstand where you're coming from. It's more than a friend. More than just someone you wanna share spark energy with. You wanna spen' your entire life around them. It's like - you n' Bumblebee're spark mates."
"Wha-at?"
Although he had been expecting something like this, Sam felt as if his secret had been found out. Yet this made it easier.
"Yeah, Ratchet said so. D'you think we are?"
"Yeah, you're so right fer each other. You aren't the only pair on the base, y'know."
"Is there a - joining ceremony? Or present - to ask with?"
"Wull, when y'join, y'join. You feel right, you ask, you don't, you part, no recriminations, no messy expensive divorces. Only generally you make up because you're both hurtin' too much. A present? Anything yuh think they'd like. Sum'd want yuh t'write their name in the sky, snow, whatever, be theatrical."
"Don't think we're that sort."
"Mikaela, I showed her my catches once, she suggested an Allen key."
"An Allen key?"
"Yeah. You use it to unscrew engines."
"I got some here." said Mirage showing him a key-ring spread out with L-shaped hexagonally-ended strips of metal of various sizes.
"They get us in anywhere the electronic analytical combination screwdriver doesn't."
"Lockpicks?" said Sam, "and the electronic what?"
"This:" said Mirage and pointed at a locked door next to the Energon dispenser in the L-shaped corner of the room. Twin beams of light came from his eyes forming a large hologram in the centre of the room, 6 figures in a table electronically whizzing and changing from 0 to 9, settling as one number as the combination was solved from left to right.
Jazz did not notice it, he was carefully setting up the triangular frame of 7 yellow balls, 7 red ones and one black one on the Pool table and getting out the white ball. So he was surprised at the next thing.
"Ow! No! Ratchet put a trap on that one!" As the last number clicked into place and the door clicked. Mirage went reeling back holding his head. The hologram disappeared. An alarm sounded.
"What just went down? Who's raiding the Energon?" Cliffjumper ran in from the Medbay next door.
"I was just demonstrating my power of opening combination locks to Sam" said Mirage.
"Well, don't, you can get it from the dispenser, Ratchet just doesn't want anyone falling in the vats".
"What a way to go!" said Jazz.
"Please don't, I'm not as big as Ratchet, I couldn't get you out, I'd have to call out Optimus or Ironhide -"
"I won't, what've I got not to live for? Besides, I'd never live it down." Jazz put up his hands and shrugged, still holding the white ball.
Cliffjumper went over to the door and databursted a code at it. It clicked shut again.
"It resets with a different number every time."
"Don't worry, I won't be trying that again!" said Mirage.
Cliffjumper scanned him. "You're O.K. , no fried circuits."
"It gives you a pain in the processors though." Cliffjumper took him back to his chair with its half drunk glass of Energon nearby.
"It'll fade in a minute. There." Cliffjumper left.
"Now where were we? Ah yes, keys." Jazz put the white ball on the spot, lifted off the triangle frame and picked his cue back up.
"Mirage, can you give us a game? Prowl's late back off patrol and I'm on edge."
"Sure." Mirage finished his Energon and picked up another cue. "You're O.K. now?" asked Sam.
"Yes: that's the thing with Ratchet, he just makes it enough of a trap to put you off trying again. Now, I'll break and you call, is that all right?"
"Huh?" said Sam.
"Yeah, that's all right," said Jazz, "I'll take the hard shots, and show you how to take the easy ones, Sam."
Mirage took careful aim with his cue stick at the white ball, then sent it into the red and yellow ones in a clean break, scattering them all across the table. "There!"
"Good break! Your call Sam!" said Jazz. "Sam?"
"Uh- What am I meant to do?"
Jazz spread a hand towards the table. "Say what colour balls we're putting down the pockets."
"Yellow." said Sam.
"Thought you might choose them. You got the red ones then, Mirage."
"Fine by me. Here, you can have these Sam, they're my spare set."
He dropped them into Sam's hand. Sam found a spare sub-space in his casing for them.
"And screwdrivers. That ball, top pocket. One, spade-headed, they open most battery compartments." The ball went cleanly into the projected pocket, earning him a bonus shot. "That ball, right side pocket. Two, cross-headed: they open things like door panels, but I don't know if you'd want to do that."
"Jazz, I would never dream of taking off your door panels." said Sam.
"No, you wouldn't, but sometimes you have to check for rust there. That ball, in off the side cushion, left corner pocket. Three, Allen keys, Carburettor, gasket, anywhere you get a hexagonal or thin hole of any size. There!"
"Well played, good trick shot!" said Mirage.
"Here Sam, come and take this shot, it's easy," said Jazz, giving him the cue and going behind him to show him how to position it, putting one arm across his back and the other to his hand near the ball. "Four, mainly for the wheels, socket spanners or wrenches."
