"I missed you."
Firestar nearly froze up in terror, but out of sheer willpower alone plastered on a fake smile and slowly twisted so that she was hugging her red Sparkmate. "I missed you too."
A large servo affectionately traced her faceplates. Awkwardly she peeked up at him and was dumbstruck how relieved he looked to see her. Firestar had to fight her instincts to stay still and look like she was happy to see him too, and not terrified that what amounted to a stranger was touching her like they were married or something.
...Oh wait, they were.
"How was the mission?" Inferno asked, stepping back and giving her a little more space but still too close for comfort. "I heard Chromia suffered some injuries. Ironhide did too. Ratchet's nearly glitching like 'Red trying to keep those two apart while she's recovering." He laughed, a rich tenor sound, and Firestar giggled with him, though she had no idea what was so funny about someone glitching. Was that the robot equivalent to fainting? She'd ask Moonracer. Wait, he asked you a question. Answer it, dummy!
Realizing she hadn't answered him yet, Firestar stuttered, "Good. I mean, no, not good - going on a mission is never easy, but at least everyone came back in one piece this time." Damn, that was a good save. Firestar glanced at her arm, which still had some singed plating from a grenade she'd almost failed to notice were it not for Moonracer's shout of "DUCK DUMBASS!"'
"Well, mostly one piece."
Inferno gave the second degree burn a surprised glance and gently held her arm to get a better look at its plating. "Why hasn't Ratchet repaired this?" He sounded both amused and affronted.
"Probably because he doesn't know about it yet." Admitted Firestar. "With the unloading and then that stupid drill and then Bumblebee - it's been a busy orn." She realized her mistake too late. Hopefully Inferno wouldn't notice the slip.
"Bumblebee?" Inferno echoed. Aaaaaaand he noticed. Observational, this one.
Firestar waved him off the subject. "It's nothing. I ran into him - literally - during the drill. Neither of us were watching where we were going and it was pretty epic. You should have seen it." She grinned ruefully as though she were remembering crashing into the ground, when no such thing had taken place. It was as close to the truth as she could tell him anyway.
Inferno chuckled at the image, then on a more serious note said, "You really should get that looked at. Generally everyone gets a checkup following field work."
"I know. Aaaand I will. Tomorrow. What? I will." Firestar asserted at Inferno's knowing, doubtful expression. She laughed, "All I want to do tonight is get a warm shower and power down for the next million Vorns."
And not do anything else tonight, Firestar thought, really hoping the mech would take the hint. Or for that matter, any other night.
Inferno nodded, completely understanding where his Sparkmate was coming from. Before he'd been made Security Director he'd sometimes come back from missions feeling like all he wanted was to crawl under a rock. Inferno rubbed one of the little triangle winglets adorning her back (they were a part of her two-wheeled alt mode; he'd always thought they were cute), and smiled, saying, "Allow me to help with that. I know you can't reach these."
Firetstar gave him a confused look, then figured he was talking about being able to reach her winglets in the shower. "S-sure." She stuttered, her cooling fans kicking in. She smoothed out her voice; purred: "I'd like that."
It would be fine. It would be fine, Firestar told herself. She wasn't even taking her armor off, just getting a quick wash before recharge. Surely things couldn't get that intimate in there. She was unaware that it was actually a culturally accepted thing to help others wash; many mechs' frames were built in such a way that it was impossible to reach and clean some parts, so showering together wasn't seen as something intimate like it was on Earth.
"-and then we went to recharge. Apparently Firestar sleeps on the left side of the berth." Firestar mentioned extraneously, finishing her tale. Bumblebee whistled and set down his energon cube.
"Damn. Having him clean your shoulder thingies sounds awkward as hell. You have it sooo much worse than I do right now." He said, bowing his helm to her in mock deference.
Firestar huffed through her vents. "It's not a contest to see who's got it worse. Besides, doesn't your dad have cannons the size of your face? Think he won't be happy to use those when he finds out who you really are?"
Bumblebee shrugged. "He's a little distracted to be murdering me at the moment. I'm probably a horrible person for saying this, but I'm so glad Chromia's injured. Both Ironhide and Ratchet are ignoring me right now, and you know what? It feels good." Bumblebee did the cha cha in his seat to emphasize his point, winced, then put his arms back down, laying his damaged arm in its sling on the table. "I even got Jazz off my back. At least until this heals."
