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Starscream gently floated into consciousness with the weight of two bots pressing down on him, and the soothing magnetic waves of the recharge slab washing over him and moulding into shape around him, keeping him comfortably cushioned. His recharge cable softly pulsed a gradually diminishing flow of energy into him as his power cells reached full capacity, and he felt Windblade and Bumblebee gently stir on each side of him as they also slowly awakened. They had their heads resting on each of his shoulders and their bodies wrapped around his on either side, with one hand each resting over his spark – Bumblebee's gently covering Windblade’s. As Windblade lifted her head and greeted Starscream by pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, and Bumblebee met the waking hour by defiantly snuggling in closer to the warmth of Starscream’s frame, Starscream once again had to remind himself of everything that had led him here. He had to do this every time he woke up in this situation, because it still all felt so impossible and unreal, and at first he always assumed it was just a lovely dream.
After lingering on the recharge slab until Bumblebee was finally willing to relent and extract himself from the mould he’d fitted himself into at Starscream’s side, they stretched out their frames and made their way to the kitchen to refuel. This was ‘officially’ Starscream and Bumblebee’s apartment, but Windblade spent so much time here, while Starscream and Bee spent so much time at Windblade’s apartment, that the three of them effectively had two homes that they moved between at their leisure. In case there was any doubt that Windblade now lived in their apartment as well, her aesthetic had begun to mix in with Starscream and Bumblebee’s in the stylings that decorated their home. Windblade tried to maintain a connection to the life she’d had and the home she’d lost by scattering artefacts of Camien culture about the place; a classic Camien painting here, a traditional Camien lamp there. One thing she’d added that wasn’t Camien, but was something uniquely linked to her own tastes, was a daft little figurine of Metroplex playing the Aghartan electro-bass that she’d bought at Six Lasers the second she'd seen it. Judging from both apartments she’d come to occupy, Starscream gathered that Windblade’s aesthetic was mostly classy, but with these little deviations into kitsch here and there.
Starscream’s aesthetic was what the rubes would call ostentatious, but what Starscream would more rightly call grand. Their apartment was certainly no cramped hovel, but it wasn’t an expansive luxury penthouse either, so it was a bit difficult to create the sense of grandeur Starscream aimed for, but he had his ways. A little dash of gold trim in the all right places, a stained-glass window over the main living area, the right colour schemes to make the rooms seem more expansive, among other techniques he used to grant the place some style. He also liked to scatter a few ornaments and curiosities around the apartment, such as alt-mode models and animated holo-displays of cities and space stations. When Starscream had pointed out Windblade’s kitsch knick-knacks, Bumblebee had retorted by accusing Starscream’s decorations of being kitsch, which only went to show how poor Bee’s understanding of style was. Bumblebee’s idea of decorating was sticking a few posters up, and it had only been on Starscream’s insistence that they’d been framed. Still, at least they’d been posters depicting sports, movies and art that Starscream could agree were half-way decent. Except for that one in the Golden Age Triaxian Abstract style, ugh. Starscream had made Bee hang that one in the waste extraction closet.
The kitchen had an energon tap, but Starscream had only allowed any of them to use it after having a sophisticated sensor and filter installed to detect and, if possible, remove any traces of any conceivable form of poison or other contaminant. After filling their cubes from the tap, they removed their preferred additives from the cupboards to prepare their morning fuel; Starscream still enjoyed the rich, Vosian style the most, so that was how he prepared his energon most days, filling the kitchen with its strong aroma. Windblade had taken to giving a Camien recipe a Cybertronian twist with a couple of additional additives they didn’t have on Caminus. The first time Starscream had tried it he’d told her that it was disgusting, but for some reason he’d decided to try it a second time and found that it actually wasn’t so bad after all, although he wasn’t prepared to admit that to her quite yet. Bumblebee’s taste in energon didn’t seem to follow any rhyme or reason – he seemed to prepare something new every day and enjoy it with equal gusto. Starscream wasn’t sure if that was a side effect of the time he’d spent trapped in Infraspace, or if he’d just always been that way.
Windblade liked to play music softly in the background as they took their energon and chatted; in the Venn Diagram of their musical tastes there wasn’t a massive amount found in the space where their three circles overlapped, but they could all at least agree on Eurythmian crystal pop. Its simultaneously soothing and upbeat, catchy sound floated gently through the kitchen and reminded Starscream of flying through plush clouds over a beautiful landscape, with agreeable company soaring by his wing, and the pair of them playfully ducking and weaving around each other in the air. It was the kind of music that managed to be both relaxing and fun.
