At first, humans had very little impact on Bumblebee's life. In fact, he was only peripherally aware of them, as something to avoid disturbing, which he quickly learned meant avoiding them entirely. To start with, it was enough for them simply not to see him, but eventually they became concerned with suspicious sounds beyond sight, and finally they started to concern themselves with any tracks he left.
All of these were things Bumblebee knew how to conceal. He'd gotten out of the habit during his time on Earth, but it was an easy one to fall back into. What was a little more difficult was the fact that the ground of Earth did leave such clear impressions, almost no matter where he stood or how carefully he moved. Cybertron had roads, in fact it was almost entirely roads, and so not leaving tracks behind was primarily difficult in city ruins, or other places were the rubble had become a fine dust that left clear imprints. On Earth, that dust was everywhere, covering everything.
That was one of the many strange things about Earth. Where there was life, there was also death, and the Earth, Bumblebee had learned, was covered in it. The dirt which composed so much of the surface, and the sand which covered even more of it, was in part made from decomposing plants and animals after they died. Bumblebee had suspected that from the first, but careful personal analysis conducted over many sites over a period of time (much longer than a real scientist would have taken) had confirmed the theory. When life ended, the matter which had contained and carried its essence was returned to the Earth. From what Bumblebee could tell, this was food for the plants, and perhaps some animals even, he wasn't sure. It seemed that life fed on life, something had to die for there to be life, even on the most fundamental organic level. To Bumblebee, the concept was quite bizarre.
Perhaps a more thoughtful individual might have tried to see some connection between the longevity of Cybertronians combined with their slowed and finally halted production rate and the death of their world, but such notions did not occur to Bumblebee. He had other, more relevant, concerns.
Bumblebee recognized immediately the sentience of humanity, knew that here was the species to which the Earth belonged, the one he had been ordered not to disturb, and which he knew he must protect at any cost should the Decepticons come to threaten it as a result of Autobot presence here. Here was the race he must not hinder or interfere with.
It was surprisingly easy to avoid them. Their senses were quite dull, even in comparison with other Earth creatures, and their technology was so primitive that Bumblebee couldn't even recognize it as tech. In the long memory of Cybertronians, even the most advanced projectile weapons were so ancient as to be almost forgotten. Anything more primitive was unrecognizable to any but the most ardent historian, and even then much of Cybertronian history was buried by time and war, and not much was known about how they had come to be as they were now.
For the time being, humans held little interest for him. In fact, until they started developing vehicles whose form he could take (not to mention the advent of TV shows -most particularly cartoons- and video games), which would allow him and other Cybertronians to observe humans for prolonged periods up close, they would not intrigue him greatly. He would later look back on that early indifference on his part with surprise and not a little shock.
His reports on humans were as detailed as his reports on anything, but not more so. In fact, anyone reading between the lines could easily detect a certain annoyance at the inconvenience they caused him in his travels. A close enough look at those reports showed a certain dislike for Earth, or at the very least a discomfort with it. He had seen wonders, yes, and there was much to be learned, but overall he missed home, and everything about Earth being so different only made him feel that separation more keenly. His reports were never complaining or bitter, mostly they were factual, and naturally the primary things he reported on were potential hazards or threats because those were the things that the Autobots needed to know about and be prepared for.
Bumblebee was aware, of course, of the fact that a huge percentage of Earth was covered in water. In fact, that was something he'd been counting on. Bumblebee had purposely been aimed at the large landmass that seemed to have the fewest humans, and the most open ground. It had been assumed that humans couldn't cross that deadly expanse of water. Bumblebee now knew they actually consumed the stuff on a regular basis, and bathed in it. More bizarrely, his attention had been drawn to the fact that there were live things in bodies of water. Now it wouldn't have surprised him if humans crossed large water bodies with some regularity.
But knowing there were oceans and actually seeing one first-hand were two different things.
At first he only heard the sound, and did not recognize it for what it was. He had heard the sloshing of water before, the way it lapped at the edges of lakes, and roared as it rushed in rivers. He had even heard oceans before, but not ones made of water. But water ocean was something new to him. He didn't know for sure what he was coming upon until he topped a small dune of near-white sand, much paler and finer than that which he had encountered in his first desert, though not as white as what he'd found when he encountered what he believed to be his second. The dunes here were fewer, and lower than what he'd seen in the white desert, and there were none of the rock formations that had marked his first.
