"Optimus Prime, I'd like a word with you and your medic." the stern voice of General Reims reverberated in the ARC hangar. The team had already finished training for the day and been dismissed. Only the general and the two Bots remained.
"As you know, we have completed a significant amount of research into your kind. Of course, it has always been about building a new defense, but it has recently come to my attention that we may be in a position to help you more than just tactically. We have scratched the surface of your mechanics, and if you, Optimus Prime, would be willing to extrapolate on the biomechanics, I believe we may be able to return the ability to speak to your scout."
Optimus quietly considered the proposal for several long moments. "On this subject, I believe our medic to be better equipped in determining if there is such a way."
Taking this as his turn to speak, Hoist immediately jumped into the conversation. "While yes, it is biomechanics, it is truly an organ you are trying to replace. What might be your proposed plan of action, if I may ask?"
"My teams think they can pass your metal-alloy through an experimental 3D printer setup. If we could get a schematic of this missing organ, and if you are capable of installing it, doctor, then I believe it to be a cause worth pursuing. There have been significant advances in human medicine with the same technique, so there may be hope. Additionally, your expertise applied to our project has pushed us considerably ahead of schedule, causing downtime for some of our engineers. I'd like to see their time used more effectively."
"Yes, yes, I can spin up a proper delineation. I will get that to you post-haste. Now, if that was all, I'd quite like to return to my tinkering." Without waiting for a dismissal from either of his superiors, Hoist turned back towards the mech, spiraling into a conversation without an audience.
"The nuclear chamber is much too cumbersome, but the inherent structures might just work for an energon containment system. If I can adjust the subsystem's delimiters, and lower the range… Reroute the heat… No no… that would interfere with this crude t-cog… Maybe if..."
Back across the room, General Reims returned her attention to Optimus. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed by his handiwork. No one was thrilled about using nuclear as the internal power system, but if he thinks he can make it work with energon, be my guest. Once we get the science team's analysis back, we'll know for sure if we can synthesize it ourselves. But likely before that happens, I will be expecting that voice schematic some time this week so my men can get to work on it."
Danielle hesitated with her hand on the cell phone, her emotions ebbing at the prospect of yet another weeknight therapy appointment.
Even down to once a week, the last month had occupied no other subject than the abuse and subsequent PTSD. She was growing exhausted, each session leaving her drained and often feeling worse than before. How much more processing could she possibly need if they had already been through every excruciating moment with a fine-toothed comb?
Gritting her teeth, she picked up the call. Before the therapist could pull a breath to say hello, Danielle started and ended the conversation with a white lie and no room for negotiation. "Good evening Dr. Tornat. I'm sorry but I won't be able to take our call tonight, I have to meet someone. I'll talk to you next week. Goodnight." Preventing any rebuttal, she hung up the call.
With a sigh, she left the device on her nightstand before heading out of her room into the long hallway. Maybe she'd run into Cole and convince him to train her some more and work out some of the pent up nervous energy that plagued her lately.
Several doors down, Bumblebee's head popped out into the hall, facing her. He whirred excitedly and beckoned her over. When she arrived, he scooped her up and held her in his hands to sit back down on the large concrete berth, letting the large door swing closed. The room was oddly unlit, with only faint moonlight filtering through the high window.
As she looked up into his optics, a question about to roll off her tongue, there was a pop of static.
"Are you still struggling the way that I am?
How are you?"
Taken aback, she asked "Bumblebee, what do you mean? Struggling? What's wrong?" Concerned, she stood in his palm and leaned forward against his chest, feeling the warmth underneath.
No song or radio clip is going to say what needs to be said he thought, forlorn. As much as he cherished her touch, he gently pulled her away and set her down next to him. He started this conversation he didn't want to have, and there was no turning back now. He transformed and sat idle while he tried to engage his hologram.
Danielle touched his hood "Bee, everything alright in there?"
He shuddered in frustration, trying once more to get the projection running, and finally it fizzled into view.
"Sorry, I've been having trouble with that lately" he said, standing before her now. "It feels like we haven't gotten to really talk in a long time. I know you've found… human help… but we never did talk about what happened, together, with Raptor. I am worried it could drive us apart." His face grew troubled even as he reached out to touch her, but he dropped his hand away just inches from her cheek. "You… No, I-..." His hands bunched into fists at his sides, unable to form the right words.
He could feel her body heat spiking as she leaned against his side panels and hood. Her whole body was tensed, hanging on his words and not willing to say them herself.
