Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
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Chapter 16
"Ewwwwwwwwwwww." Drawing out the word as long as he had breath in his vents Bee ducked his head back under Ironhide's thick arm in an effort to hide himself away from the sight of the cooking circuit deer strung up over the flames while Dustoff lazily spun it.
The big mech found his discuss amusing.
"Am I correct in guessing you've never had living energon before, mechling."
Bee made a gagging sound against the thick armor of Hide's arm, refusing to lift his head while he tried to block out the smell of roasting protoform and sizzling energon.
"Yeah." Sides drawled, amusement rich in his tone, as he sat with his arms draped over his pulled up knees. Staring across the flickering flames at the huge flier with an smirk twisting his lips. "That would be a pretty good guess."
"Raised on processed crystals, huh?" Dustoff snorted. "Now that is no way to live."
"It was alive!" Bee squeaked, still not lifting his helm.
"So are those crystals that are dug up and mined, but you've had no trouble eating them."
Well . . . when he put it like that . . . .
"Umm . . . ."
"Yes, umm." Dustoff chuckled, twisted the dead deer over the fire a few more times until he was satisfied with the smell. Deciding it was cooked well enough, for his tastes at least, and enough so that it was unlikely the mechling would purge it all back up—hopefully—he pulled the large mass back off the cackling fire. Laying it down before him he dug his claws into the still smoking back legs. Tearing one off with a loud, shred that had the mechling gagging and tucking himself back into his adopted sire's chest, the big mech tossed the pulled off limb toward the Prime.
He might not care for the so called entitlement that came with the Prime's name but he did understand bots well enough to know that if the Prime ate, the mechling would eat. That was all Dustoff really cared to analyze at the moment.
"Everything, everything on this world is made of energon. It lives off it. You are no different, but it is alive in any form that it comes in. That is something you're going to have to get use to, my dear sheltered little one."
Bright, baby blue optics dared peak out over Ironhide's arm again. Valiantly ignoring the deep chuckle rolling through the big ebony mech as he sat there in his sire's lap. Watching with morbid curiosity as his Prime caught the deer leg that was tossed at him, setting it in his lap.
And he didn't look grossed out.
Why didn't anybot else get as grossed out with this as he did?
It was weird!
They were going to eat a dead deer for crying out loud!
That was not okay!
Laying his chin on top of Hide's arm he pouted. Watching still as Optimus started shredding a long strip of protoform off the leg strut. The energon inside the once alive creature no longer ran or drip as it had when Wardrums had tossed it to his mate. Now that Dustoff had cooked it the fuel in its tubes had become gelled. It was the only clean way to consume such fuel.
Sure, a bot could drink the energon without cooking it, but more would be wasted as it dripped everywhere then was practical. Cooking made it easier, and turned the fuel purple, so it was less like the bots were drinking what looked like their own lives-blood.
They still were—as every Cybertronian creature did—but it was the thought that counted.
Bee gagged at the smell and hid his face away again.
He was not eating that.
And they couldn't make him.
While he hid away and refused to look he got some fond optic rolls from, Jazz, Hide, and the twins. Two tribe mechs who grew up on such fuel, and two a pair of twins that knew what it was truly like to be hungry, and just what you'd be willing to eat when you were.
They were glad the mechling they called little brother was as picky as he was. Because as long as Bee would turn his nose up at something it meant he wasn't starving. That he never had been.
They're crazy lot had done something right on that respect they supposed.
Still, he was going to have to eat something. So while the Prime handed out strips of protoform it was no surprise that he waited to hand Hide his last. Dust was watching them all from the other side of the flames. Amusement in those pale red optics. Something similar to what the twins felt in the pit of their tanks in those pale orbs.
The huge helicopter watching quietly as the Prime handed the last of the protoform over to Ironhide. The little yellow thing in his arms tensed when the big mech shifted his weight for the scrap, and then burrowed down deeper when his ebony colored sire chuckled lightly. The sound vibrating through all of him before the hand attached to the arm he was hiding in shifted enough to poke lightly at the soft plating around his mechling's rib struts.
"Come on now, Bee."
"Nope." He peeped, sounding vorns younger then he had in a good long while. Refusing to so much as move his doorwings.
Because he wasn't doing it.
No way.
No how.
And they weren't gonna make him.
Ironhide blew out a long breath, rolled his optics, and lifted part of the offered meal to his own mouth. As a tribal mech he'd eaten his fair share of what civilized bots had once called barbaric.
Well, he supposed, hunting down a living creature and then eating the fuel that had once kept it alive, to some would be. But it was the only way his people had lived. The Sea of Rust was not for the faint of spark.
Don't even get him started on the simple truth that once all Cybertronians had been this way. Before mining crystals and the liquid fuel trapped under the surface of the planet had been discovered and then industrialized, hunting was the only way to get energon. Sure, crystals could be found and processed. Even eaten raw if somebot really wanted to—Hide thought they all tasted like chalk that way to be honest—but it was hard to do, hard on systems, and took a lot of work.
That wasn't even including the truth that industrial mining, and forcing bots to do it, is what broke their society in the first place.
Sometimes Hide wondered if they would have all been better off just staying as they had been. As Tribes.
Life sure had been simpler when all they had been more worried about beasts killing them or the weather then slaughtering each other in droves because one group used the other too much.
But then, Ironhide wasn't political.
He was Tribe born, and he solved everything with his cannons. That was why he was a frontline warrior and Prime was the . . . well, Prime.
"Bee," Hide's tone lowered a little before he shifted the bond in his spark to let his voice drift down the line. "It is just fuel, my mechling. Different place, same thing."
"No." Bee shook his helm against his sire's arm again. "I don't wanna. It was alive."
"It was an animal, Bee."
Why is that any different? He wanted to ask, but the words died before even his spark could make them. Because how did he ask that when he already knew the answer Hide would give them.