It was then that he understood the slow, never-quite-ending roll of seemingly ground-based thunder that he'd been hearing for some time. It had been that sound which had drawn him in, by mere curiosity, and by the very real need to know.
There were few things on Earth, very few, that were large by Bumblebee's context for the word. Even massive Redwoods were not much taller than him in robot form, and there were no other contenders with regards to trees. Given relatively level ground and a slightly elevated position, Bumblebee's vision was clear enough to see for miles. Even in the middle of the desert, he was aware of its edge at the far reaches of his vision.
But the ocean dwarfed him, and everything he'd known. It was bigger than any single thing on Cybertron, though by how much Bumblebee didn't know, because he could not see where it ended. The way the waves rolled in towards the shore, then pulled back was immediately recognizable as a kind of pulse, as of energon in the veins, carried by the beat of a spark. The water acted alive.
{By the Allspark...} Bumblebee burred quietly to himself, unaware of how rough his long-disused voice sounded, not even truly conscious of having spoken at all.
Even once he had ascertained the pattern with which the ocean swelled and withdrew, he still could not coerce himself into moving towards it. It was not only a thing alive, but a thing of very real, immense power. Bumblebee had thought he was long over the irrational fear that water might leap beyond its banks and bite him, but he felt wary of approaching this water.
The ocean was an ancient force of nature, Bumblebee could feel it. It tugged at something inside him, quietly beckoning him towards doom, not out of any malevolent purpose, but simply because it existed, and this was its way, a way which knew neither good nor evil, a life that ebbed and flowed in response to unseen forces, unknown and perhaps unknowable, an eternal leviathan.
With fearful fascination, he realized that there was no way to prepare the Autobots for this. The words for it, for what it truly was, what it represented... not only didn't he know those words, he felt certain such words did not even exist, perhaps could not ever exist. Bumblebee felt the roaring in his ears more than heard it, felt the thunder of the ocean's heart under his tires. His spark pounded in him, with a disorienting combination of awe, adoration and sheer, unadulterated terror. He wanted to stay where he was, move towards the ocean and run from it without ever looking back all at the same time. He had no concept of how he could possibly describe this in a report, either coherently or realistically.
Deep inside, Bumblebee felt a crack trying to break its way across his mind, an insane desire to rush towards a state of denial. To deny the sea its power, to deny it existed at all. It was too terrible, too awful, too awesome to be comprehended or accepted, making the only course that of flight.
Intellectually, he knew the ocean could not chase him. It could not attack him. Even the flicks of salty wetness that struck him would only do him harm over time, if he stayed here for a long time, or failed to dislodge them. But something deeper than intellect was at work. He recognized the same trembling panic that had taken him during his first thunderstorm, but this was beyond that. He felt in him the same horrified fear that had taken hold during his first moments on Earth, but this was beyond that. This went deeper, touching on some primitive nature he had heretofore been unaware was part of him.
A rational part of his mind knew he was coming unraveled, knew he had to do something before he was undone completely, but that was only a faint, desperate whisper beneath the screaming in his head to run, to not move, to go to the ocean, to simply let himself drown, both literally and figuratively.
What shocked him from the strange paralysis was actually a gull. The big white bird called, swooping up from behind and planting itself on Bumblebee's roof. It had retrieved something from the ocean to eat, and now snapped that up in a few decisive gulps. Then it set to preening, before nonchalantly flying off towards the ocean, dipping into that fathoms deep mystery, and coming out again unharmed.
Balance restored, Bumblebee turned and drove parallel to the ocean for awhile, not daring to get closer, but preventing himself from fleeing. He told himself not to pretend, but he did anyway, that he was doing it to see how far the ocean went. He knew the answer already. Each land mass was ultimately surrounded by it. He knew that. Yet still he drove along, for uncounted time, letting the fear subside, letting the horror bleed off, letting his overwhelmed awe become simple respect.
Before he was able to finally turn away from the ocean, he received another shock, one that almost sent him into another, even more devastating spin.
It was a message from Cybertron, instructing him to locate and mark potential energon cache sites, and landing zones. Bumblebee's solitary existence on this alien world was coming to an end. The Autobots were coming to Earth.