"Now aim for the centre of the white ball and get yourself behind it so you send it straight into the yellow ball and that straight down the side pocket there. And - fire!"
The cue slipped down however, the white ball jumped over the yellow and into the pocket first.
"Oh bad luck, you just need to get your eye in, as they say. Put a bit more chalk on the cue. Mirage gets 2 shots." Mirage took his two shots at the red balls as Sam took the cube and chalked up the cue.
"Of course, for things like the distributor cap you just need a hand. Try this one, the bottom right pocket, you can lean over the whole table," again he helped him get in position for it. "Now go!"
This time the cue slipped down into the table and the ball didn't go that far.
"Jazz, where is he?"
"I'm guessing you don't mean Prowl."
Jazz turned and smiled opening his mouth and turning on Sam his full blue gaze with his visor.
"Bumblebee's on the gate. He let me know, he was quite happy to go on guard duty."
Sam sighed with relief.
"Look, you're among friends here. Mirage won't charge us a penalty shot for that one, will you Mirage?"
"No, he's just started, you're under pressure. That wasn't a foul shot, just a miss-hit. Take it again, Sam." He replaced the white ball exactly where it had been before.
Jazz helped him get in position for it, using a bridge for the cue as it was a long shot.
"Chill. Now y'know where he is, y'can relax. In your own time, as I showed you, sink that ball."
This time, it worked. The yellow ball went exactly down the hole, the white one stayed on the table.
"That's it! Well done. I knew you could draw a bead on it."
Sam held the table and clutched at his arm.
"Sam, what's biting you? There's something still worrying you, isn't there?"
"Last time I was with him in the recharge chamber, I was thinking how it would be if I lived longer than my parents. I saw them before me, and suddenly, it was too close in there, I hit out at the glass, the emergency alarm went – I ba- I backed up my fuel lines, threw up. Ratchet got me out. We recharged okay, but – he'll think we're jinxed! If every time we get together something happens, he'll think he's bad for me!"
Jazz moved his arm up to Sam's shoulder.
"Not necessarily.
So now y'know the three main things that can go wrong with us. There's another, battle computer failure, or the worst, processor cluster cascade leading to Multiple Electronic Engineering Failure or M.E.E.F., but you really don't need to go into that one.
I think we've sent all our balls down. We've won. Mirage, clear the table of the rest of your reds."
"Ooh, can I?"
"Yes, go on."
Mirage went invisible and the cue did too, and the red balls started clicking down the holes all over the table seemingly by themselves, sometimes two of them 'kissing' each other and bouncing off into two different holes at once. In no time, the table was clear.
Jazz whistled, and did the blow pistol, push up battle mask sequence.
"Respect!"
"I can do that too, not the going invisible bit, but clearing the Pool table quickly, if I have to. Y'see, sometimes we have to aim quickly, work things out fast and move fast, to save our lives and those of our friends. But I'm goin' off topic again."
"Look, come and sit down, I'll get us some more Energon."
"Why 'not necessarily?'"
"It was your first time in a recharge chamber! I felt bad my first time in one of those."
"What you, Mr Coolness? No, not really, you're yanking my chain aren't you?"
"Yeah no bull. N' I bet the other time's had excuses too. Be gentle on yourselves, yuh're young, yuh're just startin' off, just feelin' yur way. But if yuh got a bad spark feelin' about this moment, so've I.
Somethin' aint right."
"Mirage, d'you wanna come and check the gate with us or stay here?"
"Oh what the Frag I'll come, there's no-one here for ,another game."
"You don't need to really, I can do it by myself, I'll be O. K." said Sam.
"And back on the other topic, sometimes you need music to set the mood. But not if you're fired up. Sam, I know you're itchin' to do this alone, but I wanna do this. Just give us 2 minutes t'ascertain if we need to send out a search party, and if not yuh and Bumblebee can have the gatehouse t'yerselves fer as long as yuh want."
Out in the parade ground they found Ironhide looking up. A full moon rode overhead.
"Hi, Hide, whatcha' doin, lookin' fer Cybertron?"
"I'm manning the gate. Bumblebee went out to check on somethin'.
"I knew it!" said Sam, striking his fist into his palm as if he'd still been a human. It hurt.
"N'yuh let him go out alone? Why didn' yuh stop him!"
"He's gone out alone before, he's a scout, why, whassup?"
"Prowl's not back yet and he went out with Bluestreak!
Bluestreak can go on talking like forever but he's a whizz at gettin'
back when he's needed. They're both big n'they're good timekeepers, they wouldn't be late without good reason!" said Jazz.
"Yuh think there's Decepticons about?"
"I've gotta feelin' something's up and we have to check that out!"
Hound came out of the building with a joyful stride.
"Out of recharge, onto duty! Ah, I'm refreshed, what's goin' down?"