That they weren't the same as them.
But they are. Bee whispered to himself. I know they are.
Unknown to him, considering he was still hiding in Hide's armor, Dustoff sat across the fire watching him closely as he steadfastly refused.
Strange. The old 'coptor thought to himself. Last time I saw a mech refuse this much it was because of . . . .
Pale red optics sharpened, the flier straightening ever so slightly as to not draw attention to himself. Because no.
No, it can't be.
Ironhide let out another low rumble, shifting the clinging yellow mass against his arm until Bee was forced out of his hiding place. Granted all that did was make the little mech glare at his sire while he steadfastly ignored the hunk of deer protoform still steaming in the big mech's other hand.
That was when Jazz decided to scoot himself a little closer to the pair, his own share of fuel locked between his few pointed teeth until he was leaned around Hide's shoulder looking down at the glaring mechling.
The sight of him with the strip of grey hung in his teeth being lightly sucked on so the silver mech could get the gelled fuel out made Bee gag all over again and fling himself into Hide's chest.
Jazz got smacked over the head, dropped his dinner, and glared at his friend for a long moment until he finally snatched it back up. But this time he did decide to grin at the mechling without the scrap in his mouth.
"Lil' Bee, it's just fuel. Now come on, I know ya gotta be hungry."
"Not one bit." He muttered back into Hide's armor.
"You won't last very long out here thinking like that, little mech." Dustoff finally decided to rumble in again. No little bit surprised when a hauntingly familiar blue gaze peaked back at him ever so slightly. "I told you, you can't eat those crystals long. So come now, the deer is already dead and you didn't even have to hunt it. You do it a disservice by turning your nose up at its sacrifice."
Maybe it was curiosity of the mech himself—because Bee surly had no shortage of that, he was little less then fascinated by the huge flier—or perhaps it was the words themselves. Whichever, Dustoff didn't much care. He was simply pleased when the little mech twisted enough in his adopted sire's hold to look back at him.
"Disservice?"
"Life requires life." And pit, there was so much more to those words then Dust even wanted to begin to touch on with the mechling.
He was too young, and too much rested on his shoulders.
It wasn't fair.
It made Dustoff fit to rage, but he swallowed it all back. For it was not for him to decide. If there was one thing in his life that the old flier had learned it was this; the universe is bigger than you, infinitely bigger, it was better to just try and stop understanding it.
"It always has, it always will. A never ending circle of life and death. Nothing can live without taking or changing another. Maybe that is not fair, but life is far from that. Fighting it hurts more than it will ever help. Life is the way it is, accept it, and honor that which honors you with life."
The mechling stared at him, those big baby blue optics wide in a kind of wonder that made Dust want to sigh and shake his head. Instead, he lifted an optic ridge and shrugged his shoulder.
"I am old, mechling. With age, comes a kind of reasoning. I have seen stars form, live, and die. More than I care to count. I have seen new stars form from the dust left over when the blackhole that claimed that that came before it destroys itself. Everything in this universe, be it big or small, came from something else. Even the universe itself. Life is destruction and rebirth, all wrapped up in the same thing. Life is Death. They are the same thing, they rely on each other, and need—"
"Silence!" The harsh growl was enough to snap the big tan mech's mouth shut. Every optic among them sliding to find the mass of Wardrums silhouetted in the cast shadows of the fire light at the mouth of the cove. The force of one single word seemingly making the very air go tense and the shadows shrink back just a little.
Or maybe it was the sheer anger seething in those fire colored pools of harsh red and raging orange. Optics locked on the form of his mate as he quivered with rage there before him.
Dustoff was not afraid, but that didn't mean he wasn't wary.
"War—"
"I SAID BE SILENT!" The roar seemed to shake the very ground around them to its core, making even Hide's armor tighten down to his protoform. His cannons humming ever so slightly in an instinctual reaction to the tension around him. That and the way the small mech he called son shrank down as much as possible in his arms. Trying to hide, trying to be invisible to the rage that stormed there before them.
It was the movement of hiding that snapped that rage filled gaze to him.
"And you!" Stalking forward until the firelight lit him up again. Casting him in an eerie glow that seemed to scream power in a way Bumblebee had never seen before. It made something in him shiver while it also made another part of him pulse. "You—you—you—"
War's claws flexed at his sides, forming fists and clenching them as if he was imagining what plating would feel like under them while his optics burned into Bee's as the youngling couldn't make himself away.
"You pit damned little bastard runt!" It came out in a roar that made Bee's plating shake as the huge shuttle hissed through clenched fangs. "What is it? You're too good to suck fuel out of protoform like all the rest of us animals in the desert!? Are you too slaggin' spoiled to degrade yourself in such a way!?"
"Hey!" Sunstreaker's snarl cut War's tirade just long enough for those rage filled optics to flash to the golden mech. The golden mech on his peds with his brother snarling at his side, blades snapped out and gleaming in the firelight as they seethed right back, snarling through clenched teeth at the mech that had made them into monsters. "You leave him the pit alone, you old bastard!"
"What the slag has he done to you, War!?" Sideswipe shouted alongside his brother, itching to bury his blades in the mech, but knowing they wouldn't so much as scratch him.
No, not him.
He might having to end up trying to though, because what he just said. Oh by Primus that proved the wrong thing to say.
For a nano there was silence.
Spark numbing silence as even the rage in Wardrums seemed to quiet. Only for it to then surge back to life with such a ferocity every bot around him felt it.
It was like standing in the face of an explosion. Exposed to a wild fire. Caught in the heat of a super nova.
It pulsed out from in its own thick wave of heat, anger, pain, rage, denial, HATE that it left the twins falling back to the afts from the physical blow of it.
And then, the screaming started.
