Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the back of his mind, Bumblebee kept a simple count of the decepticons his team had caught while on earth. He loved earth, he loved his team, he loved his mission, but sometimes he, selfishly, missed being around mechs his age. Running a team of younger, more inexperienced bots was exhausting.

The days wore on him after a while. It had been a long time since he had anyone his age that he could talk to- that he could drop his tense, commandeering farce around and just be. Not to mention that none of his team could relate to his… past.

Bee was good at hiding it, good at blending in - just like a recon soldier, a scout - should be. The slight twitches at loud noises, the instinctive survey he did of every mech and surrounding he came across, the subtle way he angled his doorwings to be out of the way of possible damage, the way they flicked, surveying the area around him, the way he was always prepared, on edge.

He wondered if this was how Optimus felt, not just leading a team, but commanding an entire faction. He wondered if it somehow got worse when Optimus was just in charge of Team Prime. Closer to their sparks and responsible for each one individually rather than faceless brigades.

He shut those thoughts down quickly, Bee would never be Optimus, he would probably never know anything close to his former leader's experiences. Come to think of it, he didn’t even really know how Optimus viewed them, more a symbol then a mech in most’s eyes.

He had been the heart and soul of their faction, a legend even among the Primes. Unending, undying. Even now, he was certain his former leader's spark was out there fighting. Battling unseen and unknown forces.

He could take a page from Optimus’ book, staying strong for his team and carrying them when they faltered. Bumblebee wasn’t as nimble as Sideswipe nor as tough and structured as Strongarm. His strength paled in comparison to Grimlock and his technological knowledge was leagues behind Fixit. But Bee knew that these traits only scratched the surface of what was necessary in war.

It wasn’t the strongest nor the fastest nor the structure that survived. There was always someone faster, the strong will always have an achilles heel and structure will always have a flaw. Bumblebee knew soldiers that were all of these things and more that still had their sparks brutally extinguished, oftentimes at the over reliance on their own skills.

Even in peacetime, with his side pronounced victorious, Bumblebee knew deep down that nobody wins in war, someone just loses worse than the others. To survive in a warzone, in the closest place to hell that can be found on earth, it is those that can simply endure loss that will make it out alive.

Bumblebee’s endurance was what had allowed him to survive to see the sun rise over a rebuilt cybertron. His ability to keep moving, keep scouting, keep going no matter what, was what made him Prime’s top scout. He knew the importance of his work and when he was scouting, surviving, gaining info that might have a chance of turning the tides of war, nothing could stop him.

Nothing stopped him now either. The sun rose and fell and Bumblebee endured. He pushed past the lasting scars on his processor and protoform, endured the ghosts of memories that whispered in the shadows and wrapped cold digits around his intake, and honed in on his goal, watching as the number on his HUD grew higher.

He didn’t know what he was waiting for as that number increased. One task only brought another, the completion just the beginning of a new mission. There was no end to Bumblebee. Drafted into the war mere vorns after his construction, this was all he knew. He had enough shanix to last a lifetime thanks to Prime, but still took on a role as a police lieutenant on the reasoning that he simply didn’t know what to do when not working, scouting, and gathering - be it intel, criminals or decepticons.

At this moment, Bumblebee sat at the edge of the scrapyard, gazing up at the stars as he felt the cold digits of the past touch every scar on his frame, visible and invisible. He looked beyond the stars into the dark void behind them, feeling the emptiness of his spark sing out to the darkness. He couldn’t help feeling like a husk, a shell, shining in the eyes of others yet backed by darkness.