They sat around the kitchen table, content in each other’s company, while they savoured their energon in a way only a pair of war veterans and a someone from a world that had been suffering a perpetual fuel shortage really could. As he’d been the second highest ranking member of the Decepticons, Starscream had been one of the last Cons to have his rations cut during shortages, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t found himself forced to subsist on nothing but bland military-grade far more often than he’d liked. It had put him in the habit of really relishing good energon when he got it, since he’d never known how long it would remain available. He shuttered his optics and focused on his taste sensors as the rich, flavoursome liquid rolled down his intake to settle satisfyingly in his tanks.
“Yes! I got Hackmon!” Bee cried suddenly, grinning at the data pad he held in his hand. Bee had managed to port over a human game onto a Cybertronian data pad in an effort to try and bond with a group of human children, and had then somehow managed to become genuinely engrossed in it. What was it called again? Digitron Glow? Well whatever it was, Bumblebee’s fixation with it was ridiculous.
“Is that good?” Windblade responded in the tone of someone who had no idea what was going on but was trying to make a sincere effort to be engaged.
“Yeah! He’s pretty rare and he looks super cool!” Bee replied, bouncing slightly in his chair.
Starscream shook his head, “I don’t think even that group of human protoforms bother with that game anymore; why on Earth, or any other planet, are you still obsessed with it? More to the point, how were you even obsessed with it in the first place?”
Bumblebee gave Starscream an all too familiar look of irritation, before his expression suddenly shifted to become cheeky and sly, as his optics moved from Starscream to Windblade and back again, taking the time to trace the lines of their wings as they went, “You know how I like to collect things of a kind,” he replied with a smirk.
Well then, fair enough.
After they’d finished their fuel, they helped each other spot and buff out any scuff marks on each other’s frames and apply a little bit of polish before they headed out on their duties. They’d already used the washracks before they’d recharged so it wasn’t as though they were especially dirty, but given that they had roles in government and diplomacy, it sometimes paid to give a little extra attention to appearances. Also, Starscream in particular enjoyed fussing over and being fussed over when it came to grooming. He fanned his wings out and gave a satisfied smile as Windblade buffed out a mark on his left wing that just happened to be near a sensor cluster, while he polished the windows of Bumblebee’s doors.
“I’ve been thinking of getting a new frame,” he mentioned offhandedly as he polished.
He felt Windblade stop her buffing, “Again?” she said disbelievingly.
“What? It’s been a while by my standards,” Starscream replied.
“You’ve had that one for less than two years!” Windblade cried in exasperation.
Bumblebee turned his head to side-optic Starscream suspiciously, “A new frame huh? So what exactly is wrong with the one you spent your entire time in Infraspace dreaming up?”
Starscream inspected his fingertips, “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Bee’s expression became a smirk as he cottoned on to Starscream’s game, “He’s fishing,” he told Windblade smugly.
Starscream pouted, Bee was supposed to play along, “Or maybe I’m genuinely concerned that my playmates have grown tired of my frame, given that neither of them have paid it any compliments as of late,” ‘as of late’ in this context meaning ‘within the last week’.
He felt Windblade wrap her arms around him from behind before she peered at him over his shoulder and spoke in the most sickeningly syrupy voice she could muster, “Oh sweetspark, we’d never want our precious cuddlecon to feel unloved or under-appreciated. We know how much you need and love us telling you all about our tender, fluffy feelings for you all the time, don't you my darling little twinkling star?”
Oh no. Not the squooshy talk.
“Stop,” Starscream said as he cringed.
Bumblebee whipped around to face him, a damnably wicked grin of his face, before he launched his own barrage, “Oh my pretty, precious lovebird, my sweet starsong, my silly-billy snugglescream, you know we both absolutely, utterly, adore you with all our sparks, right?” he crooned as he snuggled up against Starscream’s cockpit.
Starscream buried his face in his hand, “You’re both disgusting.”
“And that’s exactly why you love us,” Windblade whispered in his audial.
Starscream smiled behind his hand, “Only partly,” he replied, as Windblade and Bee snuggled in closer.