"What has he done!? WHAT HAS HE DONE!?" Dust was on his peds, but he wasn't going to move fast enough to stop this. Not now, as War almost glowed there like the fire before him. Energy, power, and feeling crackling around him, in his energy field, and in the very air like actual flames.
It was the like of which none of them had ever seen.
It was beautiful, in the way dying stars were before they became something deadly and cold.
"What the pit would the two of you know about anything!" War bellowed, screamed, raged, it was all the same and it was all terrifying. "You slaggin' runaway fools! You disobeyed everything I ever taught you! Did you learn nothing!? Did you throw it all away!? And for what!? For him!?"
A clawed hand was thrown out and jabbed toward the tiny yellow mechling shaking in his guardian's hold.
"For some little bastard runt that has no right to even be here!?"
Something in Bee snapped, somewhere between the fear and the pain a small spark of rebellion bloomed in the face of that raging inferno in front of him. Catching light and trying to flicker as Bee tripped out over a shivering tongue.
"I-I-I-it's not l-l-li-like a-s-sk to be h-e-here!"
That fire snapped back to face him so fast the spark of fight in him snuffed before it could build, but not because of the rage burning there before, but because of the words he spit out like acid that followed.
"Not like you asked!? NOT LIKE YOU ASKED!? Mercy didn't ask for you either you little bastard runt! And yet here you are! You are here and she is not! You are here and she is dead! BECAUSE OF YOU! SHE'S GONE BECAUSE OF YOU!"
War should have seen the fist to his face coming, and yet he didn't.
One moment he was towering over a tiny yellow mech quivering before him, and then he was laying on his back with energon leaking down from his broken nose and dislocated jaw as his mate seethed there above him. Pale red optics blazing as he stared down at him in . . . disappointment?
There was a sound in the silence. Apart from the roaring of Dustoff's flight engines as he seethed there in front of him. Something else.
Something that sounded like . . . sobs.
Fire colored optics darted away from the face of his mate just in time to see a blur of yellow streak past him and into the darkness.
His spark twisted in a way he hadn't felt it do in a very long time, but he didn't have much time to think about it because a heavy ped came down in the middle of his chest.
Hard.
The kick knocking all the air from his vents and leaving him gasping, but also staring up at the twisted growl on his mate's faceplate as he seethed.
"Look at you." Dustoff snarled without even raising his voice. It was quiet, and still, and so full of swelling rage. It was terrifying. "The great Wardrums; General of the Stars, High King of the Deserts, last Knight of Cybertron! You've made a tiny little mechling cry. Are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted!? Do you feel any better!?"
He spit the last part, voice never so much as lifting a pitch and then, he took his weight away, he turned, and he walked away. After the mechling and the family that had taken him in, cared for him for all these vorns, and were now chasing him down as he ran blindly through the darkness and his tears. Leaving his mate laying there in the growing shadows of the cove as the fire died out leaving him alone in silence and blackness.
It was only after Dustoff's steps faded out into silence that War let his head thump back onto the floor behind him, staring through the tears building in his optics as he let out a pained whispered.
"No."
It was likely Bumblebee would have kept running, blindly and choking on tears, until he'd gotten himself well and properly lost in the darkness had Jazz not been as quick as he was.
Sharp clawed feet chased him in a flash of silver that had been up and after him almost as soon as he'd broke free of Ironhide's grip and ran. However, it still took the silver mech almost a mile to catch him. Smaller, quicker, and driven by the ice like pain gripping his spark he was quicker then most would think. All that wasn't taken into account that Bee could outrun just about everybot around him on a bad orn.
And this . . . this was turning into a very bad orn.
Jazz did finally managed to catch him though. Around a sharp turn that had him tripping up for just a moment, it was enough for the silver mech to reach out, snatch him by the arm, and then refuse to let go.
The noise that came out of the small yellow mech when he did broke Jazz's shark in half, but he still didn't let go. Digging his claws deep into the stone floor below him, and hauling back the little mechling with every bit of strength he had. It ended up putting them both on her afts with a very loud bang, a bang that was then followed by several yelps. Because, turns out, the turn Bee slipped around was the top a very long, slopped tunnel.
Not even rolling down it head over feet was enough to make Jazz let him go once he caught him though.
They ended up at the bottom in what turned out to be another soft blue glowing cavern full of quietly whispering crystals. Enough light that it made Bee squeeze his optics shut trying to adjust them to the sudden brightness after the inky black. Enough light that it forced his processor into focusing on something else so that Jazz was able to bundle him up into his lap, pulling him to his chest, and wrapping arm tight around him so that he had nowhere else to go but to shiver then against the silver plated mech.
Bee's first instinct was fight.
He wanted away!
He needed away!
His spark hurt, and his chest hurt, and he was confused, and he was scared, and he didn't know what he had done so very wrong!
But Jazz's grip was tight. Claws creaking against grooves in thin plating, as Jazz found holds to keep the wiggling, whining, whimpering bundle of yellow in his grip. Chin pressed down hard on the top of his little head where antennas lay pinned painfully down in their grooves in an effort to keep some of the wiggling from turning to flailing. If he hadn't been sitting on his aft in a middle of softly glowing wild blue crystals at the bottom of a big hole that lead . . . somewhere off to the side into another stretch of inky blackness, he might have brought his legs up to pin the little mech between his knees as well. As it was though Bee was being wiggly enough that if he didn't keep his legs pressed hard to the floor he was likely going to lose his grip.
The high pitch whine echoing through his chest as finally—it had been like four nanos but to Jazz, having his Lil' Bee struggling against him, a nano was an eternity—eased up. Not stopping, for the tears soaking against Jazz's sensitive neck cabling was making him swallow back the angry growl roaring in the bottom of his engine, wanting to become heard. Only held back by sheer force of will because the last thing Jazz needed to do right now was make the little mech think he was angry at him.