It was only when he was alone that he felt true loneliness sink in. He was a scout by trade, yet when he mapped the corners of his own spark, he could not find himself beyond his mission, a mere tool to be used for a greater cause, a living space for old memories to fester and replay over and over and over again. In this, he had no companionship, alone with his ghosts, differed and alienated as the world moved on without him and bots began to forget what he was cursed to remember.

~~~

Things got better when Drift came around. Drift, formerly Deadlock, brought his own ghosts along with him when he landed on earth. They intertwined with Bumblebee’s and he knew then that Drift understood. 

It was a wordless understanding. They operated seamlessly, watching each other's backs as only soldiers could. With knowing glances and instinctive formations, the pair moved through the forest on patrols as if it were a battlefield. They spoke the same language, one that was poorly imitated by Sideswipe and Strongarm. The red racer crept along besides Bee, but not as Drift did, the warframe was always positioned perfectly, posture and location constantly changing due to an instinct honed only by war. The silver and blue cruiser spoke with optics and expressions, but she only touched the surface of Bee’s optics, seeing only the most obvious details. Drift penetrated beyond the optic, looking into Bee’s very spark, and adjusting accordingly. 

Bee sometimes wished they could talk, and had even debated dragging out what he saw in himself and Drift up to the surface, airing it out. He vetoed these ideas. He had walked a different life, parallel to Drifts, prior to this. Those parallels were never meant to meet. He knew what he needed to know, could see in something as simple as Drift's stance what was on his processor. His subconscious was identical to Bumblebees, shaped by the same machine.

Drift however, was not Bumblebee, stuck in past rhythms and blues. The scout found himself increasingly jealous of the former sniper’s ability to be just that, a former sniper. Bee could see Drift’s past in his deadly skill with a firearm, but his spark did not revolve around that label. Drift had begun to grow beyond his past, shedding this identity and becoming whatever he wanted. He had become a mentor, learning to love, to grow and to nurture. He had gained skills beyond what was purely necessary for war, for survival. He was someone beyond a sniper, a soldier. Bumblebee was a scout. He wore the skin of a lieutenant and bore the responsibility of a leader, but at his core, he was still a scout, unable to allow his spark to grow beyond this label, to grasp the idea of anything beyond this simple occupation. 

Drift had arrived and changed the air and Bumblebee would sit at the edge of the scrapyard, comforted by being understood in the rawest sense. That would only, however, be padding on the edges. The knife was duller, sure, but it still cut. 

Drift had arrived and would sometimes watch as Bumblebee sat at the edge of the scrapyard. He would wonder why the former scout dulled his abilities and pushed memory and emotion further into his spark. There was more lurking below the surface, Drift was sure of it. He could only watch however, as Bee continued to allow himself to be puppeteered by old habits, by old rules and old expectations, how he let ice grow around his spark until he was nothing more than a machine. Sure, he had watched the lieutenant crack jokes, relax in car washes and watch movies, but a decepticon knew a farce when he saw one. He saw how Bee’s spark wasn't in it, how it was instead hidden behind layers of ice, frozen in time.

~~~

“Bee,” 

Drift came up behind the yellow mech, quiet, but in a way that wouldn’t scare the former scout. 

Bee looked up, surprised. Not at Drift’s sudden appearance, but at the sound of his nickname. Drift almost never called Bumblebee ‘Bee’, instead opting for more formal alternatives. He liked his designation, but it had almost evolved into more of a title, a symbol, then just his designation. Just Bee was better.

“Morning Drift,” Bumblebee said, voice slightly wavering, uncertain. 

He knew where Drift stood and he knew where he stood, both physically and literally. He wondered why Drift decided to push past the unseen and unenforced boundary. Why Drift now decided to approach the scout. Why he decided to come closer.

“Would you like to meditate with me?”

On the surface, it was a casual question. A normal interaction between two bots, one requesting to partake in an activity with another, nothing more. Between the lines, it was an olive branch. A crack in the ice formed by unspoken words and haunted pasts.

“I find it helps soothe my former war coding,” Drift continued, tone as level and as casual as if he were saying that oil would help a squeaky hinge.

Bee’s optics widened slightly, the only outward expression of his surprise. He and Drift had crafted a careful ballad over their time together, dancing around, with and through the ghosts of the pasts. They worked seamlessly in the field, pragmatic yet sensitive to the needs of the other in a way that only they could. This however had never translated to matters of the spark. They had never broken the ice on the topic of their pasts, never sought comfort or conscious understanding of the other, never talked about it. Well, not until today.

“That sounds nice,” Bee vented shakily as he shifted and settled into position next to Drift.

Comfortable silence filled the space between the two. Bee was somewhat familiar with the concept of meditation and the grounding nature of its practice. He set about clearing his processor, setting a long-overdue defrag process running in the background as he focused on his surroundings. He pulled himself into the moment he was in, the silence of the pre-dawn scrapyard, the cool, slightly rusted metal beneath him, the warm, soft air surrounding him. 