"We gotta check the gatehouse security, something's happened!"
"Sure!" He got his cannon out. "I'll come with you!"
The gatehouse had hard set up proximity alarms and specialized scanning equipment including radar and ion-trail pickup. You could tell who'd been near any part of the perimeter recently.
"So we've lost 3 Autobots? Not good." said Ironhide.
Jazz pointed things out on a scanning circle interposed on a map hologram from his eyes and opened up a speaker link.
"Nothing's happened near the gate lately, we'd have to be really inefficient not to spot that. Further out, there's signs of something recorded here and here - heat signatures. Ironhide, you go with Sam south on the desert road, Mirage and I'll go up the road, North where the patrol was due to come in. Keep in touch, keep coms open at all times, call if you get any signs of enemy activity. S'that O.K? Everyone?"
They nodded. "Hound?" he called.
"I'm guarding base, right? Anything else you want me to do?"
"Warn Optimus and tell the Army to be on alert, they won't kill us for that."
"Sure."
"Lets get on the road."
" Rolling!" said Ironhide.
Sam transformed and went with Ironhide, two dark shapes moving through the desert night. Dust storms blew up. The stars shone down bright and cold as night had fallen.
They got off the road into the desert proper where a large yellow, black and silver shape lay by an overhanging rock.
Sam blipped Bumblebee's com. Surely he could not be entirely unaware of their approach?
"No, go away," the reply came back distantly, " I'm dangerous for you, this is all wrong."
"You can bet it is!"
Suddenly even in his anger Sam got an overwhelming sense of danger. Something big had homed in and was coming down fast.
"Oh no don't you dare!"
Sam transformed at the double and threw himself over Bumblebee. It was like some thing had gone off inside him and it was highly energetic, he could see red blue and yellow arcs of light. He wasn't even sure if it was himself who had said that last sentence.
"Die Autob- Aghh, my nose cone" - the transformation signal sounded loud in Sam's audio-receivers - "Ow, my aft!"
It was Starscream, and he wasn't too happy to find a force field where he didn't expect one.
"Pick on someone your own size, punk!" he heard Ironhide's cannons go off so he fired off his own, and Bumblebee did his, as they rolled over and Ironhide went into a crouched battle stance.
"Decepticons, Retreat!" commanded Starscream and screamed off.
"What happened, Ironhide?" Sam asked feeling drained.
"You must've extended your spark chamber shield to cover us when you transformed, I've never seen it so fast and so big! Well done, Sam!"
"Sorry Sam, I shouldn't have despaired of us so early. I nearly got us all killed!" Bumblebee' s sapphire optics widened with emotion, then dimmed with shame. He hung his head.
Sam put out a hand to his shoulder and started talking seriously.
"Bumblebee, none of this is really your fault." He brought his other hand up before Bumblebee's optics which were brightening now and widening again with hope, and stuck up the metal fingers one by one numbering them off.
"One, you couldn't help my body finishing the change when I went to hug you, two, you couldn't help me having feelings of wariness about physical male bonding, three you couldn't help me being claustrophobic in a recharge chamber for the first time when I thought of the long life I'd have without my parents and my human friends, and four, you couldn't help Starscream and the others attacking us!"
"But I could help running out here without telling you."
"Fraggit that was just a reaction! Every other time you've reacted right for me, now I've done it for you so we're quits! I had a feeling something bad was going down for you and Jazz had the same feeling for Prowl, he said we had to feel our way or something. Anyway, come on back."
They went back to base and met Optimus just inside the gate with Prowl, Jazz, Bluestreak and Mirage.
"What happened out there?" the Autobot leader asked.
"We met Starscream." said Ironhide, saving the younger mechs' faces.
"He wasn't the only jet about. I had to jump on Thundercracker!"
"Was he out with anyone else?"
"Yes, Barricade and Frenzy attacked us." said Prowl.
"I wish I could have divided myself in two for both patrols, are you O. K. Sam?"
"Yes I think so." He felt energized by the incident now, which was strange.
"Come in."
After they'd both been checked over, Bumblebee asked to go on the gate for a bit. Sam volunteered too but added "There's something I want to get first."
He got a CD from his room. He'd put some of the songs he'd found he liked from the Computer Library on it. He put it in the gatehouse computer media player.
"Listen to this, Bumblebee, I know it's old, but it's the only one that says anywhere near what I wanted to say. This is for you."
He held out the Allen keys on their ring.
"For me? Bumblebee took them in puzzlement.
"It's just a sort of token. There's something I want to ask you. Listen:" The song played into the quiet night.
"The long and winding road
That leads-
To your door
Will never disappear
I've seen this road before
The long and weary nights
That the rain washed away
Have left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here?
Let me know the way.
("Yes I know you waited a long time for Mikaela" said Bumblebee
Shh you know Mikaela has someone else now. This is for you.
