He was, as Jack would delicately put, was going to lose his shit.
He was patting his foot impatiently, his arms crossed as he waited for Strongarm and Sideswipe to stop their bickering. Russel and his father were watching nervously, while Fix-it was right there with them. All of them kept on looking between the two arguing bots, occasionally glancing at their leader.
Was this how Optimus felt like?
First things first, he was going to apologize to the prime as soon as he got a chance.
"That's enough!" he snapped at them, the two youngsters straightening up when they heard his aggravated voice.
Despite the fact that he essentially just told them to shut up, Strongarm found the bravery to protest," Sir! Sideswi-!"
"I don't give a shit who's right or not!" he grounded out; he was well aware that the two bots had no idea what that earth saying meant. But they were smart enough to figure out that it was not a positive thing to say. And figure that out they did.
Fix-it just watched in confusion when Denny slapped his hands over Russel's ears.
Denny sighed in defeat at the language. But he also couldn't blame Bumblebee for finally losing his temper. It was like dealing with two 12-year-old who was just as idiotic as each other. And as a father, and an older sibling, Denny knew far too well that anger you get after dealing with two annoying idiots for so long.
"You two have been fighting for the dumbest reasons-!" He quickly dissolved into binary, his mouth guard coming up as the radio on his chest sparked to life.
Strongarm and Sideswipe just stared as their superior just scolded them in binary and human words that were coming from the radio.
They could understand him. Oddly enough, but with the binary and the exclamations from the radio, they were able to understand him perfectly.
Well, the Autobots were able to understand him. The humans just stared at the yellow bot in confusion, "Um," Denny said quietly as he slowly lowered his hands," Is there something wrong with Bee…?"
Fixit hummed as he watched Strongarm and Sideswipe cower under the scolding they were getting," The lieutenant was mute for most of the war." As the beeping got faster, the more Bumblebees hands would move, moving in a way that was clearly sign language for their kind," What you are shearing-nearing- hearing now was his primary method of communication," there was a particular loud beep that made all of them flinch," It seems Sideswipe and Strongarm has angered him to the point where his hold-cold- old habit is coming back into play. "
Russel flinched back when he saw a wave of black cover the bot, quickly turning the bright yellow bot that they knew, into a dark bot.
The beeping of the radio was gone now, and so was the beep and clicks of binary.
It was weird.
Autoboots weren't exactly quiet. They were kinda like humans where you could always hear them. In the sense, if someone was standing next to you, you could hear them breathing, the shifting of their clothes as they shifted on their feet. And Autobots were the exact same way. You could always hear a hum coming from them, a slight metallic noise as their joints rubbed together.
They stared at bumblebee, who was now furiously signing words in a rage.
All without a sound.
It was eerie. To see such a huge being moving without a single sound, to have the hum that accompanied him to suddenly disappeared. It was like someone had pressed mute on every part of his body that produced sound.
It was weird to see Bumblebee be so quiet.
If Russel wasn't looking at the three Autobots standing together, he would have thought there were only two of them based on sound alone.
"Lieutenant Bumblebee!" Fixit said beaming. His shout made the three bots jump slightly and turn to look at the mechanic. Strongarm and Sideswiped looked grateful for the distraction, while they couldn't see Bumblebee's face. Because, at some point, his helmet had covered his face entirely. They would be lying if that didn't disturb them to some degree.
But Fixit didn't notice in his joy," Your pouting-outing- scouting program!" While Bumblebee usually would have raised his eyebrow in a silent question, he merely tilted his head. Fixit continued," I thought you had your program disabled!"
As if he just realized what Fixit was talking about, Bumblebee looked down at his hands and twisted his foot one way to see if he wasn't imagining things. His head drooped over to the side, much like it would when he was groaning out exasperation. He flicked his wrists, the motion creating ripples of yellow to spread out over the rest of his body. Quickly replacing the black with yellow, their normal lieutenant was back.
"No," the face shield slid back, showing the frown that Bumblebee had on his face," My scouting program is too integrated with my operating program to disable it safely-that's besides the point!" the bot rounded on Sideswipe and Strongarm once again.
"Did you two just nod your head like you could understand what I was saying?"
The others had to admit that the two bots were very convincing in their attempts to convince the leader that they did understand him.
"No-o Sir! We understood what we did wrong!"
"And we deeply apologize!" Sideswipe added on helpfully.
That pissed off Bumblebee to no end," Both of you!" He snarled out, surprising everyone. "You are not to leave the scrapyard! For the next month for lying to me!" He leaned forward towards the two of them, almost screaming at them," Am I understood?!"
The two bots squeaked out an affirmation, and when he waved his hand around dismissively, they made quick work of leaving his presence.
Bumblebee growled as he sat down on one of their nearby seats, everyone giving him a weird look.
"Um," Russel said quietly, making the bot in question slowly turn to him. He looked tired," How did you know they were lying?"
Bumblebee sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose as he said," I was using a sign language that us scouts created sometime in the war." He rubbed at his eyes," It's been a few years since I've used it, and now that I think about it, I made a few mistakes."
Bumblebee exhaled as he let his hand fall," There was no way they could have understood me."
The mention of scouts caught their attention.
They had long been told that Bumblebee had served in the war, by both Strongarm and Fixit. After all, it didn't go unnoticed the way Bumblebee would have insomnia at times, or the way he have knee-jerk reactions to certain stimuli.
Namely the time Sideswipe decided to fool around with a very tired Bumblebee and ended up getting his face smashed into the ground by a spooked bot. That had been a bad day, it had taken Bumblebee a while to fall asleep after that.
It also took a while for Sideswipe's jaw to stop aching.
Moving past his curiosity, Denny suggested his theory," What if another scout taught them it?" only for it to get promptly dismissed.
Bumblebee scoffed and crossed his arms," Last time I checked, I don't remember being asked to train another scout."
Now that surprised them.
They didn't hear anything about Bumblebee being the instructor for upcoming scouts, "You were in charge of training the scouts?" Fixit asked curiously.
"No, "Bumblebee said grimly.
"I was the only scout left."