A/N: Okay, so! Welcome to 13!

Hunger games references aside, this is important. But at the time of writing, (and to some degree still,) I was woefully ignorant on Cybertronian anatomy. So I've taken a few liberties. If Bumblebee is saying things in this one that doesn't make sense, you'll know why ;)

Disclaimer: I own the storm. I am the storm.

On the third morning since Mattie had been at the cliff top with Bee, she woke to find a bright yellow Camaro standing right outside her bedroom window. It looked like he had been standing there for a while; he was covered in dew. She slid open the window. "Hey."

"Hey."

"I need to take a shower, Bee. I'll be out afterwards. Okay?"

"No problem/I'll wait right here."

The hot water felt great on her bare skin. Unfortunately, it didn't distract her from the knowledge that Bee was right outside waiting for her. She felt like her stomach was full of butterflies the size of sparrows. Her skin tingled.

Drying off and dressing in a hurry, she grabbed a breakfast muffin from the counter and headed outside. He was still there. She stopped a few yards away from him, suddenly shy. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Um." She hesitated, then asked another question than she intended. "How long have you been standing here?"

"A while."

"Oh."

The silence stretched.

"Um. Go for a ride/with me?" Bumblebee asked hesitantly.

She nodded. "Sure. Did you drive in here though?"

"Yeah. There's a gate." He opened the driver side door.

"Okay." She got in, and settled back in the soft seat. There was a bag in the back seat.

"Taking a trip?"

"Actually/it's for you."

"Oh. Am I taking a trip?" Mattie asked, trying to keep her tone light. "Where am I going?" The idea hurt. A lot. She had been thinking about leaving the city – heck, she had been thinking of leaving the continent – but suddenly she realized she would never have gone through with it.

"Nowhere. You're going to stay/here with me."

"Oh. Good." She grinned, and relaxed a bit.

"It's lunch. And a blanket. And a towel."

She giggled. "I think it's too cold for swimming today."

The bad weather that the earlier humidity had hinted at seemed to be just around the corner. Dark clouds were boiling in the horizon. Bee had turned around, and now he was speeding along on the edge of the field, between the grass and the long drop down to the beach below.

Mattie looked out the window and blanched. "Jeeeeeesus! Slow down, crazy, or get away from the edge!"

Bumblebee laughed. "It's safe/I promise. I'm a good driver."

"Yeah, but if we drop 200 feet down there, you'll probably live through it. I'll be smashed into tiny smithereens and spread like jam across the stones."

"So will I. We're not/immortal/you know." He chuckled. "Besides/do you think/I would risk/your life? Especially now."

Mattie was gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles whitened. For all the good it did, the wheel might as well been a prop. "Then get away from the edge, dummy."

"Okay, okay, relax." He inched a little further to the right. "Better?"

She looked out the window. "The risk of my having a heart attack has decreased somewhat."

He laughed.

"So where are we going today?" Mattie asked.

"Same spot/I thought," he replied. "Maybe/better today."

"Okay." Mattie shrugged and smiled. "It's a really good spot."

At the end of the field there was a gate, just as promised. Bee had to slow down, as the road on the other side was more like a track than anything else. As soon as they hit the main road again, he drove faster.

"You like going fast, don't you, Bee," Mattie commented.

"That's the whole point," he replied. "Why else be/a sports car? Do you like it?"

She thought about it. "With you, I do," she replied. "I know you're in perfect control. But with a human driver, I would be ranting by now."

"You'll always be safe/with me," he promised.

It seemed like no time at all before they were once again turning into the small gravel road, and Bee opened the door for her. As before, after transforming, he reached down with his hand – servo - and offered to carry her. In his other servo, carelessly slung across a digit, he carried the bag from the back seat.

"How sensitive are you to touch, Bee?" Mattie asked when she had settled on his shoulder. "I mean, does it tickle when I'm sitting up here?

He laughed. "I'm not ticklish. Some parts are more sensitive than others, and some parts aren't sensitive at all." He lifted a hand and flexed his fingers. "My digits are sensitive, or I'd never get anything done. My faceplates. My peds and most of my body are sensitive to the degree that I can feel that I'm touching something and how hard, but not in the same way that your human skin is sensitive." He paused. "I am, after all, made of metal."

"I guess. So you can feel it if I fall off, then."

He laughed loudly. "I can feel every move you make up there."

"Can I hurt you? If I put my weight wrong?"