"Danielle, it was an execution. You asked it of me, and I followed your order. At first I convinced myself it was to keep you safe, that it was justified, that I didn't find satisfaction in taking the spark of what I thought was truly an enemy. However, the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to regret it for the mistake it was. What if he could have been an ally? What if you… would be better off if he was still around?"
Looking into her face, she was surprisingly cold. "I'm sorry." she whispered. "I never should have asked that of you." Searing clarity had raged through her thoughts like a forest fire: I never should have abused the power you gave me. Shaking her head in attempts to clear the guilt, she continued. "But it's over, what's done is done. Why bring it up now?"
"The fight may have ended, but not a day goes by that I don't hear Optimus' voice in my head telling me to stand down. When we first had Raptor pinned, I only asked Optimus for a ceasefire so you could try to talk things out. But then he heard you ask me to kill our prisoner, and immediately ordered me not to. Even as my cannon charged, he was in my COM link ordering me to Stand down, Bumblebee. This isn't the right way. I don't know why he didn't stop me, but I wish he had. I might have taken those consequences, but I've never been able to clear my conscience. Have you, honestly?"
She only stared daggers into the concrete between her feet. A slight shake of her head no but said not one word.
"Danielle, please talk to me!" Bee raised his voice, wanting to shake life into her, get her to confide in him once again. "Am I wrong to think we are partners? Do you wish I hadn't stopped you both from running away that morning?"
He knew the questions would hurt, but he couldn't stop the words anymore, even as she finally looked back up at him like she wanted to hit him. "Should I have let you go, Danielle? Should I…" he felt all the fight drain from him in an instant, his thought devouring any anger and leaving only a tension that threatened to crack his spark. "Should I let you go now?"
Her mouth hung speechless, but he didn't have anything else to say. He couldn't be the one to do all the talking. They waited in silence, unmoving, until finally she cleared her throat and began to speak.
"I can't say I regret it everyday because I do my best to block it out as much as possible. When that fails and I do think of him, I miss him. But I don't miss him more than I care about you. I wish we'd been able to give him a real chance, sure. I wish he'd never done the things he did, of course. And I wish, more than many things, that he wasn't gone forever, but I wouldn't trade his life for yours, Bee! I've never for one second wished you were out of my life! Why would you even say that?"
She had never been so vulnerable with him, and it surprised them both. The room descended into quietness once again as they considered what those words meant to each other.
In time, Bumblebee spoke first, softly. "I'm sorry. I've seen you leaning on others more lately, while not saying anything to me about what's troubling you. It's like you don't trust me anymore, and that scares me more than you know."
"I still trust you with my life, Bee, it's not about that. And it's not that I don't want to talk to you about the… other things, either. It's that this problem feels so fundamentally disconnected, on a species level, that there's nothing you could say or do to help me. I don't want to put that on you."
"I'm not sure I follow. What could happen to you that couldn't happen to me? We both fight, bleed, love, die… If you could find a way to trust me enough to tell me, could you trust me enough to try to understand, too?"
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the gathering storm from spilling out. Recognition rolled over her like a wave. This moment was one of the type Dr. Tornat was always prodding for: "You don't have to wear your heart on your sleeve, but if someone is genuinely trying to help you, try to let yourself rely on them a little, and be honest with them."
Bumblebee most certainly was genuine, and she already knew she could trust him. A flicker of confidence ignited somewhere deep down and she steeled herself to kindle it and once more tell her story. She took a deep breath and began.
"When you found me… Rather, when I found you… I had run away from everything I had ever known: my parents, my home, and a monster. I ran because of him, because he… violated me, and felt no remorse. Those memories have haunted me in ways I couldn't have predicted. Just that one day took everything from my past and, so far, much of my future."
She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, stairing again at her feet.
"What's more, when my mind finally came back to me after, I found him... flattened in the road. I told the police an unknown vehicle had run him down in the street, but I didn't actually know what happened. After learning about Raptor's sentience so much later, it became clearer to me that I hadn't only dreamed of that demon in human skin dying under those tires."
With the final words of the account out at last, her strength left her and she slid down the side of the car to sit against his side panel. It wasn't as hard this time, but by no means easy.
"Danielle, I'm s-... -ry th-...-o you." Bee warbled. Concerned, she looked up to see the hologram flicker before static overtook it, the image blinking from existence.
"Bee?" she said, sitting up to turn and look at the camaro.
Angry whirs and beeps popped from the speakers as he transformed. His expression held anger, doubly confirmed when he swung his fist out into the wall behind him, sending small chunks of concrete showering to the floor.