Every day things continued to be this good, there was a little part of Starscream that felt the urge to make everything fall apart, because then at least he’d be in control of when it all ended. That way it couldn’t be suddenly and painfully wrenched from his grasp, like so many of the other good things he’d once had in his life. And yet, there was another small, yet steadily growing, part of Starscream that dared to be optimistic. He wasn’t so naïve to think that this would last forever, but given that he’d been stuck in his previous status quo as Decepticon SiC for four million years, he dared to hope that this new, infinitely happier status quo might also last long enough to really mean something. When it eventually did end, maybe it will have left enough of a mark on him to shape the trajectory of his life from that point onward, so even though it was over, it would still matter. Maybe when it ended, it wouldn’t be so much an ending, as a transformation into something else. Well, whatever the future inevitably brought, he intended to enjoy the present as much as he could.
They spent as much time as they could together, simply enjoying each other’s company like this, until they finally had to head out and do their jobs. They avoided their news feeds during this time as well; if any emergencies came up they would be directly notified, so in the event of no such messages they spent as much time as they could isolated in the cosy bubble of each other’s company before having to face the drama of the outside world. Starscream kept his own news and media feed heavily filtered; given that he was a famous and controversial-to-put-it-as-kindly-as-possible figure, there was a lot of content out there on the net that wasn’t exactly sympathetic to him, and he wasn’t tripping over himself to see it. He had an algorithm set up to keep track of hostile posts about him to determine if any of them might indicate he should expect an attack on himself or any of his allies or...loved ones, but other than that he wasn’t interested in knowing what the general public were saying about him.
He knew he deserved much of their hatred, especially where the humans were concerned, but while he had once invited punishment and sabotage upon himself to handle whatever stirrings of guilt he still managed to feel, now he focused on trying do good to balance out all the bad he’d inflicted on the universe. Helping their new civilization served those who had suffered, whereas self-indulgent self-flagellation served nobody, least of all himself. And in all honesty, as much as he was gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, coming to care about people, and thus feel guilt over what he’d done to them as a consequence, he still wasn’t so interested in repentance that he was willing to let it ruin the happiness he’d finally found. Sure, maybe he didn’t deserve it, but it had been a long time since Starscream believed that the universe gave a flying frag about ‘deserving’.
One of the core understandings that had shaped him, and which continued to shape his behaviour, despite all that had changed over the last decade, was that the universe was cold and indifferent, and had no interest in rewarding the just or punishing the wicked. He had taken this to mean that it was up to him to take what he wanted from the universe, seeing as it wasn’t going to reward him for any sort of good behaviour, and ultimately he still believed this. But he’d also come to believe that just because the universe didn’t care about justice, it didn’t mean that it didn’t matter. The universe was cold and indifferent, but together with Windblade and Bumblebee, he was helping create a world (and one day, an empire) within that universe in which justice did matter. The universe wasn’t going to give him a just and joyful world, so he’d take what he needed from the universe to make one himself. The world they were building together was a just one, but also a forgiving one. Windblade and Bumblebee had forgiven him enough to offer him their love, so Starscream had forgiven himself enough to be able to accept it.
The three of them exchanged soft kisses before they parted ways to do their duties for the day, and when Starscream transformed a took to the air, he felt lighter than he ever had in his old life.
***
Overall, Windblade enjoyed her job, which was extremely lucky given that she couldn’t leave it any time soon, at least not without throwing the peace they’d finally managed to establish into disarray. Sure, there were things about it she wasn’t so fond of – it was often hectic and stressful, there was some incredibly boring paper work, she had to deal with people who were at times hard to tolerate, there was a lot of uncomfortable scrutiny from the press, and sometimes all the responsibility just became overwhelming. But she also found her work tremendously fulfilling; one of the things that had always mattered to her the most was being able to help people, and as leader of their species, she was able to do that better than ever before. While the job could be boring and frustrating at times, it was more often engaging, involving a variety of different tasks that allowed her to be creative and innovative. On Caminus she’d often felt frustrated with her lack of power to pull her world out of its stagnation and save it from its steady march towards starvation and rust. Here, she could actually make a difference, and help mould the society she led into something better.
