Rick spent most of the day working on Bee's paint. Fina remained in the house. Rick explained that her license had been suspended, and their parents had to pay a fine. She was a minor, so that counted, but she was also a repeat offender, with a list of minor offenses like speeding and not stopping for lights and so on that was longer than a calendar year and that -naturally- counted against her.

"She's just upset," Rick assured Bee, before he began work for the day, "When she calms down, you'll see. She's not really mad at you. She's mad at herself for getting caught."

While Rick worked in silence, the dust mask covering his face, Bumblebee wondered if the boy really understood what he had just said. Blaming others for their mistakes seemed to be a family trait. But, unlike what everyone else had said, Bee found himself believing Fina.

Intellectually, he knew that he was no more responsible than anybody else, that he could not have known what would happen on that hill. It was entirely possible that Rick and Fina would not have given him a choice had he wanted to refuse to enter the race. But the thing was... he hadn't even tried.

And what did he think he was doing by staying here anyway? He was helpless and useless. The Autobots needed their Scout, they needed every soldier they could muster because they had precious few. And yet, Bumblebee was here, trying to sort out teen angst and bad parenting. Somehow, even though he had chosen to do this, it was hard to believe it was the right decision. At the time, it had seemed like the only thing to do. But now it seemed like he was just sitting in a garage, doing nothing, while the world spun on without him.

In the afternoon, Rick took a break for lunch. When he came back, he surveyed the work he'd done, and seemed a little discouraged by the size of the task still ahead of him. While he was still standing there, just looking at Bee, Larry came out to the garage. Rick didn't notice as his father stood and looked at him with the same assessing eye Rick was applying to Bumblebee. It would take a lot of effort, time and care to fix this. Larry seemed to have an idea about what the first step would be, because he moved to his son's side and stood until Rick noticed him before speaking.

"Could you use an extra hand?"

If he was hoping for instant welcome, he was disappointed, because Rick merely shrugged and said "Whatever. There's an extra dust mask in the bag over there."

They spent the afternoon on the same project, but they obviously weren't working together on it. Rick stayed on one side of Bee, while Larry remained on the other. It also rapidly became obvious that Rick had spent far more time painting cars than his father ever had. Larry's work was slow and somewhat haphazard, and it was clear his heart was less in the painting than trying to connect with his son on some level. Though they lived in the same house, it was clear that Larry had stopped being a real father long ago, assuming he'd ever been such a thing in the first place.

The winter evening dove in swiftly. The sun set early, and the blackness of the night crept in. Today Rick had covered the other vehicles with protective tarp, but left the garage open. Because they were using the garage lights to see, neither Rick nor Larry seemed to notice when it got dark outside. They couldn't see the stars come out, because their artificial light sources blinded them to the night sky. Bumblebee saw the stars though, and -somehow- he felt closer to home than before.

Rick and Larry eventually took a break. Bumblebee thought they were probably done for the day, that they'd go in for dinner or something. But Rick surveyed Larry's work and shook his head.

"No," he said, "We're not done 'til we fix that. I'm not leaving that."

"Fix what?" Larry asked, "I didn't miss a spot, did I?"

"No, but that's going to dry all wrong," he walked around in front of Bee to look at his own handiwork, "See? Look at my side. And now look at yours. See the difference?"

"Well," Larry said slowly, "I don't know how to do that."

"Then I'll show you," Rick replied, "And we'll fix it together."

Bumblebee had assumed Larry didn't know how to paint a car. But once he and Rick started working together, a new thought made itself felt. Maybe Larry had done it on purpose, hoping for just this result. True, it was still just painting a car but -for perhaps the first time ever- father and son were working side by side. They were working together to make something better.

That meant something, and Bumblebee suddenly realized he was glad that he could be a part of it.

Raf was not satisfied with the Autobots' acceptance of leaving Bumblebee somewhere alone, without knowing exactly where he was, or what was happening to him.

Bumblebee had described enough of his adventures as a Scout on Cybertron that Raf knew sometimes he didn't have the time to explain himself, or couldn't explain himself in front of everyone present and so had to either lie or try to excuse himself without explanation. Maybe this was one of those times, but Raf was not willing to let go so easily.

The Autobots were smart, and they were powerful, but they too easily underestimated the abilities of humans and overestimated their own safety in the presence of hostile humans. Jack, Miko and Raf had put a dent in their unintentional arrogance by proving more valuable than the Autobots had ever imagined they could be, and MECH had taken another swipe at them by proving that the organization could take a Cybertronian by surprise and fell them. The Autobots were learning the potential of humans as allies and enemies, but they didn't understand humanity as Raf did.

There was just something not right about the fact that Bee had gone missing, only to turn up again miles from where he'd disappeared without any trace or explanation in the hands of strangers.