Firestar couldn't help but laugh. "You are a terrible person. At least have a little sympathy, Chromia's your caretaker." She took a sip of her own morning ration, wiped her mouth, and said, "Uh...who's Jazz?"
Bumblebee's optics widened a little. "FYI, You should really know that since you're like the Security Director's wife or something. He's the head of Special Ops and Third in Command, and probably knows more ways to kill me than Prowl has reports to finish. Though he'll have to get in line behind Ironhide and Ratchet."
"And he's your boss?" Firestar gasped. "How on Earth has he not noticed you're completely useless?"
"Because currently I'm completely useless?" Bumblebee guessed, grinning. "Can't notice your spy doesn't know how to spy if he isn't spying."
"You said you were a scout."
"Officially, yes. The fact that I 'scout' for Jazz's department is kept on the down-low."
"Oh." Firestar said, sitting back in her seat. Her digits drummed against the cube she held as she eyed the rest of the rec room, very sparsely populated given it was the ass-crack of dawn and over half of the personnel probably didn't eat breakfast. She had woken up to find Inferno cuddled around her - eww - and well, there wasn't any sleep to be had after that. After sneaking out she had commed Scott to see if he was up and they'd agreed to have breakfast together.
"What are you going to do?"
"Huh?" Bumblebee mumbled around his drink, looking up.
Firestar stopped staring about the rec room to cast sapphire blue optics on him. "When your arm's fixed, I mean. You can't keep 'mysteriously' getting injured or whatever you told them, that'd be suspicious."
Bumblebee tilted his head. "I haven't exactly gotten that far yet. Didn't you say your friend could show me how to fight? I've been really working on my aim since I went on leave, but I don't know what to do in actual combat."
"I haven't exactly gotten that far yet." Firestar repeated. She suddenly smirked. "Speak of the devil."
At the English word and her bemused expression, Bumblebee turned in his seat to see who she was looking at. A green and white femme was headed their way and looking mightily intent upon something. She approached their table.
"Good orn Bumblebee."
"Good orn." Bumblebee acknowledged. Dammit, what was her name again? It was on the tip of his tongue.
The stranger kept looking at Firestar like she was something entertaining. "Mind if I join you?"
"I'd rather you didn't." Firetar muttered at the same time that Bumblebee agreed "sure" and scooted over. Promptly the stranger said, "Thanks" and sat down, giving Firestar a not so subtle look of 'deal with it'.
"What are you two doing up so early?" The femme asked innocently.
"Apparently, talking to you." Bumblebee laughed, putting on his most charming 'I'm-totally-not-an-alien' smile. He glanced across the table at Firestar, and was taken aback by the displeased look she directed at him. Pit, What did he do?
The turquoise femme inspected her fingers, before leaning forward to ask coyly, "So. Did you convince him?" The way she said that and winked had Firestar blushing and stuttering, "N-no! Moonracer, Nothing, nothing happened! Not like that."
"Really?" Moonracer drawled, enjoying every moment of Not-Firestar's discomfort. Messing with her was too easy.
Bumblebee kept glancing between the two of them, wondering how this femme could possibly know Firestar had to convince Inferno of anything, but then he put two and two together. So this was that friend who knew.
"Haha, I said that too!" Bumblebee laughed, putting his cube down and rejoining the conversation. "She did say she took a shower with him though, so you could say things got 'steamy'." He laughed again at his stupid pun, but immediately shut up when he noticed the equally horrified looks both femmes were giving him.
Firetstar wanted to melt into her seat and die. After she killed Scott.
"Are you malfunctioning?" Moonracer snapped in her silence, tempted to slap the yellow idiot. It wasn't like Bumblebee to make such inappropriate jokes. "That was inappropriate!"
Bumblebee held up his hands. "Shhhh, Whoa whoa whoa, not so loud - I was joking. It was a pun. Don't you people have puns on this planet? Obviously Riley would never do anything like that to convince Inferno she's the real Firestar."
"Uh…" Was all Moonracer could say. She squinted at Bumblebee for an astrosecond, lost for words, then whipped her helm around to look at Firestar accusingly.
"He's the other one?!"
Firestar facepalmed. "Yes."
Gaping, Moonracer slowly turned back to Bumblebee, now wanting to slap him even more. Or run away screaming. "This...this isn't funny." She deadpanned, glaring daggers at him.