Windblade arrived at her office and suppressed a small groan when she saw the stack of paperwork waiting for her. In all fairness, it was much, much smaller than the stacks she had to deal with back near the start of her time in this role, after Unicron had destroyed their homeworlds and left her with the responsibility of trying to more or less build a new society from the ground up. Since then things had calmed down a lot, plus her responsibilities had been shared out more, and she’d found ways to increase the efficiency of her work process. But there were still days like this where the work just stacked up to a point where she really wished she didn’t have to deal with it. All the same, it was still an improvement over what it used to be, and maybe this was as good as it was going to get. Then again, maybe they’d find ways to improve things further, and she’d be able cut down on the drudgery of her job some more and spend more of her day focusing on the parts of it that engaged and satisfied her. She preferred to bet on the later.
She got through the paperwork in a little over three hours; much of it was dull, but there were a few interesting reports scattered throughout. Nautica and Brainstorm had been studying the nature of Infraspace and had reported some findings that were explained using technical jargon Windblade didn’t fully understand (she made a note to find a good science communicator to translate their reports for her), but from what parts of it she could decipher, it seemed fascinating. Something to do with Infraspace being...some sort of multiversal glue? Or interdimensional hub? Or...honestly, she had no idea if she actually understood what they were trying to tell her other than that it involved Infraspace, but that was the norm for Nautica and Brainstorm’s reports. They’d noted that it was too early to say if what they’d learned would have any practical applications, but knowledge had value in itself, so Windblade tentatively classified the report as good news and hoped that the findings – whatever they were – wouldn't inspire Brainstorm to build anything explosive or reality shattering.
A report from Aileron said that she and her crew had discovered a planet made completely out of coral that may or may not be sentient, that they’d been attempting to communicate with, which may or may not have been attempting to mate with their ship in response. Windblade had to reread that report a couple of times to make sure she understood it right, and then finally decided she didn’t know enough about how organic reproduction worked to argue with it. Arcee reported that Trypticon’s sparklings were doing well, in fact, they were probably some of the most well-adjusted members of their species in the new era. This was understandable, given that they'd been alive for less than a year when the Unicron cataclysm happened, so they hadn't had a lot of time to develop much of an attachment to Cybertron or any of the colony worlds. Speaking of sparklings, another report said that they were almost ready to bring the first batch of sparks harvested from Luna 1 out of cold storage to be forged into the first new generation of Lunarians, and they just needed her approval for the go ahead. Windblade eyed the report with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation, before she signed off to allow a relatively small batch of sparks to be forged to start off with. It would be a long time before they’d be able to forge all the waiting sparks into their true forms, as they needed far more resources and infrastructure than was currently available to them to support the entire half-billion of them, but things were finally stable and prosperous enough for them to make a start.
Starscream and Bee liked to give their reports to her in person, and they showed up together shortly after she’d finished her paperwork for the day. Bee reported on an alien species they’d recently made first contact with; he’d been researching their society to determine whether they’d make for good allies and trading partners, and he said that from what he’d learnt so far things were looking positive, however...
“...however, my sources have told me that they have a hidden network of research bases spread throughout the spiral arm, stockpiling experimental weaponry, as though in preparation for something,” Starscream cut in, having also been tasked with researching this newly discovered civilization, albeit from a different perspective. When Starscream mentioned his sources, Windblade was pretty sure that at least some of them were the Dire Wraiths they now shared the planet with. Of all the species that had taken refuge on Earth following the Unicron cataclysm, the Dire Wraiths were the most mistrusted. Given that Starscream was one of the most mistrusted Cybertronians, he and the Dire Wraiths quickly found something to bond over, and Windblade now regarded him as their unofficial ambassador to the Dire Wraith commune.
“Do you think they’re planning an invasion?” she asked.
“Either planning one...” Starscream began.
“...or anticipating one,” Bumblebee finished. “The details are sketchy, but from what I’ve uncovered, it seems as though their ancestors were enslaved by a biomechanical species millions of years ago, which they were able to drive off, but apparently over the last few centuries there have been sightings of what might be this species cropping up again. They could be preparing for what they think are their ancestral slavers returning to try and enslave them again.”
“Either way, anybody with a stockpile of experimental weapons is worth keeping an optic on,” Starscream pointed out. “I say we make friends. If they’re genuinely friendly, then we have friends with a stockpile of experimental weapons, and those are some of the very best sorts of friends. If they’re planning to betray us, we’ll know more about their plans if we get close than if we rebuff them.”