Angry, yes.
Oh by the power of the Well was he fraggin' angry, but not at Bee. Problem there was, right now, Bee wasn't going to care who the growling was for. If he was upset enough to run from Hide he was upset enough to stop thinking and just react.
Growling was the last thing his little mechling needed right now.
What he needed was to be able to stop wiggling and start clinging. To be wrapped up tight in strong arms and held as tightly as he could stand as he lay there with his faceplate hidden against a familiar chest while he balled.
Balled his little spark out.
Jazz ground his teeth silently, glaring through the dim blue glow around them. Resting his chin atop his quivering mechling's head, shushing quietly one hand cradling the back of his head while the other was clenched tight at the main joint of his doorwings. Wiggling his own sharp claw tips down between the clenched plating to try and masseuse the tense protoform and cable muscling underneath.
Is was as much an effort to try and dispel some of the tension in the plastered down appendages as it was to give Jazz something to ground himself too while tears pinged against his armor.
All that had taken, maybe two klicks if Jazz bothered figuring it out. For he might be fast enough to just be enough to keep on Bee's heels, but the others wouldn't be that far behind. Optimus had the size—those long legs were good from more than just height after all—to close the distance between them very quickly. Not even his size was going to outpace the twins though.
So Jazz in no way surprised when the sliding on loose stone made his right audio horn twist back to catch the sound of the two mechs sliding down the slope that had put him at the bottom on his hole, on his aft, holding a balling youngling.
He was going to kill that overgrown bastard.
Mark his words.
He was going to figure out a way.
Poison worked on big frames just as well as it did on normal sized bots.
The skidding weight sliding to a stop on both sides of him was enough to make him tilt his head—chin still pressed hard between two pinned antennas. Optics flicking up to take in the familiar shapes cast in an eerie blue glow of crystals. They turned both their bright armor paler then is should be. Making them almost look like ghosts as they stood there staring down at not Jazz but the quivering ball of yellow in his lap.
The echo of his sobs amplified against the silver mech's armor even if the mechling was actually trying to quiet them. It didn't do him much good. His whole frame was making those sounds now.
Something that made every instinct inside all three of the mechs, twist, bend, and roll. Neither frontliner had pulled back their blades. The long, sleek, sharp things glittering there in the blue like wishing for a different tint of blue to be on them.
But Jazz knew for all their bluster since they'd laid optics on the huge shuttle they weren't foolish enough to try that. At least not while their optics were still blue. Now should that coding swimming inside them take hold and turn them into something else Jazz was very much aware they were all going to be trying to save mindless monsters from a fight they wouldn't win.
He was not looking forward to trying to reason that out for them while their optics were red. He was hoping he wouldn't have to.
He wasn't betting on it though.
He knew the two mechs a little too well. He knew just how much of themselves they had given Bumblebee all those vorns ago when they decided getting close to the tiny yellow sparkling in Hide's palm wasn't a bad idea.
Now, well, now they were quivering for a whole different reason then the young thing balling into Jazz's chest and he didn't blame them, but he still had to narrow his optics up at the pair of them to keep their engines quiet and their tongues still.
Sunstreaker quaked with repressed emotion while Sideswipe swallowed visibly, but then they both looked behind them. The heavy, quick steps of three mechs. Jazz closed his optics tight, and then opened them again to find himself looking up at the big ebony mass of one very angry weapons specialist. In the eerie blue glow of underground crystals he looked a good deal older then he really was. The weathered lines of his faceplate stood out along with the new scar that his nanites had yet to fully settle across his right optic.
For some reason, in that moment Jazz took notice of the mark as he looked up at the fellow tribal mech that had been helping him along since they both ended up in Iacon all those vorns ago. He wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed just how damaged the protoform and brow ridge around that optic were. Ratchet—Jazz knew—had tended to the big mech after the massacre when their home fell out of the sky and Megatron almost pulled off killing them all once and for all.
However, there had been worse—much worse—than one old weathered warrior with a busted optic and a messed up face. Of all the bots among the Autobots Hide had the most scars. The twins were probably second behind him, with Jazz coming up next, but the difference was the twins kept what they could hidden and Jazz had long ago taken to hiding what weaknesses he could just as they did.
Ironhide though, he didn't care.
While Jazz had been born a desert prince that would never be good enough, Hide had been born a normal desert mech. Born to life in a tribe built big and tough. They had been a warrior tribe like all the others, but the region of the desert Hide had been form had been out on the open scorch lands. Jazz had been from the northern plateaus and mountains that ran a ring around that part of the Sea of Rust. It was no less harsh there, but life had still been different.
Out in the open areas of the scorch lands there had been no places to hide. Everything, including the desert itself was out to kill you in whatever way it could. The bots that had made a nomadic life out there possible had been a whole other kind of strong.
Hide was one of the last one of those left.
That spoke for itself in more ways then one.
It also answered the question of why Hide didn't care if he had visible scars. For Hide, in the culture of his tribe, they had been badges of honor the likes of which nothing else was. For scars meant you had survived.
It was likely—for Jazz hadn't been there to hear what had most likely been a very loud argument—that Hide had told Ratchet to care for those that needed his care and not bother with an old warrior who didn't mind a scar. Knowing Ratchet, the medic had hollered quite a lot at his friend before letting him go toe tend to the dying.
The silver mech wasn't sure why it was now that he finally stopped and looked at his old friend to see the new mark along his weathered armor, but he did. Or maybe it was because standing there in the strange blue light the huge mech looked older then he had in a very long time, and that scar didn't do anything to help that picture.
But then, a heavy breath rattled the flared and tense armor all along that huge form and the adopted sire reached down. Bee had been too lost in his own upset to notice the collection of shapes that had gathered around him after Jazz refused to let him go. When that well known energy field along with that large hand closed around his shoulder though he hiccupped on a sob.
