A/N: I am so sorry. I've done something that irritates me to no end when I've gotten involved in reading a story - I've taken months to update. Life got very busy for a while. I hope that there are still people out there who are willing to stick with me here, I'm hoping that there won't be that long of a break again.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of the characters in it.

It was nighttime when Bumblebee realized that he was not going to be able to lose Barricade. Every attempt to get away from the Decepticon had been a failure, and he clearly wasn't going to give up on the chase. That left him with one option – he was going to have to fight. There was a power plant near his current location, that would probably be the best place he would be able to find nearby to fight Barricade. He didn't like still being in a populated area, but he needed to be close enough for the humans to be able to get away.

He quickly drove inside and did his best to hide. He had to plan this very carefully. He locked his vehicle mode's doors to prevent the humans from getting out and proceeded to ignore their talking – instead he focused on Barricade's vehicle mode that was just a short distance away. The Decepticon had to know he was there, he was just waiting for Bumblebee to make the next move. Playing "cat and mouse" as the humans called it would only be entertaining for the Decepticon for so long. Soon he would be itching for a fight and Bumblebee knew his odds would be better if he was already out of vehicle mode when that happened.

Starting back up his engine, he shot out of his hiding space, speeding past Barricade. Once he was a good distance away, he dumped Sam and Mikaela out and transformed. Getting into a battle stance, he stood protectively in front of the humans. If all went well, this would be over quick and he could take them to meet the other Autobots. Bumblebee was sure that they would be landing soon and he desperately wanted to meet back up with them. In his opinion, it had been far too long since he had last seen them.

Barricade charged towards him in his vehicle mode, transforming at the last second and knocking Bumblebee to the ground. That certainly hadn't gone as well as it could have. By the time Bumblebee had started to get up, he noticed that Barricade had brought out his flail weapon. The scout didn't even have a chance to react before the weapon slammed into his chest, knocking him back. Vaguely he noticed that the Decepticon had deployed Frenzy to go after the humans. There wasn't much he could do about that at the moment though, he would have to get past Barricade before he could help them.

The Decepticon hadn't even given him a chance to recover from the last blow before he was hit again, and this time sent flying back into a nearby structure. Bumblebee winced, he could not let Barricade get the upper hand again. Flipping back up, Bumblebee rushed towards Barricade and managed to flip the Decepticon over a small ledge – though not without tumbling over after him.

Ironhide would never let this go if he found out how the fight was going.

After a few seconds of tumbling, Barricade managed to pin him to the ground. Bumblebee couldn't believe how badly this was going for him. Sure the number of fights he had been in was no where near as impressive as most of the other Autobots, but he had been trained by Ironhide when it came to combat! Everyone else who had been trained by the trigger-happy mech was able to hold their ground just fine in a fight, so why was he having such a hard time?

"Did Optimus Prime leave his little scout all alone?" Barricade taunted. "And here you can't even cry for help, too bad!"

A stab of annoyance shot through Bumblebee at the reference to his disability and oh how he wanted to come up with some kind of retort to it. The radio to his alt-mode seemed to be a somewhat decent way to communicate his thoughts and feelings out loud, but that would require him to take focus off of Barricade to find the perfect comeback – something that wouldn't be very wise in his current situation. So instead he just settled for a glare as he worked on throwing the Decepticon off of him. As he transformed his arm into his cannon, an idea popped into his mind.

Taking careful aim, Bumblebee fired and knocked Barricade off. It wasn't a kill shot, he hadn't had his cannon at a full charge and it hadn't been aimed at any vital components. He wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to even kill the Deception now anyway. As far as he knew, most humans – Sam and Mikaela certainly knew about them now – didn't know that any aliens were on their planet, if he killed Barricade, that might change. If the Decepticon was dead, Bumblebee would have to find a place to hide his body – something that would be near impossible considering that the two of them were similar in size. It would better just to knock him out for the time being. Barricade could be taken care of later once the other Autobots were there and they had the AllSpark in their possession.

Taking advantage of the fact that Barricade hadn't recovered from the blast, Bumblebee lunged forward and landed a hard blow on the Decepticon's head – knocking him out. It probably wouldn't take him long to recover, so it would best for Bumblebee and the humans to get out of there before he woke. Walking over to find the humans, Bumblebee was pleasantly surprised to see that they had apparently taken care of Frenzy themselves. Humans were certainly tougher than he had previously thought they could be.

After briefly explaining the best he could to the humans, he was able to get them inside of his alt-mode and he headed off towards the rendezvous point for Optimus and the others. He was still getting used to radio communication and some things were coming out slightly more vague, but he was sure that Optimus would be able to explain everything to the humans much better.

Bumblebee had to restrain himself from hugging Optimus the moment he met up with everyone. As much as he had missed his father, he wasn't sure how much the humans were going to be allowed to know about their kind. There would be more time for reunions later, and while Bumblebee knew that he would have to tell Optimus about his fight with Barricade, he fully intended on leaving out his little temper tantrum on the highway with Sam and Mikaela. Really, what had been wrong with his alt-mode? He had just saved the humans from Barricade and Mikaela had just proceeded to insult what it looked like. True, his newer one did look much nicer, but still.

He listened as Optimus introduced everyone, throwing in his own little introduction bit when Optimus got around to him. And while he was glad that Ratchet had provided the two humans with an explanation as to why he couldn't talk like the rest of them, he had really wished that the medic hadn't shot a beam in his throat with whatever medical device he was using. It had made him start coughing, which just made his broken vocal processor hurt much more. Bumblebee waited until they were all on their way to Sam's house before he confronted the medic on it though. He hadn't wanted to interrupt everything Optimus had been telling the humans.

:Did you really have to do that, Ratchet?:

:Do what?:

:Shoot my throat with whatever that thing was.:

:Yes, it was a regenerative beam. If it works the way it should, it will begin making repairs to your vocal processor. I am sorry if it irritated your injury any, but this may potentially be our solution to giving you back your voice. Now do you wish to explain why there are injuries on your chest?:

:Barricade. He went after Sam.:

:How'd that fight go 'Bee?: Jazz was the one who asked.

:Not so good at first, but I turned it around. Barricade was unconscious when I left, but he's probably gone by now.:

:What do you mean by "not so good"?: Bumblebee internally winced at Ironhide's voice, the weapon's specialist was not going to be pleased.

:I wasn't really given a chance to fight back at first.:

Bumblebee could hear Ironhide grumble something about having to work on training him harder. That wasn't something he was going to look forward to. Optimus must have sensed his dread about that, because Bumblebee could feel amusement coming from his side of their bond.

(I am glad that you manged to handle yourself well in your fight, little one, but Ironhide is right about you needing more training.)

(Yeah, I know...)

(Have you encountered any other Decepticons?)

(Frenzy was with Barricade, but they're the only ones I've seen. There might be more here that I just haven't come across.)

(I should have sent someone here with you. We are lucky that it was only Barricade that you had to fight.)

On most occasions Bumblebee probably would have felt a little annoyed by Optimus starting to act overprotective again, but this time he knew that he had a point. He was lucky that he had only had to fight Barricade. A vast majority of the Decepticons were much larger than he was, and had much stronger weapons – holding his own in fights against them would not be an easy task.

(Well all of you are here, so it doesn't really matter. I know you won't let me face any other 'Cons on my own.)

(With good reason.)

(I know... I missed you Optimus, I'm glad you're here now.)

(I missed you too, little one. Now let us hope that Sam's glasses truly do hold the coordinates to the AllSpark.)