Windblade nodded in agreement, “We’ll meet with their ambassadors to write up a treaty, but we’ll also task some agents with the job of further investigating these weapon stocks and what they plan to do with them, discretely of course.”
Starscream smiled, “If I were human, discretion would be my middle name. I’ve got some people in mind who will be able to take care of this quite discretely.”
“Dire Wraiths?” Windblade ventured.
“Among others,” Starscream replied cryptically.
“Well, whoever they are, they’d better all be mentioned in the report before I sign off on this mission,” Windblade told him.
“My dear,” Starscream said in a tone of mock affront, “I think that would go without saying at this point.”
It almost did.
“Anyway, rust stick?” Starscream said, offering her a box he’d produced from one of his compartments.
Windblade pulled a rust stick from the box and sucked on it thoughtfully before she removed it from her mouth to speak, “Do you think now is a good time to start defrosting the Lunarians? I just signed off to allow a small batch to be forged, but given that we’re making friends with stockpiles of experimental weapons, maybe we should wait until things are more certain before we further complicate matters by bringing new life into the world.”
Starscream smirked, “Oh glorious leader, the stars will be dim and we’ll but nothing but piles of rust while those Lunarian sparks will still be languishing in storage if we wait for a time more certain than now to start forging them.”
Windblade sighed, “I know, I know, it’s just that...forget it, it’s silly.”
“Well now you know there’s no way we’re leaving until you tell us, right?” Bumblebee pointed out.
Windblade gave a more exasperated sigh, “Ugh, I know. Alright, I’m just...I’m anxious about having sparklings. That feels so stupid to say, seeing as we already have Trypticon’s sparklings, but I didn’t have any say in their creation, whereas with these Lunarians, I’m the one who signed off to go ahead with their forging, and I feel as though that gives me special responsibility over them. Yes, I already have a special responsibility over all our people, I know, but it’s still different. Everyone else already existed when I came to power, so I’m just trying to improve the lives they already had, but with the Lunarians, I’m essentially giving them life, and that’s...I feel that if you’re making the decision to bring someone into the world, you have to be absolutely sure the world you’re bringing them into is a good one.”
“The fact that you give a frag about any of that just shows that you’re an infinitely better leader than the despots who were in power when Bee or I were created,” Starscream told her, “which means this world is far better than the one we were brought into. The main thing you should be worried about is that the Lunarians turn out to be a bunch of spoiled brats.”
“Starscream’s right,” Bumblebee agreed. “Windblade, you’re the best leader our unified people have had since...since who knows really. Things are more peaceful now than I ever remember them being, and a lot of it is thanks to you.”
Windblade gave them both a grateful, loving smile, “I’ve only been able to make it work because I’ve had you both helping me,” she told them earnestly.
“Well, duh,” Starscream replied, prompting Bumblebee to give him a playful smack.
“Well,” Bee said with a smile, ignoring the shove Starscream gave him in return, “it takes two tries before the third can be a charm.”
“It takes all three of us working together, that's what it takes,” Windblade told them, wholly believing it to be true. Bumblebee and Starscream had both struggled as her predecessors, but she was convinced that if they'd had the support from the other two of them, as she had their support now, with the level of trust, honesty and care that they now shared, they both would have been far more successful.
Windblade had once felt like an outsider in their relationship, as she'd believed that Starscream and Bumblebee's strange, death-transcending experience together had bonded them on a level she would never be able to access. But then she'd come to realise that she had her own special bonds with each of them, and as they lived their lives together, those bonds deepened still through further shared experiences and adventures. Not just the big, fundamentally world and life-changing experiences and adventures, but also the little, everyday ones as well. With all the time she spent with them, helping each other, enjoying each other's company, learning new things about one another, she felt the bonds between the three of them strengthen and deepen that little bit more.
***
When the sun went down over Little Cybertron, Bumblebee didn’t need to get ready for recharge; the average Cyberonian only had to recharge about three times an Earth fortnight. However, he did get a nice chunk of off-duty hours in the night, and so did Windblade and Starscream, and they liked to spend them together. Sometimes they would go out to visit the places of leisure that were steadily starting to spring up in the period of stability that they’d finally settled into in this post-Unicron era. There were now restaurants, clubs, theatres, exhibits, arenas and arcades (and not to mention, Six Lasers) owned and operated by Cybertronians, colonists and aliens alike, all enriching the nightlife of their melting-pot society. Other nights, Bee would hitch a ride while Windblade and Starscream took a flight over the scenic landscapes of the Earth and, on the occasions they had a bit more time to themselves, they would sometimes visit the neighbouring planets and moons.