He felt Drift's tranquil EM field around him and relaxed into it. Calm, safe. He felt his own EM field pulse in tandem. He smiled softly as he felt Drift's EM field reach out further. Proximity had allowed Bee to sense, but what had to be a purposeful effort from Drift allowed the energy to push past the surface, deeper into his processor and spark. 

Defragging had been a good idea. The thought slipped past Bee’s processor as he felt the program run in the background. His systems were organizing, filling and compacting days worth of sensory data, complex and dense as a result of his scouting coding and habits. He could feel as the backlog of data was worked through and dispersed throughout his processor into the proper memory and analysis files. He didn’t do this often and was pleasantly surprised at how lightweight he felt; clear-helmed and processor working on nothing but the soothing rhythm of filing and solely the sensory data of the current moment.

The sun was rising once again. Dim rays brushed orange and yellow plating. Bee was acutely aware of his plating, the shifts in the air and Drift sitting next to him. Bee’s senses were naturally sharp, he was used to this awareness, but for the first time in vorns he was a part of his surroundings, not a guarded force against it. He was sitting next to Drift, venting the soft morning air and feeling the warmth of the rising sun against his plating. He was there, not as a scout, but simply as himself. He could sense the slow, even venting of the orange and grey bot and for the first time, he was not alone.

He knew that the sun would rise, that the world would continue on whether he was ready or not, that he would again face the world as it now was, as it moved past what he was programmed for. He would still fight the slowly decaying war protocols, so adamant at staying alive within him despite their obesity. Shadows would still remind him of what once lurked in them. 

Before the scuffle of younger mechs and humans that didn’t understand that this noise would’ve gotten them killed in the war, filled the scrap yard. Before patrols with post-war constructs that didn’t have his back the way a warframe would, occupied his mornings. Before the struggle to fully fill his tanks with energon past war ration limits dampened his evenings. Before the dawn fully broke, he could exist just as he was now. 

“I’ve known,” 

Drift broke the silence.

“So have I,”

Bee responded.

“You like me at your rear, 6 paces behind, slightly to the right on patrol,”

“You prefer to take the high ground, your right servo twitches when we’re at lower elevation,”

Drift smiled a rare, true, yet tense smile at Bee. His optics were warm, inviting and understanding, yet still apprehensive at crossing their past unspoken barrier. Beneath, was respect and pure elation to be understood. Bee smiled back tentatively as here sifted through these layers of Drift's expression. He was trembling slightly, the mere mention of both of their tendencies somehow having more of an effect then all the knowing glances and patrol formations.

“You’re a scout,”

Drift’s smile dropped slightly as he spoke, optics shifting away from Bee’s. Bee stared at him quizzically before the grey and orange mech continued. Wasn’t that obvious? 

“You’ll be a scout until the day you die, as I will be a sniper,” 

Bee’s doorwings flattened, tensing at Drift's words yet remaining silent.

“I just hope you will one day begin to see yourself past that, I will always be sniper, but before my spark joins the well I will also have been a mentor, a practitioner of the martial arts, an autobot and so much more,”

Drift sighed, looking back to Bumblebee before continuing.

“As a sniper, I became very skilled at watching people, learning who they were so that I could then predict their next move. You Bumblebee, are a slave to your coding. I have never seen you act as anything but a scout. Yes, you are our leader and an adequate, functional one at that, but every action you take is that reminiscent of a special ops recon soldier. When will you begin to see yourself past this role?”

“I-,” 

This was probably the most he’d ever actually heard Drift speak. Bumblebee’s intake was dry and his optics were suspiciously wet at the words of the former sniper. 

