Bumblebee looked down at the minuscule woman, his blue optics whirring and refocusing downward. He had to be careful not to squish her. "Bee!" She yelled, feet pushing her ever closer. She slowed as she approached, a hand resting against his leg lightly. "Are you alright? Is the other one gone?"
"All systems go." He aimed a thumbs up at her, one optic closing in a wink. Scanning up and down his frame, Midge found barely a scratch on him. She was glad, as the robot had put his own life on the line for them. They probably looked like ants to the machine, just a couple of specks of dirt compared to a creature so large.
She breathed out heavily, a tension leaving her with the knowledge that he was totally uninjured. Growing up with Sam, it was a constant fight to treat his scrapes and bruises when he got hurt playing together. He always pretended that it didn't hurt when it did and she hadn't known why at the time. One of his classmates was bullying him about crying when he got hurt and being too weak to be a "real man." Sam shared it with her long after she stopped taking care of his boo boos.
"You really do look like a bumblebee with those wings," she joked, though there was some truth to it. The humongous machine looked sadly at her, his metal pointer finger coming as close to touching as was possible. He hovered near her sternum, gesturing at her center curiously.
He was so expressive for a being that had a face plate instead of a face. The pieces of metal around his optics were in unending motion to express his multitude of emotions. It was not so dissimilar to human facial expressions.
"What, this? It's not deep, I'll be okay." She beamed at the 'bot, feeling like the difference between their species was never smaller than when he looked at her like a kicked puppy. He brushed the tip of her chin, the metal edge softened so as not to scratch. It was only the barest touch, so careful, so delicate that it may as well have been a breeze blowing past.
Shoes scraped on concrete, pebbles rolling down the bank. "Hold on, wait. Midge, wait," her brother begged, jogging up nearly to her smaller form, his hand reaching out to her as he stopped several feet away. "What are you- You've been talking to this thing?"
"Of course I talk to him. He's... He's nice." The dopey smile on her face makes her feel like a love-struck teenager, not that she was ready to label what she felt with anything close to that. She had never felt the kind of tingle she did when she looked straight up at the transformed 'bot. Even though he had no mouth and she didn't know for sure, she felt that he was smiling back.
She had been drawn to the slick yellow Camaro instantly, but she hadn't thought of it as anything more than her typical interest in classic cars, and certainly not a crush... until now. She never thought much of her unlucky romantic life either. Since the time she started dating at 18, she felt out of place. Human men attracted her, yes, but she had never been boy crazy like her friends. Now, she thought she understood what they felt, but what that meant for her was uncertain. She tried not to think about it too hard.
Her cheeks felt warm, so she tried to shake off the thoughts and instead caught Sam's concerned eyes with a harrumph. "Okay, sorry. Just surprised, is all." Sam raised his open palms like a surrender, not wanting to aggravate her. His eyes seemed to bug out of the sockets when he glanced back up at the enormous robot. "So you.. Is that how you know my sister? You talk through the radio?"
In response, the iron giant clapped his enlarged servos and pointed to the dark-haired boy. "Thank you, you're beautiful. You're wonderful, you're wonderful."
The boy edged closer, his fingers just reaching hers, seeking a mite of comfort from his sibling. She gave his hand a squeeze. "So, what was that last night? What was that?"
The 'bot pointed straight up, to the vast atmosphere above their heads. "Message from Starfleet, Captain..."
"Throughout the inanimate vastness of space..."
"Angels will rain down like visitors from heaven! Hallelujah!"
The humans all listened thoughtfully as he spoke, having never imagined such farfetched things could be true. Midge couldn't hear what Mikaela said in response, not until she raised her volume to speak to the robotic figure. "What are you, like, an alien or something?"
He pointed at her like she had the right idea, crouching down to transform back into an unsuspecting, faded canary Chevrolet. His driver's side door opened up for the redheaded woman. She was in awe after seeing the change up close, gears shifting and metal turning until his human-like shape was nothing but a memory.
"Any more questions you wanna ask?"
Midge had so many more. She wouldn't even know where to begin with all of the possibilities bouncing around in her cranium. Where did the chairs go when he transformed into bot mode? Where did his face go when he transformed into a car? Did he need to eat? Sleep? Use the bathroom?
Above all, why was he so hot? But she couldn't ask that. She could say literally anything other than that.
Bumblebee halted by a puddle of dark colors on the white gravel. Mikaela hopped out, snatching them off the ground and rushing back to the car with the offering of Sam's pants. Sadly, there wasn't a spare shirt lying around for Midge so she kept possession of the teenager's tight denim jacket. Only the bottom button was keeping it closed around her ribs, and she was praying to God that she wouldn't bust it. She had enough on her plate.
"This car's a pretty good driver," Mikaela said in a hush. The inside of the Camaro was dark and cozy, the only music being that of the tires on the road. Margaret does a double take, looking back at the girl to see her planted in Sam's lap.
Midge nodded her assent to Sam's mumbled "I know."