Bumblebee might be in trouble and not even know it. Or he could be in trouble and unable to express it for some reason. The Autobots viewed Bumblebee as a Scout, a soldier. But Raf couldn't bring himself to do that. Though his trust and faith in Bumblebee was unequaled, still Raf could only see Bumblebee as his friend. His guardian, yes, but most of all his friend. And, because they were friends, Raf knew that Bumblebee was not always as strong, fearless or self sufficient as he might pretend to be.

Sometimes the brave Scout needed help, even if he didn't ask for it.

Raf wasn't sure what he could do at first, so he kept looking for sightings of Bumblebee, restricted now to the area where he'd been racing. There was no evidence of his presence, though the news website for that area ran more than one story about the plague of illegal street racing, which seemed to be a favorite pastime of the local high school students, and included mention that a group of them had been rounded up in recent days, their fate -legally speaking- not yet decided. Their names were understandably withheld, though some of the cars they'd driven were pictured with their license plates blurred. Because the authorities didn't know about the racing website, they didn't know that the winning car from the morning's race was missing, but they did know that a second car must have been involved in the wreck that resulted in their being called; a car that had been removed from the scene. Breaking into the local police server, Raf found that they had evidence to suggest the car might have been yellow because of paint bits left on the guardrail. Matching paint was found on the other vehicle involved, but it has clearly been bashed by so many cars of so many colors recently that it was impossible to say which was the last, and it was possible that the paint on the rail had merely come off of this car.

Raf knew that Agent Fowler would be notified if the police seemed to be coming to any conclusions. Ratchet would keep an eye on that, among his other duties, and message Fowler to warn him that the detectives in that area needed to be stopped or misdirected, whichever was most effective. Just now, those detectives didn't appear to have anything worth trying to cover up. To interfere with the investigation now would raise more eyebrows than just letting it run its course. In all likelihood, the detectives would hit a dead end and eventually give up hope of finding the missing vehicle.

Chances were, Bee was now lying low because being seen on the street would give him away. Not because he was a yellow vehicle, but because he looked just like the other cars to have participated in the race, only a little less beat up. The scrapes and dents Raf had seen on camera would be a dead giveaway. Bee would have to avoid notice or conduct some serious personal maintenance before showing up on the street again. Raf didn't know how long that would take, so he kept looking.

He was so focused on the places he was monitoring that he at first ignored the pinging notification of one of the programs he'd set up early on to monitor social media. But when he continued to find nothing, he finally took a break and checked the other program windows. What he found was a picture posted to a social media site, a picture that was unmistakably Bumblebee before he had raced. The header read "Have you seen this car?" and under the post was a story.

The poster's father had apparently gifted the car to her and her brother, and she was trying to find out where it had come from. She only hinted that the car was something other than it appeared, enough that anyone who actually knew about the car would recognize what she meant whereas nobody else would have a clue. She'd been surprisingly careful in her choices of words describing the car. Going to her online profile, Raf found the girl was a teenager from the same area as the race, and that she had later posted "About the car. Never mind, I found out what I wanted to know", which Raf's program had missed because it was looking only for pictures which resembled Bee.

She hadn't posted her location publicly, but it wasn't hard for Raf to track her down. Now he had an address where he was pretty sure Bumblebee could be found. Only he wasn't certain what to do with it. After all, the Autobots seemed singularly uninterested in getting Bee back right now, or even going to talk to him and find out what he was actually doing.

Then he remembered that Ratchet had seemed less willing to let it go than the others. He had bowed to Optimus' wishes, but hadn't there still been reluctance in his gaze? Uncertainty? Raf knew that Ratchet had never let go of his guilt at not being able to make Bumblebee good as new when his voice box was crushed, and so he worried about the Scout perhaps more than the others did. His memory would never allow him to forget the sight of a broken Scout, tortured by Megatron and then left to die.

He went to Ratchet and reported what he'd found, then said, "I want to go and talk to this girl."

"No," was Ratchet's flat-toned answer.

"Why not? She's just a kid, barely older than Jack, if that. She wouldn't be any danger to me, and she might know where Bee is, what he's doing... why he hasn't come home."

Ratchet was silent, evidently searching for a way to explain to Raf why he couldn't go.

"Ratchet, please," Raf pleaded, "This is Bumblebee. We can't just stand by and do nothing."

"Optimus would never approve of my sending you alone," Ratchet said, shaking his head.

"Ratchet, this is about Bee. He's my friend. I know you understand that I have to make sure he's okay. You understood once before, remember?"

Ratchet sighed heavily, "Of course. Alright. But you will not go alone. I will go with you."

Raf smiled, and nodded his agreement.