“It’s all I’ve ever known,” 

~~~

Patrols were routine business. Regulating and cataloging sensory input and filing disturbances among routes was as easy as breathing to one trained for a lifetime to collect data across uncharted territory. Because of this, Bumblebee could allow his thoughts to wander as he drifted along his patrol routes.

When will you begin to see yourself past this role?

Drift's words echoed in Bumblebee’s processor. Scouting was his life. No, scouting was an informal term for his work and scout was an informal term for his former role. He was a special operations recon soldier for primus’ sake. He was a special operations recon soldier, a member of the Prime's personal team. He may have been a ‘slave’ to his former coding and he may have been making many decisions based on his past and this coding according to Drift, but when he thought about it, it was all code, Bumblebee had acted nothing like a soldier, let alone spec ops, since Prime’s team disbanded.

On missions, scouts, special operations soldiers, reconnaissance mechs -made to acquire information and trained to react and respond quickly- did just that. They adapted to their surroundings.

Bumblebee was now caught in the paradox of being a scout unable to adapt. Lost in thought he crunched over the gravel of the section of his patrol that he knew by heart. Of course he did. He stopped there, under the stars. Night patrol always seemed to draw out the most thoughts, whether they would be creative, bland, or horrific mental relivings of watching comrades blown to scrap, was a fun gamble.

Today he was introspective, extremely rare given that he both tried not to think about his past and thought about it without really thinking about it. His war coding and dark memories were wedged somewhere between his subconscious and conscious self yet still somehow were the basis for most of his actions.

A breeze picked up and the cold night air washed over the yellow bots plating, sending a shiver through his struts and servers. He really had not been acting like a scout. He realized, shivering now not just from the cold. He was just running off autopilot, a slave to his processor.

What had happened to him? Was he losing his touch? No, he searched his processor for the strands of code and as expected his protocols still ran flawlessly. 

Maybe if he stopped grappling with this part of him, half heartedly fighting it off while simultaneously obsessing over it, he could learn to grow with it, past it. He had to accept it, let it in and let it stay. He was a soldier, a soldier in what felt like a new world, a world that didn’t need him in the same capacity that it did before. He had coding that was primed for a war torn world, a frame that itched for combat. He harbored the memories that more and more were beginning to be born past, memories that often took the form of ghosts teasing at tense coding. Amongst all of this, he had the training, the experience, to adapt, survey and catalog this new territory.

The former soldier quietly started his engine, a dull, low hum as opposed to the roar he knew that it was capable of. He crept across gravel, past trees, over dirt roads and under bridges until he found himself at the scrapyard. He looked at it with new optics. A second chance in a cold, unforgiving world. Warmth.

Bumblebee slowly rolled into the scrapyard, smoothly transforming back to root mode without stopping his momentum, pedes hitting the ground and continuing to walk. In and of itself, this small, insignificant action sparkled with the glass shards of his shattered past as a scout. Scouts never stopped moving, gathering new data, adapting no matter the cost to their environment,

As a tribute to his past, he would continue to move forward, gathering data and adjusting. Only this time, it wouldn’t be to complete a mission or to turn the tides of a war. It would be purely for himself and those who he cared about. He would never fully remove the broken shards of war, but he could use his skills, his adaption, his tenacity and his ability to move forward no matter the cost to become the leader, the mentor and friend that his team deserved. He was more then met the eye. 

He looked up to the sky as he walked, relying on his tac-sharp senses to navigate the cluttered scrapyard without eyes. In the stars he saw everyone who had ever had his back. Sparkling and ever so far away. Arcee. Rachet. Bulkhead. Smokescreen. Prime. He saw his former leader amongst the stars, shining bright, guiding his charge even after his death. He saw the dark hellish pit that he knew war to be in the void behind them all. It backed his spark, his life, and set the stage for everything to come, looming behind him. But despite this, Bee supposed that like a star, he could still find a way to shine even shrouded in darkness

Chapter Text

Sideswipe kept a mental countdown in the back of his processor, not for how long he would be on duty for, nor for how long they’d been on earth, or any quantifiable stretch of time at all. No, he had a mental countdown for when his life would start getting worse- again. It always came in waves, orns of peace, just enough time to allow slivers of hope to grow, until slowly the wave began to crest and dip, everything crashing apart before his powerless optics. He might not be the most studious of mechs, knowing just enough math and such to get by, but from vorns of experience, Sideswipe had a pretty good formula for estimating when his life would turn to slag- again.