Tonight however, they’d decided to just stay in. Given the controversial reputation that Starscream, and Cybertronians in general for that matter, had on Earth (and most places), it wasn’t unheard of for them to get confronted while they were out together just trying to have a good time, so staying in was often the most stress-free option. But aside from that, it was also just really nice. In fact, simply spending time at home in the company of his two jets was one of Bumblebee’s favourite things to do.
Their tanks will still too full from the morning refuel to require a substantial meal, but the activities of the day had freed up enough room for snacks, and Bee had fixed up a bowl of energon goodies to get them through the night. There were a lot of things they liked to do when the three of them were home alone together; sometimes they just sat around and chatted about topics ranging from the frivolous to the profound, sometimes they dabbled in crafting things, sometimes they worked each other up into fits of incoherent ecstasy through lurid acts of passion. But tonight was games night.
These days they mostly played cooperative games. They used to play competitive games a lot as well, but Starscream had a compulsive tendency to cheat, and he’d taken their insistence that he stop as a challenge to just cheat more sneakily. Eventually they’d decided to just make cheating a part of the games, at which point things promptly devolved into utter chaos. Starscream knew every dirty trick, and unleashed he was unstoppable, but Windblade became determined to beat him at his own game, which delighted Starscream, and the two of them had started to devolve into levels of rivalry and antagonism that mirrored their relationship back before their mind meld. At that point Bumblebee had decided to stay out of things, so the competition became one between Starscream and Windblade, and as he watched it unfold, Bee started to grow a little concerned with how intense it was all becoming. However, as he watched them play, his quiet insight into their natures started to clue him into a few things. They didn’t even seem to notice as he quietly re-joined the game after another victory on Starscream’s part (although that one had been close), and they remained focused on each other, paying little heed to Bee’s moves, until he played the winning one. When they’d realised what had happened, they’d both done rather spot-on Prowl impressions, scattering game pieces over the floor, where Bumblebee could also be found, rolling around, laughing his aft off.
After that, they’d agreed that when it came to relaxing, cooperative games were the way to go. Their favourite cooperative game was a Carcerian game called Mendaximo; for all the Spartan practicality of their culture, it turned out that the Carcerians had some of the best cooperative games on offer. They had some competitive games that involved pitting things such as the players’ intelligence, knowledge, and quick-wittedness against each other, but thanks to their culture’s prohibition on lying, they had no games that involved bluffing and deception. Their cooperative games were also much more sophisticated and interesting, and Bumblebee figured that it was probably because Carcerian society, which relied on ensuring that its members worked together as a finely oiled machine, would develop activities that encouraged and fostered cooperation. Carver was gone now, and the surviving Carcerians were amongst those that found it most difficult to adapt to the new status quo, but this particular aspect of their culture flourished in the new era, as it became one of the most popular games played in Little Cybertron, with new adaptions and variations being created by its new playerbase.
Mendaximo took hours to play and, in true Carcerian fashion, involved the players having to work together to unravel a deception, which the board randomly generated each time. The three of them had started to get pretty good at it, but when they finished their session that night quicker than usual, Bumblebee couldn’t help but suspect that Starscream had found a way to cheat and given in to the urge, despite it not even being a competition. They didn’t have enough time left over before they had to return to work to play another game (unless it wrapped up even faster than the last suspicious session), but they did have enough time to watch a movie.
All things considered, a lot of movies could be a bit uncomfortable for them to watch together. Some of the characters, events and themes that a lot of films featured hit a little too close to home, not to mention that a lot of the more recent Earth movies heavily referenced the Decepticon invasion and its aftermath. There was a set of films that the three of them could all unreservedly enjoy however, and those were the romantic comedies made by an Elonian/Dire Wraith couple, who were able to openly be together now that their races were forced to live together in peace on Earth. Their films were heavily inspired by their lives and relationship, and addressed the difficulties and realities of being in their sort of situation with humour. Although many of the cultural references were lost on Bumblebee, Starscream and Windblade, the scenarios were still relatable enough that they could all get a good laugh out of them, while appreciating the warmth and tentative optimism that lay beneath the humour.