Coolant drenched cheeks and shining optics turned enough to follow that thick arm back up to the dark blue optics shinning back at him. This time, when the mechling wiggled for freedom, Jazz let him go.
Another blur of movement and Bumblebee found himself wrapped tightly up in the safest place he knew in the whole damn universe. Thick, cannon wielding arms curled as tightly around him as they dared. His plating creaking with the hold as protoform protested the tightness.
He didn't care.
His legs curled up tightly to his chest as his fingers found all too well known holds in thick armor plating. Burrowing himself in, wishing like he hadn't in a while that he was still small enough to fit inside the groves of the old mech's armor.
He couldn't though, and no amount of wishing was going to change that. Besides, as the big mech let his weight settle down to a seat on the cold stone ground it felt just as safe wrapped up in those thick arms as it ever did hiding in his vault.
Hiding his coolant streaked faceplate into the center seam of Ironhide's strong chest he let himself whimper and whine. Heavy sobs shaking through him every few moments. If it wasn't for the bond link between them being blown wide open and allowed to soak through Bee in everything he needed right now the tears would probably be worse.
As it was though Hide was smothering him in every ounce of warmth he could think of. Letting the little mech he called son swim in it, because if he didn't, that bright ball of life in that little chest might just crack in half.
Because nothing . . . nothing had ever hurt quite like this before.
Nothing was really processing besides that either. Those harshly hissed words echoing darkly though Bee's mind with all the poisonous malus of a viper's bite. He could almost feel the sluggish black venom soaking through him from the words. As if it had been a bite fit to kill and not just the angry growling of a huge old mech.
He just . . . he didn't understand.
Why?
What had he done?
He didn't . . . he didn't mean to.
He . . . he hadn't asked for any of this. He hadn't asked to be born. He hadn't asked a femme he . . . couldn't even remember to give him life.
He . . . he didn't know if he was worth that.
If Wardrums was to believed . . . maybe he wasn't.
He didn't know how long he sat there curled tightly to his sire's—and Hide was his sire, he didn't give a damn about coding, just like he didn't give a damn that Mia wasn't coded to him either she was his carrier . . . that made him a horrible being didn't it?
He swallowed hard.
Optics squeezed tight, faceplate pressed hard enough into Hide's chest that it was actually starting to hurt.
He didn't care.
His spark hurt worse, and his processor was spinning, and he just didn't know what the frag he was supposed to be doing.
So long after the sobs had trailed off he still stayed hidden there against Hide's chest. Aching for his sire to take it all away. To make it better. To make his spark stop squealing in his chest, telling him about bonds that weren't there, that should be there. About things he should understand but didn't.
Of stuff that had long since gone numb that now flared with pain like they hadn't since he'd been three vorns old and refusing to eat while all these strange mechs he'd never seen before but had quickly come to trust tried to get him to.
Bee had never . . . hurt for her, not since he was a tiny sparkling at least.
And now . . . now both the knowledge of it pointed out and the phantom pains that came with it, it made his spark burn and his mind roll.
It hurt.
So he hid in plain sight.
Letting himself be the youngling he was constantly claiming he wasn't. Letting himself be protected, and cuddled, and kept curled up tight. Letting it happen and needing it.
Because he might just come apart at the seams if he didn't.
His spark was a cold kind of burning in his chest. With his optics squeezed shut he could look inward to the links spiraled out of his spark. Hide's; the closest, the thickest, the brightest, the strongest, the one that was woven together with so much emotion and feeling that Bee could watch that bright light of blue life shining in a backdrop of black forever. Jazz's; a paler streak of blue life that curled, spun, and wiggled through the cosmic dark. Full of playful emotions and so very much warmth. Sides and Sunny's; despite what most would think, there wasn't two links for them. There was only one spark between them, divided into two, so there was only one link for the both of them. Strong, braided together in a wild fire kind of burning blue, pulsing and extreme in every way. Even the way they felt about things. Ratchet; one of the calmest kinds of spark that he knew. Ratchet felt and looked a lot like the calm, still water that some planets had. Not like the boiling Mercury Sea of Cybertron. Something like a shallow, cool, backwoods pond of some lush green planet. He was steady, and still, and bright. Strong in a way that first glances lied about. And he felt more then he probably should about all the things his calm blue light linked him too. And then there was Optimus; he shown bright, like a young star, or a full moon. It wasn't the same kind of bright like Hide felt for Bee—though Optimus' link with him was probably the third strongest he had—but it was like it in a way. Optimus was steadfast, ever pulsing, and strong. He was tied to more than most of the time Bee thought should be possible, and yet he could see it for all that it was if he closed his optics and focused inward with his spark.
There were others, hundreds of others to be honest.
Bee knew so many sparks, and no amount of distance between them dampened that. Curled up here now in Hide's lap he could still see the link he shared with Mia. He could feel Arcee, and Elita, and so many others. Jolt, and Flare Up, and Bluestreak, and Prowl. Springer, and Outrider, Hammerdown, and Smokescreen.
He knew where they were, he could feel what they were up to.
It comforted him.
But it was also what was upsetting him.
Because when he looked deeper, he could see sparks he wasn't bonded to as well. He could feeling the living things around himself, and see a great many of them. It was something he spent a lot of time doing lately.
Closing his optics, quieting his audios, and just looking to see what he could find.
He was trying to get better at it, because if he was better at it maybe what happened with the battleship wouldn't happen again. Maybe if he worked hard enough he could find Megatron whenever he wanted as well.
For some reason, he figured that might help them out some orn. Even if Optimus was supposed to be able to do it as well. Megatron had been clouded to his siblings for a very long time now. But Bee did things others couldn't anyway, he figured the same might be applied here as well.