He sauntered through life, optics ostentatiously bright and baring a mischievous grin. He had learned to shove the ever present sense of impending doom right to the back of his processor. To grasp life by the neck and squeeze, gaining as much as he can until anything good inevitably slipped from his servos and he was plunged back to the darkness he tried so hard to ignore. 

He was who he wanted to be. After all, he only had himself. If he wanted to act a certain way, he did, he didn’t have to conform to anyone or anything. To some, that would be the definition of freedom, doing whatever you wanted, only relying on yourself. To Sideswipe that's what it felt like at first as well. Freed from the rules and confines of all those ‘homes’ he had found himself in. Freed from the uncertainty of not knowing when he would be forced to relocate. Allowed to choose where he would be and when, what he did and when, he should have felt elated, full with excitement and the possibilities that came with life on his own. But then why did he feel so empty ?

He chased every high he could, vandalism, breaking and entering, trespassing. Why should it matter to him? What he broke, what he stole? He owed these bots nothing. 

They were the ones who owed him, Sideswipe had thought to himself as he had revved his engine, snarling as he had whipped in circles around the monuments. These ‘heroes’ had done nothing for bots like him, displaced and disowned, they could at least provide a little amusement.

~~

The Bee Team was, while definitely different from his last groupies and crews, most likely just another blip in the perpetual cycle he found himself in. Sideswipe knew they would leave eventually. So why didn’t they?

Sideswipe laid awake in berth, staring at the bunk above him where he knew Strongarm slept. He waltzed around the scrapyard by day, confidence oozing from his frame as his carefree attitude swept away any unfavorable thoughts. He redlined his engines, pulling ahead on missions and in training, teaching himself new moves and practicing old ones. He’d gotten amazing at stunts and most thought it was for the purpose of missions. In part yes, a small part did want to get better. But he didn’t dare hope for anything long term. He trained for the day he’d be on his own again, relying on no one but himself. He trained for each night, exhausting his engines so he wouldn’t confuse the shadows of night with the shadows of his past. So he would fall deep into recharge, so deep that the nightmares couldn’t reach him.  

Tonight however, Sideswipe had let himself slip. He let out a silent whimper as he turned over. He couldn’t sleep. He had spent the day in the command center, punished for acting out, he couldn’t even remember what he did , with sorting and filing reports on caught decepticons.

He danced a thin line between desperately trying to keep his place on the team- confidence was key… Right? -a nd desperately trying to stay in control; If he didn’t care, if he was in control, if he acted out enough, he couldn’t be surprised when they eventually decided he wasn’t worth keeping around. Half the time, the red bot didn’t even realize what he was doing, his little balancing act second nature after time and time again of being discarded. 

Nights like these had the two sides of Sideswipe warring against each other. Part of him, confident, cocky as ever in his own abilities, easily justified acting out. He was fine, he’d gained enough skills that they’d be stupid to get rid of him, that even if they did, he was fine without them. The other side, a smaller voice within him, anxiously mulled over each action, mourning the loss of his team time and time again so that at least if they were to leave him behind, it wouldn’t catch him by surprise. Still, deep down, past his careful mental preparation, terrified thoughts of being left behind yet again, drilled a hole in his spark. He stuffed them down time and time again. 

It was fine, he’d be fine, no matter what, he was Sideswipe afterall, he’d make himself into a bot that could handle anything. 

He was fine.

When his mind drifted to his life on cybertron, he came to the blunt conclusion that they could all go to the pit for all he cared. 

He wondered if the last place he’d stayed had even bothered to look for him after his disappearance to Earth. He scoffed to the open air. 

Probably not.

It was fine. He didn't need them anyways.

He hadn’t expected anything else.

This was exactly why he tried to tire himself out during the day, to prevent useless thoughts like this. They didn’t help, they’d throw him off his game. Shove it down deeper and it’ll go away, right? 

Eventually, he staggered into an uneasy recharge, each shadow towering over him, menacing, creeping closer and closer until he was completely engulfed in darkness and began to dance the thin line between consciousness and unconsciousness .

