Birds and Bumblebees

Chapter 4

Bumblebee sat on his recharge berth in his quarters, hands held together in his lap, fingers clenching anxiously. Thinking. While his meeting with Optimus Prime and Ironhide had gone well – ending with Bee bouncing into the air ecstatically, that he was going to get a femme! – he could now feel his excitement turning into dread. Did he really want to go through with this? Femmes were exciting, yes, and scary as the pit. No, wait, IRONHIDE had a femme, a fact which still baffled most of the mech population. None of them could work out what a female would ever see in the grumpy, weapons-mad, glowering lump of insane black mech.

To Bumblebee's critical CPU, he supposed the Weapons Specialist was vaguely handsome. He was strong, brave, quick thinking (uh, mostly, 'Hide was not renowned for his smarts), awesomely fast and accurate with his cannons, and a high-ranking Autobot Executive Officer.

High ranking. Hmm. Wasn't he now himself a Second-Class Lieutenant? Nah. Bumblebee shrugged off that thought. It wasn't a high enough rank to attract swooning femmes. Executive Officers and Commanders got all the swooning, over-heated femmes, not Second Class wotsits.

Bee's optics flickered, his optic ridges lowering down with determination. But, so what? If 'Hide could get a femme to fall in love with him, than so could he! He just had to find the right one, is all. Bolstering himself up with forced courage, the yellow mech stood up, and went to exit his quarters. His door whooshed open and he started to stride out, optics focused straight ahead –

[THUMP [CRASH

"...owww!"

Bumblebee halted his steps abruptly. Had he hit something? His head swivelled left and right. He couldn't see what had run into him.

"Down here, lugnuts!"

"Oh!" Bumblebee looked down at the floor and to his left. There sat a small blue femme. A VERY small blue femme. Primus, she was tiny! "Uh, I'm, er, sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going." Hesitantly, he leaned over and offered his hand to help the female up off the floor.

The blue femme looked at his hand, her optics moving from his earnest face to his outstretched hand. A small smile graced her faceplates and she accepted his hand with grace, only giving forth a small yelp when Bumblebee over estimated his own strength with the small bot and yanked the femme up way too fast. The female gasped and stuck a hand out onto his armor plated lower chest to keep her balance and prevent from being slammed into him.

"Sorry..." Bumblebee again apologised, inclining his head downwards as his optics looked at her. She didn't appear much bigger now she was upright! How could a femme be so small?

The femme straightened herself up, brushing dust from her rear and sides. "No problem, most mech's don't take much notice of me, I'm too short, always getting trodden on and knocked over. I'm way below the optic level of most Bots, I suppose." She smiled gently up at him.

Bumblebee's optics flickered. He barely registered what she was saying. She was so cute! And she was talking to him! Better say something back. "Are you sure you're alright?" he asked, concerned. His voice capacitor was scratchy, but working. Not the deep confident voice of a proud, handsome Commander mech, but what the heck, it was better than confusing the femme with his radio tunes!

"I'm fine," she shrugged, the high gloss of her polished metal sending sparkles of light into his optics. She looked closer at him. He looked like one of the Army mech's. Bulky yellow armor covered his chest and extremities and she noticed the bulge of a thick cannon behind his right forearm. "Are you a soldier?" she asked.

Bumblebee nodded, thinking carefully about what words to say, "Yes, I'm a Scout and Guardian, I find things, watch things..." he mentally stabbed himself, get it together, Bee! "A Lieutenant. Second Class."

"Really?" The femme's optics looked over him again appraisingly. He wasn't half bad to look at, this one, and he wasn't as tall or as intimidating as the other soldiers she'd met. "That sounds interesting. I'm just an Administrator, I don't fight or anything, never felt brave enough for that," she said softly.

"Courage comes in different forms, it's not just throwing yourself in front of a Decepticon's gun."

"Oh yes, I agree with that," she laughed quietly, a soft tinkling noise that fluttered past Bumblebee's starstruck audios.

Bee found himself suddenly coming out with words he wasn't sure he should be saying. "Would you like to... have a drink with me sometime?" he asked. Her oval shaped light blue optics in her small face stared up at him with interest. "Just a drink, maybe we could talk, if you wanted to, with me," he added. How on Cybertron had he come out with that?! Brave, Bumblebee, brave! She would most likely going to tell him to go rot in the pit with Megatron's trashed aft now.

Her face brightened and Bumblebee felt his spark do a hopeful flip-flop in its chamber. "I'd like that, and I've even got some time right now, if you'd like. But you know what?"

"W-What?" Bumblebee's voice was getting shaky, his artificial 'braveness' wearing off.

"You haven't asked me my name." She looked slightly affronted.