She pulled down the sleeves of her borrowed jacket, holding them in her lap. "Yeah, it's nice to relax and let him do the driving." Bumblebee purred. He was already planning to drive her around whenever she wanted, so if she likes being driven around, that's a bonus. Two birds, one stone, or whatever the human idiom was.
"Why do you think it's a he?" Sam's eyes scan her face, scrutinizing her slightly sweaty features, dust clinging to her skin. That was how it looked to the yellow Autobot, anyway, when Sam turned his stare on Midge and whispered an inquiry to her. "You're not having sex with my car, are you?"
It loaded the 'bot's processor with all sorts of pictures. In his fantasies she'd be able to take his spike no problem, but it was hard to imagine what they'd get up to together besides kissing and touching. At their sizes, it would be near-impossible to interface the typical way.
He ran his glossa along her lips, plunging it into her mouth and savoring her taste in his mind's eye. Her velvety dermis skimmed along the surface of his chassis and he nearly let out a moan. He was snapped out of the fantasy by none other than it's star.
"What?" She raised her eyebrows, baffled and incensed by her brother's vulgarity and bluntness. "I can't believe you would say that. You are so closed-minded, just like Dad." She didn't know whether to laugh or sob.
The other girl gives him a dubious look and he does his best to defuse the situation before they both turn on him. "No. No, I'm not. I'm just worried about you, okay?"
"Right." She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "The same way you worried about me with Douglas?" Midge's blue orbs were storms of displeasure in discordant, midnight seas. The venom in her voice was poignant and her words were harsh.
The name left a sour flavor on Bumblebee's taste receptors. Who was Douglas? Why did the redhead's uneasy blues sparkle with unshed lubricants when she said his name? The Autobot hated seeing her in pain like this.
"You're still mad about that?" came the fragile inquiry from Sam. He licked his lips, looking at the road for an escape, but finding none. "I didn't know Dad was gonna scrap your Hellcat. I apologized a long-."
"Yeah, well I never got him back. Apologizing doesn't make everything magically okay." Her spindly biceps were tensed, her arms crossed to barricade her wounded heart. "I can do whatever I want and spend time with whoever I want. It isn't up to you now and it wasn't up to you then."
Sam blew out an exasperated breath, pupils darting around guiltily, scouring his brain for the right thing to say. He didn't find it, and nothing else was said for several moments. The tension was almost tangible, and it wore on Bumblebee's young passengers.
When enough time had passed, the only other female in the car did her best to soothe the tempers of her fellow occupants, firstly by bringing up an unrelated topic.
"You know what I don't understand?" At Sam's grunt of assent, Mikaela continued quietly, briefly wetting her lips. She turns her head over her shoulder, her face nearly brushing against his. "Why, if he's supposed to be, like, this super advanced robot, does he transform back into this piece-of-crap Camaro?"
Abruptly, Bumblebee slammed on his breaks, coming to a screeching halt across two lanes of traffic.
"Oh, see? No. Get... No, that doesn't work. See?" He let the Earthlings out, driving down the well-lit tunnel post-haste. Sam was the only one who audibly lamented the circumstance. Mikaela, Midge, and the boy all congregate on the sidewalk while someone screams at them. "Great, now... See? Fantastic. Now you pissed him off."
So they wanted a high-end vehicle? He could make that happen, and not just to see the look it would put on the redhead's face.
"I don't know, Sam," she huffed, tired of her brother's constant bitching. "He didn't seem mad." Margaret stared after the lemony automobile, pulling at the hem of her shorts and hoping her whole ass wasn't on display. She felt like a whore standing on the side of the road in such a state of undress. She didn't even have any shoes on.
He came back looking so different she hardly recognized him. She was sure it was Bee only after he stopped in front of them, doors flying open to an empty cab.
"I know I said you had a sexy car before, but damn." At her words, Bumblebee revved his engine haughtily. The yellow Camaro was from the model year 2007, but still the same 'bot. The disco ball and bee image still hung from the rear view, and it felt similarly warm and tingly when Midge slid into the newer, more luxury vehicle. She turned to her brother, sliding in with the other girl. "What will Dad say?"
He shrugged, buckling up the two of them once more. "Maybe he won't notice."
"Right, like you could pass this off as the car he got for $4,000. He'd gonna know."
"But he wouldn't if you let me keep it in the garage," he suggested. The plea in his voice was obvious and hard to say no to. "I'll let you drive him."
"It's my studio, actually," she corrected, narrow gaze piercing Sam's hopeful stare. She loses her grit in a flash, her shoulders dropping and her scowl loosening. "But I... I guess I could make some room."
A/N: Originally this chapter was going to be longer, but I decided to cut it and put that in as part of the next chapter. This story is being written with quotev in mind and I don't want the chapters to be too too long. Let me know if you feel differently, but I want to keep the chapters under 3k words. This one was around 2k. Thanks so much for reading, you guys! I love you all. :)