He couldn’t tell where he was in the darkness. Was he awake, asleep? Was he safe in the scrapyard? Or was he yet again trapped within the four walls of a house that could never feel like a home?

He saw their faces, their names lost on him. So many that once known syllables turned into mindless sounds echoing- it wasn’t as if they ever stayed long enough to leave a lasting mark on his processor.

The shadows, the darkness, became walls, walls he knew all so well closing in on him. They grew closer, no matter how much he tried to run he could never escape, couldn’t move, couldn’t break free as they grew closer and closer, trapping him. 

Sideswipe jerked awake, smashing his helm into the berth above his, and venting sharply as he shot up from what he had hoped would be a peaceful recharge.

“ Sideswipe stop MOVING,”

Strongarm grumbled from the berth above him shifting and turning over. Sideswipe grunted back a reply as he rubbed his helm.

At least he could now…

~~

Another day, another mission. Another task for Sideswipe to frag up apparently. It was a stealth recon mission, traveling deep into the new decepticon territory to see what Steeljaw was doing with both his newfound rights and their overarching restrictions.

Sideswipe, predictably, did extremely poorly. He hated sitting still, he hated waiting , the more you wait around the more trouble comes to find you, he had learned. Even when they were moving it was also extremely exhausting for some reason. Bee wove through the undergrowth like a fragging cyber panther. When did he learn how to do that?? He shook his helm, that didn’t matter, what did was that this was hard and Sideswipe was getting increasingly frustrated with how much he was fragging up.

Anxious from the task of sitting still for long periods and even longer periods of the weirdest type of patrolling Sideswipe had ever done, he noticed himself slipping. This wasn’t part of the plan!.

Eventually, finally, they crossed back into autobot territory, stepping over imaginary borders, and immediately Bee was on Sideswipe, pulling him back to walk behind the rest of the group.

As Drift hearded Strongarm and Grimlock ahead with one last glance towards the pair. Sideswipe felt his spark drop in his chassis. So it’s really happening this time…

“You’re getting rid of me, aren’t you?” 

Sideswipe said, nonchalant but with a slight waver he couldn’t stifle.

“What?” 

Bee stopped in his tracks, turning to face his subordinate before sighing and pressing a servo to his faceplate in exasperation. His paint was scratched, his armor had chips and dings to be buffed out and he really didn’t have time for Sideswipe’s attempts to compliment fish or change the topic or whatever he was trying to pull.

“Of all things Sideswipe, why is that the conclusion you jump to? Why is that the first thing that comes to your processor, everytime you always say something like this, we really need to work on how you take criticism you know-,”

“Well maybe because no bot had ever fragging wanted me around before!” Sideswipe snapped, whipping around to face his leader.  

Bee’s doorwings lifted slightly in shock, this tone was different then Sideswipes usual suave attempts to dodge a conversation. He shut his intake, letting the red bot continue.

“Is it so hard to believe that after so many orns of being passed around from place to place, too loud, too energetic, too much for anyone to truly want me, that I’d question what the frag is keeping me here? You’ve seen my file, haven’t ya boss?”

Bee, infact, had not. His doorwings quivered slightly in discomfort as a wave of shame washed over him. I really have been checked out… he thought to himself as his subordinate grew increasingly agitated, pacing- no, stalking back and forth.

“Why should I trust you? When am I going to be too much for you? ‘Sideswipe stop moving’, ‘Sideswipe keep it down’,” He sneered, voice rising in pitch and volume, “How much can you handle? Am I worth it? C'mon give it to me straight boss bot, how much slag can you take until you decide- like everyone else, to throw me out?”

Bee watched as the red bot vented deeply, shoulders dropping as his agitation slipped away and his discomfiture became apparent. Was that coolant in his-?

“How many boundaries can I push until you finally get rid of me?”

The red bots voice cracked, wild optics filling with coolant as his frame trembled. 

Bumblebee saw him then. Each boundary pushed was the bot seeing how far he could go, if he would still be wanted. If Sideswipe were to be rejected, he would be on his own terms. Bumblebee took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts, he had to be careful with him . He- He had to read the kids file at least. Slaggit how had he been this blind??

“None,” 

Bumblebee announced calmly. A sharp contrast to the turmoil of pieces clicking together in his own processor and an even sharper contrast to the trembling mech in front of him.

“Don’t you fragging lie to me,” 

Sideswipes vocalizer crackled off into static and he swung, fist hitting a nearby tree. Bee winced at the action, doorwings lifting in surprise. He then forced himself to calm, drop his wings and continue.

“I’m not Sideswipe, I-”

“Yes you are. That's what all those fake caring bots said. They said they'd help me, that they'd care no matter what and guess what they didn’t and-”