"I can't imagine you could. As I said, I'm not that sensitive. It hurts if someone hits me really hard, of course. Or if I fall off a cliff." She grinned at that. "But most small things don't hurt," Bee continued. "The external alt mode parts are the most insensitive, thankfully. It would suck if it hurt every time a pebble hit my windshield."

"I guess that would be really annoying," Mattie agreed. She reached out and laid a hand against the large yellow door-wing behind his shoulder. "So you can't feel this, then."

"Oh no, I can feel it," Bee said. "But if you were to hit me there, it wouldn't hurt as much as if you were to hit my face, for instance."

She reached out and gently stroked his face with her fingers. "So this you can feel."

"I can feel everything, Mattie." Bumblebee said. Then he continued in a lower voice. "I'm aware of every touch."

Mattie blushed slightly.

"I imagine it's a bit like humans wearing clothes," Bee continued in a normal voice. "Your skin is really sensitive, but it dampens the sensitivity a lot if you have a few layers of clothes on. You can still feel if someone touches you, but perhaps not if a bug walks on you or a feather brushes you." He chuckled. "I can never feel if I got bugs on me."

Mattie looked him over as much as he could from her vantage point. "I can't see any."

He laughed loudly again.

Sooner than she liked, they were back on the beach. Bumblebee didn't pause to put her down, but continued straight up the hill to the left. "Can't spoil the surprise this time, you've already seen it," he explained at her look. She nodded.

At the very top, he stopped. "Wow," Mattie breathed. "Would you look at that."

"Yes," Bumblebee agreed. "It looks like we have a real monster of a storm ahead."

The sky was bright blue over their heads, but purplish-grey clouds were boiling not halfway to the horizon. The water underneath was churned to a white froth, and the waves hitting the cliff face beneath them were the colour of dark slate.

"I don't think we should eat lunch outside today," Mattie whispered.

"Probably not. But we still have a few hours before this hits us, so we might as well make the most of it." He set her down and put down the bag. "There's a blanket in there for you to sit on. Would you mind? Zippers are really not Autobot-friendly."

Mattie grinned. "I see what you mean." As she opened the bag, the first thing she noticed was a bunch of small boxes, all containing food. Next to them were two bottles of Pepsi. "Who packed the food? These boxes aren't Autobot-friendly either." She dug past them to pull out the blanket.

"Izzy did. She helped me make it last night."

Mattie paused. "Izabella knows now too?"

"Oh, no." Bee grinned. "She wanted to do something for you, so I asked her if she would help me prepare a lunch for you for today. All she knows is whatever you've told her, and that I was planning to stop by and see you."

Mattie blushed slightly again. "She came to see me last night. Wondered why I'd been absent the last couple of days. I told her I had sinusitis and was waiting for the medicine to kick in so I could get rid of all the headaches." She looked up at his puzzled expression. "Sinusitis is an inflammation of the hollow spaces in our heads, around the nose mostly."

"You have hollow spaces in your heads?" Bumblebee sounded appalled. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. I don't want to know." He sat down next to her. "But there is someone else who has been told. Not by me this time."

She sighed. "It's Viviane. I knew Cade couldn't keep it from her."

"Yeah, it's Viviane. She talked to me last night. She was very helpful. Cade had her look through the Witwiccan archives, and she helped me figure out some things."

"Oh?" Mattie asked curiously. "What did you learn?"

"First of all, that there's been bondings – probably romantic – between humans and Cybertronians for as long as we've been on this planet. She has a bunch of names from a bunch of old books. You can get the details from her if you like, I couldn't get my head around them." He looked at her. "But it means that you're not a freak. People have done this before."

Mattie chuckled grimly. "That just means there's probably a diagnosis for it."

"Second," Bumblebee continued, ignoring her. "It seems these relationships were mutual. These weren't just stories about human women lusting for thirty-foot-tall aliens, the tales were of pairings. The Cybertronians returned these feelings, it seems."

Mattie had no answer for this. The butterflies from this morning had suddenly returned in force, and this time they were the size of starlings. Carefully she peeked up at him, and found he was staring at her with an intensity she hadn't seen before.

"That brings me to third," he said quietly, hesitantly. "She made me realize that – you're more than a friend to me. You always have been." He looked out over the ocean. "I've never felt like this before, so I don't know for sure. But I think – I think I might be in l-"

"Hush."

He looked at her, startled. "What's wrong?"