"Great, cause I'm not laughing." Bumblebee snarked. He took a sip of his sparkling energon, still maintaining optic-contact with the flabbergasted femme (though on the inside he was terrified she would start screaming or calling security or something), and Moonracer blinked.
"Highgrade?"
Bumblebee tilted his cube. "Yeah, I suppose it is."
This was not happening. Primus, this was not happening, Moonracer thought distantly. She had liked Bumblebee, even if she and him were never really that close. He'd always been a good kid.
"Wait? That's highgrade?" Moonracer heard Firestar say.
"Yeah?" Not-Bumblebee replied. Firestar tried to snatch the cube away, but the scout was faster and held it out of reach.
"Dude, stop drinking that! What are you thinking, getting overcharged at breakfast?" Firestar said when her attempt to grab it failed. The foreign word dragged Moonracer's attention back to them.
"That isn't healthy." Moonracer agreed monotonically, still shell shocked that Bumblebee of all people had been kidnapped or...whatever these things did to people. What did one say to that?
"Don't knock it till you try it. It's the closest thing to tasting like sugar around here and I'm not drinking enough to get 'charged. I already figured out Bumblebee's limit it three cubes and I'm only having one." Bumblebee informed Firestar. "Besides, I'm trying something new."
Annoyed, Firestar hissed, "What's that, being an alcoholic?"
"I was referring to the drink." Bumblebee said, rolling his optics. "Get yours laced with copper next time, you won't regret it."
Finally collecting her wits during the pointless exchange, Moonracer started, "You…"
They both shut up and focused on her.
"You, does...does Ironhide, does he know?" Moonracer asked. And Chromia, what would Chromia think? They'd be devastated.
"Nope, and you can't tell him for the same reason you can't blab on her." Bumblebee said.
"Excuse me?" Moonracer snarled at his tone, abruptly standing up. How dare this imposter talk to her like that!
Sensing her thoughts, Firestar quickly amended, "What he means is his position here is...tenuous. If you tell on him there's a lot of people who would react poorly, and if anything happens to him he might not be able to switch back with the real Bumblebee."
"Yeah, believe me," Bumblebee said, "there's nothing I want more than to go home. If I get shot or put in stasis that won't happen. We don't want to be here anymore than you want us to be, we don't even know why this is happening."
He held out his uninjured servo. "Please, give me a chance. I promise, we'll get Firestar and Bumblebee back. We just need time."
Moonracer regarded the offered hand coolly, tempted to just run to Prowl and be done with it. Or Inferno. At least his reaction would be priceless - and swift. But if they were telling the truth, if they really hadn't meant to come here and just wanted to go home...she took his hand.
"Come on."
Bumblebee blinked. "What?"
"I said come on. You're buying me a drink."
"I am?" Bumblebee asked, looking at Firestar, but she seemed as confused as he was.
Moonracer dropped his hand to put both of hers on her hips. "You did just say copper laced highgrade was the way to go, right? If you don't want me to tell you're going to buy me one right now."
"Oh, that is petty." Bumblebee said darkly. Moonracer smirked. "Well?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming." The yellow mech grumbled, grabbing his cube and scooting out of the booth. They crossed the large room to where Huffer stood behind the bar and Bumblebee smiled, said, "Another one of these if you don't mind."
Moonracer grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers around his. "Can I get extra copper, 'Bee?" She asked cutely.
"Make it extra copper." Bumblebee corrected, and Huffer nodded, going to fill a cube as requested.
Moonracer dropped his servo like it was acid the moment Huffer turned away, and Bumblebee scowled at her, which only served to make the green menace smile all the more. What was this bitch playing at?
Huffer returned with the highgrade and Bumblebee paid for it. When they got back to where Firestar was sitting Bumblebee sputtered, "What was that about?"
"What? You want to fit in, don't you? What's abnormal about a nice mech like you buying a femme a drink?"
"I didn't buy you squat; that was blackmail!"
"You don't seem to have any qualms about spending Bumblebee's credits to buy yourself some, so what's the problem?"
Bumblebee made an irritated noise. He had nothing.
"Now tell me," Moonracer said after taking a sip of her ill gotten gains. "How did you get here? What have you been doing since then? Do you know where the real Bumblebee is? And the slag did you do to your arm?"
Hey everyone! As always I'd love to get reviews or comments! Let me know what you think! Also, Stargazer360, thank you!