"Primus! Opps! Um, may I ask your name? Would you mind? Sorry, should've thought, you must think I'm a giant lughead..." he shifted around on his feet, embarrassed. Gathering battlefield courage, he lifted his head from staring at the floor. "I'm Bumblebee. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," the femme smiled graciously, "My name is Marin. Yes, nothing spectacular like Elita One or Firestar, very plain, I know. It's the name I came online with."

"It's a nice name." He tilted his head to the side, looking down at her. "Sounds soft and pretty."

Marin looked up at him. He seemed so nice. He gave off an aura of gentle power and kindness. Normally she stayed away from the military types. Too rough and loud, and BIG. At times she hated her size. Hard enough being a femme without being nearly three quarters the size of a regular femme – and even the taller femmes didn't come close to the height of a normal towering mech! She would've been very lucky to reach Optimus Prime's hip compartments on metal tiptoes, for Primus' sake.

"How about that drink?" she asked shyly.

"Yes, of course," Bumblebee nodded happily. He started walking down the hallway, Marin following at his side companionably, her steps rushing to keep up with his even though he was walking reasonably slowly.

"Hey, Bumblebee?"

"Yes?" He looked down at her, taking note of her quick steps and slowing down further to accommodate her.

"I'm sorry for calling you a lugnut, it just sort of burst out, you know?" Marin looked sheepish, her optics ducking away from looking straight at him.

"You needn't be sorry, I deserved it."

"THAT will be debated over the drink YOU are buying ME."

"Okay!" Bumblebee almost trilled like a robobird, he was so happy. To think, only moments ago he had been hanging around moping in his quarters. All he'd had to do was open his door and he fell over such a lovely nice femme! What was Optimus going to say?!

Ratchet was frowning, on his way down the corridor to confront the Autobot Leader over missed service appointments (when wasn't he frowning? When welding the Twins back together on his medbay table without sufficient pain killers) thinking over his hectic servicing schedule for all the 'Bots at the base. He simply HAD to get Optimus in for his routine maintenance. Maybe Ironhide would help, he had last time, holding a whirring cannon to the Commander's head and pushing him along with subtle shoves and evil cackles.

"Hi Ratch!" Bumblebee called out happily, passing the medic in the hallway.

"Hi," Ratchet mumbled automatically, only looking up at the last moment. He froze in his tracks, wobbling on both thick feet. Bumblebee?! With a... with a... femme?! He turned and watched with blatant optics as the yellow scout escorted a tiny blue female down the hallway and into the rec room. Holy Primus!! He fairly sprinted up the corridor, slamming aside Optimus Prime's office door with one large fist, "He's got one! He's got one!" he shrieked. "Oh. Frag."

No one was in the office. Well, that was okay, he'd just find him using the comlink...

"BUMBLEBEE'S GOT A FEMME!!!"

Ratchet's ecstatic voice burst out full-strength on an open line from Optimus Prime's comlink, clearly audible and echoing all around the large conference room. The medic had over-ridden Optimus' internal settings to make the message come through loud and clear, on speaker. Clever medic. Way too clever medic.

"SHE'S CUTE! SHE'S BLUE! AND HE'S BUYING HER A DRINK!" Ratchet continued babbling full strength out of Prime's still-open comlink channel.

The other assorted Autobot's and humans in the room looked at the large red and blue male at the head of the table with amused and shocked expressions.

Prowl, lifting his head from the documents on the table, was staring straight at Optimus with the biggest smirk on his faceplates that Optimus had ever seen on his new Second-In-Command. That wasn't right, Prime thought, Prowl never smirked. Prowl rarely even smiled. It just wasn't... normal.

Ex-Secretary of Defense, John Keller, coughed politely, his eyebrows moving upwards as he looked pointedly at the Autobot Leader. Keller had retired from his official Government post and was now acting as a semi-official Government liaison to the Autobots. He got along well with the huge Autobot, Optimus Prime. They were on the same wavelength on many issues.

Optimus sighed, shaking his head. "Yes, thank you Ratchet, the human Heads of State desperately needed to know that information."

A chorus of chuckles and laughter rang around the room. Prowl's obnoxious smirk changed to a faint smile. Their little Bumblebee was on his way to being a fully fledged mech.

"Oh. Apologies. My bad, and since I've gone this far, GET YOURSELF TO YOUR NEXT SERVICE APPOINTMENT, SLAGGER! OR I'M GETTING IRONHIDE!" Satisfied, Ratchet finished off his message, allowing the comlink to cut off with a squeal.

More human laughter. Prowl was starting to show that awful smirk again.

Optimus put his head in both hands on the table, sighing, shoulders sagging, "Yes, thank you, Ratchet."