So many weary roads
I've had - to go down
But still they lead me back
To this long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
(That bit's not true, the only time you left me - and I didn't know you were coming back - was the first time. With the dogs."
"I would never have left you to the dogs."
"Shh its O. K. now that's over" . Sam stroked his arm.)
Don't keep me waiting here
Lead me to your door.
Lead me to oo oo oo oo - your door!
Bumblebee touched his chest, finally catching on
This door?"
Sam could hardly trust himself to speak and the words all came out in a rush.
"Bumblebee, there's hardly a nanosecond, let alone an orn or a breem, when I don't think of you. Will you be my Spark mate?"
"Oh Sammm - Yes!"
They clinched and there was nothing wrong with it this time
Sam stroked his arms and chest and felt over his back for his door frames. H'mm maybe he could check them and the hinges for rust by hand.
"Sam that tickles! Ohh that feels good!"
Sam couldn't feel all the doors from the front as he was still a little smaller, and Bumblebee's chest and doors were big, so he went round to his back and felt all round the edges of the doors even along the edges of the windows. Then he moved his hands up to Bee's neck and down to the middle bit under the door wings.
"Stoppit Sam! No, hang on, don't!"
"Oh sorry, you're sensitive there."
"No, just come round the front so I can do it to you at the same time, the neck bit. Can I interface with you?"
Sam came back round. "What d'you mean Interface?"
He pointed to the back of Sam's neck with a caressing finger. "You have a dataport on the back of your neck like me. It means we share memories, thoughts - but if it's too early?"
"No, I'm O. K. with that. Just the hands on the neck is it?"
"Yes."
He felt Bumblebee's hands on his neck as they each found the port, then it was like diving into a dark blue pool of Cybertronian night and he was with Optimus but so much smaller than him, crawling, rolling, calling, standing, walking, running through the night with guns going off and bombs dropping all around, games in the sunlight, the taste of fresh fuel and metallic salts, then dark and flashes of light and the smell of cordite and Energon and coolant and hanging bodies and something with a single red eye asking questions and Megatron -
"No! Not that! I wouldn't put my worst enemy through that!" cried Bee.
The scene swung away and there was the All Spark as a giant cube drifting through space, then he was flying through space after it, blurring through other planets with different life-forms, running and dodging and firing a cannon, and on different surfaces, then a fiery fall and hitting the ground and the loneliness of it, seeking, searching, not knowing who to trust, and then he saw his grandfather's picture in the paper on a screen and his aunts" and uncles' pictures.
Finally he saw himself playing alien games with Miles in the yard When he was young and seeing Mikaela for the first time then making contact with Bumblebee (it was like seeing it from both sides), then the others, looking for the glasses and getting tied and iced up and singing, the All Spark shrinking and fighting again then through every thing that had happened recently to the present day. He came up fighting, swimming out of the sea of memories and felt dizzy.
He ran his fingers up to Bee's audio processors and kissed his neck and felt the processes at the top of his head. Bee was also feeling his polyhedral head down the sides and back and the dizziness calmed down, probably because Bee was dampening it.
They gazed into each other's blue optics for a while as Sam kissed his microphone mouth and the slightly damp silvery cheeks.
Then he felt the back under the doors again and rubbed it, rubbed round to the front for the fuel lines, felt the front lights and tires and the wing mirrors that sometimes came in front of Bee's face and made him look as though he had a moustache. Bee was running his microphone over his chest and stimulating it by the auxiliary fuel tanks and airbags and intake leads attached and the vibrations were spreading over it. He could feel Bee's hands on his back and aft and feelings were rippling down his leg servos to the big toes of his feet as well as up. He rubbed his Sparkmate's back too and suddenly it seemed that his chest had got wider as their chests and faces were together and something in the centre of it was pumping energy in and out, back and forth, and then it went dark and yellow lights on a black and blue background were going off in his head…
It was over.
"Oh no, we were on duty!"
"The monitors would've gone off I think."
"It was marvellous wasn't it?"
"Well, if that's how you feel, we can continue in my room later" said Bumblebee.
They stopped in the R& R room on the way though for a drink and were given mugs of Energon and cheered.
"What is this," said Sam "Have you told everyone Jazz?"
"No," said Jazz, "but if you hadn't been worried and my worries hadn't confirmed yours we wouldn't have known we were in danger so you've saved the day pal!"
And every cheered them.
"Told everyone what?" asked Mirage cheekily.
So they had to say they were spark mates and got cheered again.
"Right, you gotta have a party, I'm on it!" said Jazz.
Ratchet and Optimus finally got them out of the cheers and drinks and hugging before it got too embarrassing.
And they found it was even more marvellous when relaxing in Bumblebee's room on his rest pallet and knowing there was nothing else to do till morning.
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