He was letting his mind wonder on purpose right now as well. Trying to focus on something besides the pain in his spark for the ones he was trying not to look at right now. Because he had seen them the moment Dustoff opened himself up and told the mechling to look.
Wardrums hadn't done the same, but he was mated to the huge tan medic and that was more than enough for Bee to be able to see him. And see so much more than just him.
It might have been ten klicks, or it might have been half a joor, to be perfectly honest, Bee didn't know. He also didn't care. That was just how long it took for him to finally calm himself down enough to notice more than his own spark.
He wasn't shocked when he finally noticed what was becoming the familiar feel of Dustoff near. He was shocked that Ironhide had let him be that. While he'd been in the middle of a crying fit it seemed the towering helicopter mech had followed them.
Still sniffling more then he wanted to admit to, Bee twisted enough in Ironhide's grip to get a good look at the big flier sat crossed legged across the dim blue glow of the crystals in this small cavern.
Well.
Maybe they hadn't let him near, after all.
They hadn't run him off though.
That was saying something.
The huge flier sat with his back to a wall, his long roter blades hanging limp behind him. It was hard for a mech of that size to look small, but in this moment Dustoff managed to pull that off. With his elbows balanced against the sides of his knees and his chin held up on his palms he was slumped in a way most proud mechs would never be.
His pale red optics dim in a way that suggested he was paying more attention to what was going on in his mind then he was to the outside world, but when Bee shifted in Hide's grip those pale optics focused once more.
Though he didn't change his posture.
Simply stayed on the outside of the protective circle Bee suddenly realized he was in. Ratchet was sitting next to Hide's left with Jazz on the other. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were pacing—as they normally did when they were upset or angry and had no way to vent other than useless movement—a tight circled around the lot of them. Prowling like caged beasts while Optimus sat just off center of in front of Ironhide. Not blocking the huge flier's view from the little yellow thing curled in an ebony lap, but just a shift of movement meant he could should he so choose.
Problem with that, was this, it wasn't Dustoff Bee was hurting with at the moment. Dust was what Bee had quickly come to associate with him. For the life that burned before him when Bee closed his optics and looked was old, but not dim. He burned like an old blue star. Steady, powerful, but sort of distant. Bright enough that things could thrive around him, but withheld in a way that only time and living could cause.
He was comfortable in a way most new sparks weren't to Bee. There was no needed to feel him out or work through learning him. It was like what Bee had felt the first time he laid optics on him down here in these tunnels.
He was familiar.
He was . . . family . . . in a way Bee had never felt before.
Because he could feel it, if he focused enough. Under that swirling together streak of life cutting through the black cosmic plane of sparks that Bee could conjure up in his mind if he tried hard enough was something he hadn't been able to apply to himself until now.
He'd seen it in other sparks, sure.
Once he'd grown old enough to understand that it was traces of coding that liked sparks on the most basic level to one another. He'd just never had something like that directed at him.
Hide and Mia loved him, were linked to him, like they were his own creators but under it all there was no basic traces of coding that would make it genetic. Bumblebee had never needed that. He was more than happy with what he had, but that didn't mean seeing it now.
Having it now, wasn't something that his spark was going to cling to.
It was why those venom filed words from a mech that had done nothing but glare and growl at him since they met had hurt quite as bad as they did. Because Dustoff was only linked to him by bonded code, traces of Wardrums' basic code that intertwined with Dust's spark on the most basic of levels because they were sparkbonded. That was why Bee was able to see a coded link between himself and Dust.
Wardrums was the one that was actually related to him through birth coding, not just the drifted coding of bonds. Because his birth carrier . . . she had been War's sister, not Dust's.
But it was War that . . . hated him.
Sniffling, one had lifted to wipe at his nose and rub at his optics, Bee rested his cheek back down against the steady beat on the other side of Hide's thick chest armor. Grateful for the heavy hand atop his pinned antennas and the strong arm wrapped tightly around his back. Ironhide was making a low, echoing sound through his engine. The sound only loud enough for Bee to hear as he pressed up against him but the purpose was the same.
Comforting, reminding.
Bee pressed his cheek harder into the thick armor, keeping his gaze fixed just to the right of Optimus shoulder on those pale red optics that were now focused in on his own.
For a long few klicks the two of them just stared at each other. The fact of it obvious enough that the twins stopped their pacing and turned to attention. What is was the two mechs were waiting on Bee wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Normally when Sunstreaker ground his teeth like that and Sideswipe's optics darkened to that off shade it spelt trouble for whoever it was that deserved—or sometimes didn't—those reactions.
But then, before even Optimus who had twisted just enough to follow his foundling's gaze was pause when Dustoff took a long, deep, slow breath. Letting it out like a flush of flight engines—and maybe that was what he was actually doing, Bee didn't quite know the ins and outs of flight capable bots, he was a grounder after all, no matter the appendages at his back—before the big mech finally spoke.
"Do you know, little mechling, the first time I met Wardrums I punched him in the mouth?"
And Bee . . . blinked for half a moment as they all kind of stalled for a moment at that until Sideswipe let out a harsh snort.
"That is oh so very fulfilling to hear! You have no fraggin' idea how much I've never got what the frag you dealt with him for, for all these damn vorns!"
Sunstreaker grunted an agreement.
"That's funny," Dustoff's gaze flickered to the twins, narrowing a little voice dropping from the tired tone it had held to something brittle and dangerous. Something Bumblebee hadn't heard from him before. "Coming from a twin born tied to that glossed up, selfish, trigger happy, mental case."
Sunstreaker stiffened as did Sideswipe. A dark light flashing through both their optics before suddenly there were sneering, growls low in their engines. Bee tensed at the sounds as did Ratchet to Hide's side but Dust went on before any of them could do anything.
"Don't forget who it was that raised the two of you, mechs. Don't forget the real reason you got out that night. Don't forget how many times I leaked to keep you alive."