They put on one of their favourites as they snuggled up on the couch together, which transformed as they sat to most comfortably accommodate the kibble of their frames, and allow Bee to squeeze in between his two jets with the bowl of their remaining energon candies on his lap. Throughout the film, Starscream and Windblade's closest hands alternated between digging into the snack bowl, and gently resting on some part of Bee’s frame. Towards the end of the movie, Starscream plucked the last treat from the bowl, but as he raised towards his mouth, Bumblebee snatched it out of his hand with his teeth.
“Hey!” Starscream squawked in outrage. “Give that back!”
“Com un git et,” Bee tried to challenge him with a mouth still stuffed with treat.
Starscream then launched himself at Bee, grabbing in face with both hands and going in for what was half-kiss half-headbutt. Bee tried to keep his mouth clamped shut against Starscream’s skillful, seductive assault with teeth and tongue, but it was hard when he so badly wanted to laugh, and the fact that Windblade was in hysterics next to him didn’t help. He lost the battle when he felt Starscream’s hand slide over one of his particularly ticklish seams, causing him to gasp, granting Starscream entrance and locking them in a deep, candy-flavoured kiss. It was only when Starscream was smugly drawing back that Bee realised that Starscream still had both hands on his face, and that the hand that had touched his seam had come in at the wrong angle.
He whipped around to look at Windblade, “Traitor!” he cried.
Windblade smirked at him, “Starscream had rightful claim to the last snack, I was simply helping to correct an injustice.”
“And justice is sweet,” said Starscream with a grin, as he leaned over Bee to give Windblade a kiss, which she gladly returned.
After breaking away from Starscream, Windblade returned her attention to Bee, “But I favour rehabilitation over punitive punishments, and I’m sure all that’s needed to correct your bad behaviour is a little care and compassion,” she leaned down and gave him a tender kiss on the lips, “was I right?” she asked after she pulled away from him.
“Hmmmm...better do it one more time to be sure,” Bee told her, and Windblade laughed before she did just that. The three of them then just curled up closer together as they returned their attention to the last part of the movie.
Back when Bumblebee was very, very young, he’d passed some of his time as a courier dreaming of the excitement and adventure that was mostly absent from his life. Sometimes he’d dreamed that he could somehow one day become a famous racer, or occasionally he’d fantasised that he’d been forged early enough to explore the galaxy as a member of the Primal Vanguard during their heyday. However, in his youth the thing he’d wanted more than anything was just to have people he loved who he could cuddle up with to eat snacks and watch movies together; he’d had good friends who he truly cared about sure, but what they’d shared hadn’t been warm and tender love. Then the war had started, and Bee had more excitement and adventure than he knew what to do with. Some of it had actually been thrilling and enjoyable, but most of it had been horrendous, and there had been a part of him that sometimes wondered whether it was all some sort of ironic punishment for ever daring to want more than the reasonably comfortable life he’d been lucky enough to have. During the struggles of the war, he’d developed deep bonds of love with his brothers in arms, and on a few occasions, that love had taken on a romantic form, but thanks to troubled times in which they’d found each other, it was hard to do things as carefree as curl up together with snacks and a movie.
Now the war was finally truly over, and while it had taken its particular brand of excitement with it, Bumblebee’s life was still much more exciting than it had been back when he was a courier. As an ambassador, he visited exotic alien worlds, met interesting alien people, and learned about their strange and fascinating alien cultures, and when he at home in Little Cybertron, he sometimes had to put the many skills he’d developed over the course of the war to work to manage the internal strife that sometimes cropped up. It was just the right level of excitement for him. More importantly however, he’d managed to find love, not once, but twice, in what was essentially one go, and things were finally peaceful enough for him to share the little pleasures with his lovers as he’d always wanted, and it was exactly as wonderful as he dreamed. It had taken him four million years to get here, and he’d suffered and lost so much along the way, but for now, things were so good. He was going to do everything he could to keep it that way for as long as he could, but he was also going to do everything to enjoy it as much as he could while he could. Life could be ugly, painful and so, so hard, but right now, snuggled up between two bots who he loved so much, enjoying the simple pleasures together, life was beautiful.