Internally, his circuits were ablaze at losing the ability to planely tell her that he understood her hesitance to tell him, that he wished with every nanogram of his being that he could take her pain away, that he had also experienced something similar in his own way. There was no song on Earth that could explain any of it, especially how Megatron had shared his whole being; thoughts and spark, forcing his body to submit to his will.
With no other choice, he had to let go of his outrage at his failing machinery to comfort her with the tools still at his disposal. Setting his hand down by her for her to crawl into, she hesitated before sliding herself backwards some. He could feel the distress that permeated to her core, spilling down her face, flowing through the cracks in the carefully formed mask she normally wore.
Danielle looked up at Bee, who had retracted his hand to rest on his leg, unsure how to interpret the violent outburst. Why had he disabled his holoform? Was her past too broken for him to comprehend? Did he even believe her? A firestorm of emotions tore through her splintered mind, no discernable beginning or end between thoughts, fears, and questions.
He wracked his processor for an alternative to communicating more efficiently than through the radio but found only unavailing frustration. With no other options, he hung his head and resigned himself to the radio clips. He couldn't not say anything. Static fizzled into the room as he scanned and began to play the bits as he could find them.
"If I could… really… tell you I… want you to know… I am so...sorry. I wish I… Could take it all away… You deserve better… So much… more than this... life. It's not your fault… my dear."
Deafening silence ticked by between them. Then, a featherlight touch warmed against his arm. He remained still but turned his optics to see that Danielle had laid her hand on him, silent but less distraught than before, though she wouldn't meet his gaze.
He searched for bits to all the more console her if he could.
"Please… don't be afraid of… me… I'm not mad… at you… for not… telling me or… for trusting… in me."
She sniffled and wiped at her chin, a raw whisper escaping her lips "I was scared you thought I was lying."
He knew that wasn't the source of his anger, never that, and fought the urge to express this tension in another balled fist. How could he explain this with the meaning and gravity it was due?
Standing next to his leg on the darkened berth, Danielle became aware of a brightening of the space around her. Her eyes struggled to adjust as fast as the intensity was increasing.
She squinted against the light, shielding her eyes, and looked up at him only to find that Bumblebee had retracted his chest plates to expose his spark within. The brilliant white radiance with glowing tendrils of sapphire spread warmth across her body. The hum of its electricity crackled like miniscule lightning arcing inside the azure flames that danced within.
She had never experienced such an intimacy from any of the bots before, and she wasn't entirely sure what it was supposed to mean. She could feel it reaching for her in a way she couldn't explain, a hesitancy as it brushed against her mind.
The sound of static grew over the spark's symphony, the beginning of a story that Bee played in bits and pieces from his radio as she gazed into the chamber.
He scoured every frequency he could reach for a trace of the warlord's mention, managing to snag a minor clip of a news anchor warning of his presence on earth.
"In the past… The Decepticon leader called Megatron..."
"This is a story that I have never told
I gotta get this off my chest to let it go"
"You see me standing but"
"But all I see is him right now"
"Trying hard to reach out
But when I tried to speak out
Felt like no one could hear me"
"You hold me without touch
You keep me without chains"
"Oh, I hope someday I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can fight my fear"
"Bring me home in a blinding dream
Through the secrets that I have seen
Wash the sorrow from off my skin
Show me how to be whole again"
"No more monsters
I can breathe again.
And you said that I was done
Well, you were wrong
And now the best is yet to come"
Even through the blazing light, she met his gaze. She had felt the waves of emotions rolling off of him; existential fear, unbridled fury, but also hope. Reaching up, she laid her hand on the back of his and gently pulled towards herself. Bee compiled, gently scooping her up and holding her at a safe distance from the unrestrained energy of his spark. She responded by hugging his thumb, and a wave of knowing washed over him.
"But there, is a light
In the dark, and I feel its warmth
In my hands, and my heart"
Bee returned the protective plates to his spark chamber, trapping the cavorting lights inside. He had watched her face while he tried to explain, dried tears streaking down her skin from her gleaming eyes. Gently, he stroked her back with a digit, hoping she might confirm if she felt the same things he did.
Her voice was hoarse but she had to tell him. "Bumblebee, I hate so much that we share this experience." She stood in his hand and he brought her close. Leaning into his chest plates, arms wide across him, she hid her grimace against the torment that she knew he shared.
Holding her close with his hand, he laid down in his berth. Together, they spent the rest of the night this way. No more words needed to be said for now.