And just like that, the anger went out in a whoosh from the pair of them. A heavy vent and they sagged a little. The shortest of glances shared between them before two of the proudest mechs Bee had ever known bowed their heads and looked away.
"Dust—"
"No!" The big mech hissed quietly cutting Sideswipe off, pale optics narrowed and . . . hurting? "You have forgotten more than just what War hissed at you trying to keep you alive. You have forgotten how much I cared about you, and all I did trying to save you! And now you can shut your damn mouths and let me try to fix something that has been broken longer then you could possibly begin to understand! Because I no more chose being bonded to Wardrums then you two did being born mated to each other! Don't you dare insult me by saying otherwise!"
The twins sank down to their afts like scolded hounds. Tucking themselves down and bowing their heads just to the side of Ratchet. Though the odds of them ending up there should not have surprised Bee he was a little shocked of how they got there so fast.
The huge tan flier snorted hard at the pair of them, optics still narrowed until he shifted his gaze once again to rest on Bee. They softened once they were there. Becoming tired and old again so quickly that Bee had to straighten up and shift around to look at it. He wasn't quite brave enough to leave the safety of Ironhide's arms—not that the way his sire squeezed him made for the impression he had any plans on letting go—but he didn't really think he would need to.
Not with the way Dustoff sat there, hunched in on himself looked hurt, and sad, and tired. Old in a way Bee had never seen before. One that made his spark hurt in a whole different way. For he wanted to make it stop somehow. To take some of the weight that seemed settled on those strong shoulders and let this mech breathe.
Bee didn't think Dustoff had been breathing for a very long time.
The feel of him now . . . it was stagnate . . . .
It felt wrong.
Vorns, upon vorns, upon vorns all piled up onto of him. Full of pain, and anger, and lose. He was a mech built to fix things but it seemed Dustoff had long ago lost the ability to do that. Now, it was almost like he was scrambling for something even he didn't know. Saving what he could along the way while he himself sank deeper and deeper into something Bee didn't know if he'd be able to pull himself out of.
He . . . didn't like it.
He wanted it to go away.
Because Dustoff, he didn't deserve that. He was meant for more than that.
That much Bee was sure of. Because he could see it.
"What do you mean?" Bee dared whisper. "About not having chose him?"
A humorless chuckle left the huge 'coptor. Dust straightening up just enough for the struts in his back to crack. He gave a shake of his shoulders after the sound, attempting to rattle whatever strut that was back into place. Another heavy breath, a moment of squeezed tight optics, and then he was looking at Bumblebee again. That old look back in his optics, but this time it was a little different.
Still tired, still drained, but wise again. Wise and almost, sadly amused.
"Mechling, no bot chooses to love another. No more than any of us choose to come into this universe or normally leave it. Fate, destiny, a greater plan; call it whatever the slag you like. Or do as War does and call it all nonsense, the point remains the same. Life drags us all along down this damn screwed up road whether we like it or not. You can fight it, you can ride it, or you can do a little bit of both, and that is the only choice you are ever truly given. So make it well, you only get to make it once. What I mean though, little mech, is just that. I no more chose for my spark to fall for that big, angry, over entitled, fool with the emotional capacity of a straw then you did to be born. But they happened anyway now didn't they? I won't regret what was oddly enough the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Because I do, love the bastard that is, even when I can't remember quite why that is sometimes. Fun fact of that little deal though, little mech, loving somebot doesn't mean you have to like them all the time. And frankly, I am quite entitled to punch the big fool in the mouth when he goes and makes an aft out of himself again and I must once again go and try and fix it for him before he destroys every chance of happiness he could possibly hope for and succeeds in alienating himself from the whole damn universe. Which, for some reason he seems to think he wants to do now that all this slag has gone to, well, slag to be honest."
Dustoff gave a shake of his head and almost a fond smile as he paused then went one.
"I've told you mechling, old as star dust over here. And War, he's older than me. A good deal older than me, and time has done nothing but take, and take, and take, and take from him. And now, it's set up to do it again. He wants to pretend he doesn't care, mechling. He wants to pretend he isn't afraid, or hurting, or tired, but he can't lie to me, my young mech. I know him better than anything ever will. I don't regret that. What I regret is always waiting until he's dug himself into another grave he might not be able to work himself out of before I step up and make him shut his damn mouth. Not because of what he really thinks, but because he is incapable of actually talking about what his spark really wants or feels. Like I said, first time I met him, I socked him square in the jaw. Big idiot of a prince who thought he was better than some knew infirmary medic apprentice who got tricked into treating him, or at least trying to. First time he called me an incompetent youngling, I let it go. Second time? I broke his nose, and then I let him sit there and whine about it while I fixed what he was there for to begin with. Let him leave with his head down and noseplate still leaking after I was finished though, because I wasn't fixing that. Would you believe me if I said he requested me every time he got his stupid aft in the bay after that? Would you also believe me if I said the idiot's idea of asking to court me was dropping a dead Bison's head on my desk? Yeah. This is what I'm working with here. Believe me, young one, I'm mated to him. I know. And I know, after all these vorns I'm likely to be hitting him in the face a few more time at least, but he'll do the same for me when I need it. It's just how some of us are. He's an aft, no two ways about that, but I can be too if you push my buttons just right. We are old, and tired of this mess we have been living in too long. It's no excuse but it is a fact. You'll figure him out, Bumblebee, you just need a little time. And I'll give it to you, best as I can, if you want it."
Bumblebee was quiet for a good long time after that, though Dustoff would have taken no less for what he bared.
So instead of worrying with the far off look that came to those optics that haunted his sparkmate so he just watched him. Let the little mech tuck his chin and settled back down into the safety of the big black tribal brat that watched Dust much like the others did while the youngling was distracted again.
He didn't care.