Mattie looked at her hands. She didn't quite know why she had interrupted him – it seemed like he had been on the verge of saying the very thing she wanted most to hear. But suddenly, she was terrified. "I don't know. Or, I do. I'm scared, Bee. This is – we're not the same. What if this ends badly? What if it doesn't work out at all? Or what if –" she drew her breath unsteadily "- what if you wake up tomorrow or a few weeks from now and realize that that pesky human who's always hanging around with you has become a nuisance? I'm not like you, Bumblebee."

He looked at her. "Mattie..." Suddenly her world was tilted sideways – she was moved, and held up against something hard. It took her a moment to realize Bee was hugging her. He was holding her tight against his chest, so tight she could barely breathe, but oh, so carefully. She clung to him hard and hoped he would never let go.

"When I first found you," he said softly, "I thought you were amazing. And as I've gotten to know you, you've become an integral part of me, something I can't function properly without. I understand why you're scared, because I'm scared too. I'm scared that you have human needs that I with my metal body can't fulfill, and that one day you'll vanish with someone more right for you. And I don't know how I will ever live through that."

He relaxed slightly, enough so that she could look at his face. "I love you, Mattie Eden. I have since the first time I found you. And I know that this will be difficult, and might well be impossible, but I have to try. I'll never forgive myself if I don't."

Mattie wiped her eyes with one hand. She reached up, and pulled herself closer to his face. And then she kissed him.

Apparently, it took him a moment to understand what she was doing. But then he closed his arms around her again and held her close.

It was a strange experience. His face was so much bigger than hers. The difference from the normal human kisses she'd had before was obvious. I'm kissing an alien. The thought was so ridiculous that she started laughing.

She pulled back, still giggling. "I'm sorry about that. The kissing bit, I mean. That was a very human impulse."

"I don't mind. It was interesting." Bumblebee grinned. "What's so funny?"

She leaned her head against him. "I suddenly realized I was kissing an alien."

"Hah! So was I," he replied. "A first for both of us."

She looked up at him. "Do Cybertronians kiss?"

"I have no idea." He shrugged, temporarily dislocating her. "Oops, sorry. I've never had the chance to figure out. Plus, I've been mouthless ever since Megatron destroyed my voice box. It would have been like kissing Darth Vader."

"Good pop culture reference," she complimented him.

He grinned again. "It's rubbing off on me."

Bee leaned back against a huge tree growing near the top of the cliff, and Mattie lay on her stomach on his chest. One digit was stroking her back gently.

"So are there other human impulses I should know about?" he asked idly.

She giggled. "Probably. I think kissing is the big one though, the others require a bit more – preparation. Not quite that impulsive."

"Huh." He said. "I guess I know what you mean. Cade and Viviane aren't exactly discreet."

Mattie giggled.

"Is that really how you reproduce?"

"Yeah. Sex first, then the woman gets pregnant, carries the baby in her womb for nine months, and then it gets born through the birth canal." She shrugged.

His stroking became slower, hesitant. "Is that… something you want? To have children?"

Mattie hesitated, then said something other than she had intended. "I'm 21. Most people don't start thinking about this until mid-twenties, at least." Time enough for the long story another time.

"Yeah, but – with me, you won't get to experience them."

"Says who?" She grinned. "They can do great wonders with donated sperm and artificial insemination these days."

"But Mattie-"

"Hush." She put a hand on his mouth. "Shut up and listen to me. Stop worrying about it. This, right now, is all I want. If I'm thinking long term, I may want to finish my BA. That would be great. Anything else, we can work out." She climbed up until she was sitting on her knees on his chest and her eyes were level with his. "If there are bridges in our future, we'll cross them when we get there. Let's enjoy the here and now first." Then she kissed him again.

After a long while, she broke it off and lay her head against his cheek. "Not bad," she grinned. "With practice, we might get quite good at this."

He chuckled. "Sounds like a plan." Then he shifted and looked up. "But I think we have to do it later."

She turned and looked where he was looking. "Whoa. Those clouds are moving fast."

"Yeah. And see that silver-grey edge?" He pointed. "It's a lightning storm. And you're sitting on a giant metal figure that might as well be a walking, talking lightning rod." He got up without jostling her and gently put her down. "Come on. Let's try and get to the road before it hits, you're safer in my alt mode."

A/N: Big whoop! First kiss, feelings out there, all that jazz :) Fluff galore! Let me know what you think, I'm loving those reviews!