They had as much a right to an explanation as Bumblebee did. After all, they were the ones that had taken him in. Had cared for him. Had saved him.
Had done what . . . Dust and War couldn't.
And he knew, deep down, nothing was fixed. He had saw the pain settled deep in that spark by the way those optics had dimmed as War hissed things at a mechling too young to understand the placement of such anger, and who in no way deserved it.
He knew it wouldn't be this easy, but he hoped.
Still, when those big bright baby blue optics turned to him again. Full of coolant once more and so very many questions he braced himself for what was likely to hurt.
"Why," His voice caught on the word, halting and full of fear and pain, the likes of which one so little should not know. "Why does he hate me so much?"
Well, at least Dustoff wasn't disappointed in the little thing.
He told himself that so he could pretend the words didn't hurt quite as bad as they really did.
He swallowed the first response that came to him.
Then he did the same with the second.
Finally, after three nanos that felt far too long to him he figured he could get his tongue to work like he needed it to. A short, hard breath rushed through his vents as she shook his head back and forth one short hard time as he breathed out.
"Oh, youngling, he doesn't hate you."
He hates himself. But Dustoff couldn't tell the youngling that. He wouldn't understand, it was likely he wouldn't understand any version of the truth, but that one he knew would do the most damage. So, Dustoff figured his best bet was to lay it all out the best he could.
The youngling's whole life had been made up of small and big lies up to this point anyway. He really didn't want to add to them.
Not now.
Not about this.
"He . . . War is . . . He . . . ." Well pit, how exactly was he supposed to explain this?
Swallowing hard Dustoff let pale red optics lingered on those haunting baby blue optics staring so earnestly up at him. Begging for an answer. For a reason and a cause.
Well, he had told himself he wouldn't lie.
It would hurt, but then, Dustoff was a medic by nature. He knew all too well sometimes you had to rebreak the strut to be able to set it right so that it could truly heal.
"Wardrums doesn't hate you, Bumblebee. Wardrums looks at you, and he sees a ghost. He looks at you and he sees every way in which he ever failed." Pain filled those bright blue optics again, and Dustoff prayed Mercy—wherever she was out there in the folds of the universe and what came after—didn't hate him too much for that. "And that is not fair, nor is it right, but it is a fact, little one. One you need to know or you will never understand. Because that is just the way he is. You . . . pit be damned . . . you look just slaggin' like her! Those damn optics."
The optics in question, still swimming with coolant, dared lift again to find pale red. That, and to find more of an answer, because it hurt. It hurt to know that the mech that might be the only real coded family he had left couldn't stand to look at him because he was a reminder. However, it . . . it also made a kind of sad sense he supposed.
"You are her, little one. And we lost her, because we weren't good enough to save her. To save you. We lost Mercy's only son. It's something . . . neither of us have ever gotten over. Likely never will. Because she is gone, and we can't change that, just as we couldn't keep you. That will always hurt us. It will always hurt him, and War . . . he doesn't deal with pain he can do nothing to stop very well. He lashes out when he is angry and he points his pain at others trying to make himself feel better. He doesn't blame you, Bumblebee, I need you to understand that, but that doesn't mean he is able to handle you very well either."
Bumblebee sat there chewing on his bottom lip in Ironhide's lap after the big tan flier went quiet. He seemed to have nothing else to add for now. Letting Bee take in his words and trying to sort through them.
All the youngling could come up with though, was a quiet confession he'd kept locked away in his spark all these vorns. Because he'd never known how to say it, let alone how to talk about it.
He'd been too afraid of the truth of it. Of what it would make him.
Now though, maybe now he could.
"You know, I didn't even know her name." It came out in a tiny whisper, hardly audible but every audio around him caught it any way. Bumblebee wouldn't let himself focus on his family at the moment though. For now, he had to watch Dustoff. He had to know what those pale optics were saying. "I don't . . . I don't even remember what she looked like. I just . . . I try, you have to believe me, I try. But I just . . . I don't. That . . . that makes me a horrible bot right? That I forgot her."
A sad smile curled the edges of Dustoff's lips as he sighed. "Oh little mech, you were three vorns old. What could you be expected to remember but a shadow of a memory? Especially when something else, much brighter, takes pains place. What, did you think I would be angry you haven't spent all these vorns aching over her? You think she would have wanted that?"
"But War—"
"But War is an aft. Plain and simple." Dustoff cut him off with a firm tone. "Get used to it, mechling. It's not likely to change. Even if he likes you he's an aft."
"But . . . Mercy . . . ."
"Bumblebee," Dustoff said firmly, those pale red optics blazing with something Bee had a hard time pinning down. It was both pride, and pain. Both hope and sadness. All wrapped up into one glow in those pale optics that Bee wasn't sure what to make of but found hard to look away from all the same. "Your carrier loved you. More than anything else in this whole universe. More than life itself. Because, mechling, she had nothing more to give than that chance that you might live, so that was what she did. Too many bots in this universe forget just how far a carrier will go for their sparkling. So yes, she died so that you might live, but that was what she wanted. No bot can blame you for that. Not even War, I'll see to it, so don't you even start. That was not your fault."
A heavy chunk of ice that had curled around his spark before he started running suddenly came loose with a whooshing of breath. The bright pulse of life in his chest calming down from the worked up pace it had gotten itself into.
The pressure in his chest eased with it. His vents relaxing as his processor slowed down.
And then, with his optics brightening he asked. "Would you tell me about her?"
Dustoff finally let out a real smile as he twisted a hand down to reach into his subspace. "Might be more fun to show you."
Well it hurt and then it got a little better, didn't it?
War and Bee have a lot to work through before the big fool is able to do more then growl, but at least Dustoff is capable of talking. Primus help them all if he wasn't.
Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! I'm looking forward to seeing what you thought.
See you next chapter!
-Jaycee