Bumblebee cut him off this time. 

“Sideswipe,”

The yellow mech hardened his voice, clearly the red bot would not respond to the softer tone he was using if it had deceived him so often in the past. The mech was grown, he could speak to him like he was.

“Do you seriously think that you are the worst thing that I’ve ever had to deal with,”

Bee glared at him, one eyebrow raised as Sideswipes sputtered, train of thought clearly broken, before anxiously continuing.

“Well I don’t know, there's gotta be something I’ve done that-”

“Sideswipe,”

The younger mech let out a high pitch whine. Why wouldn’t Bee understand? He’d get tired of him eventually, just like the rest.

Bee, shamefully, was starting to get a little annoyed, he was tired, they both were and Sideswipe was notoriously stubborn; changing the mech's mind was near impossible.

Normally, Bee would have just dropped the topic- give Sideswipe a few cycles of revving and wrecking and reckless driving when he was upset and he’d be back to normal. But now, Bee saw the situation through new optics, saw the vulnerability that the red bot was subconsciously trusting him with. 

As much as Sideswipe was pushing against Bee, he knew that what the red mech really craved was reassurance, true reassurance, concrete evidence that he would not be left behind instead of kind words and false promises. Sideswipe had let him in, he supposed he could reveal a little about himself as well.

Besides, Sideswipe was far from the worst Bumblebee had ever had to deal with and it would do him good to know it. He was a fragging war frame who had fought in a war . A hyperactive bot was far, far from even making the bad-things-bee-has-had-to-deal-with list even at his most insufferable. Bumblebee almost laughed at the absurdity of it, on the arc and on team Prime, mecha were treasured, weird quirks and nuisances alike. It was practically an insult to Bumblebee’s experience to insinuate that Sideswipe was the worst he had ever encountered. And so, he decided he would let him know.

“Nothing short of ripping out my intake, hacking my processor, and putting me into fragging stasis would lead to the outcome you keep expecting to happen,”

Bumblebee hissed; he wasn’t angry at the red mech, far from it, the blazing sincerity behind the words leading the harsh tone. Vorns ago, he would hardly mention anything related to his past, but clearly this had led to some misconceptions.

“Wha-”

Sideswipe blinked, confused at the statement and the passion behind it. His leader was glaring at him, not angry, he noted, but with an intensity he hadn’t ever seen from the mech. Bee stalked forward, doorwings raised, confrontational .

“You heard me Sideswipe, nothing short of ripping out my intake, hacking my processor and putting me into stasis . You want to know the worst thing I’ve ever had to deal with? Well that’s it.  I watched my comrades die, I watched the light leave their fragging optics as medics tried desperately to patch their broken, unsalvageable frames, I would never abandon a mech for something as stupid as being annoying,”

Sideswipe choked on his words, watching with wide optics.

“You could blow up the entire fragging scrapyard for all I care and you want to know what I’d do?”

Bee’s optics were trained on Sideswipe, but he was looking elsewhere, looking inward, optics glassy.

“I’d be happy that you were fragging alive, unlike so so many bots I’ve cared about,”

Bumblebee hadn’t meant to share that much. But he still couldn’t stand the thought of Sideswipe, a bot he was actually relatively fond of, viewing Bumblebee as someone that would abandon him at the slightest frag up. 

Sideswipe had straightened up. This whole conversation had taken a slagging turn. He stifled a nervous chuckle as Bumblebee let out a shaky vent, forcing himself to let his plating lie flat.

“Now, you can stop trying to push boundaries, trying to make us let you go on your own terms or some slag,”

“I wasn’t-”

Bumblebee gave him a look and Sideswipe canned it.

“Sides, I’ve been dealing with mecha vorns before you were even manufactured, don’t even try this with me,” He said, waving a servo and flicking a doorwing dismissively.

Bee suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion crash over him. He slumped over, vented out and forced his frame to transform. Engine at a low rumble, he flicked his headlights as he spoke.

“C’mon, let’s head back to the scrapyard, it’s been a long day,”

Emotionally and physically drained, Sideswipe flipped into his alt mode and revved, speeding up as he tailed Bee.

~~

The sun had long gone down since the sunset had illuminated the distress of their discussion. and, after about a groon of driving, he wasn’t sure if the silence that accompanied them, broken only by the rumbling of their engines, was uncomfortable or not. 

Boss bot never lost his cool like that. But Sideswipe had admittedly kind of forgotten about the war. To him, Bumblebee was a somewhat stingy cop with shitty callsigns and an even shittier sense of humor, barely seeming to hold any baggage. Clearly there was more than met the eye. His optics drifted to Bumblebee’s license plate in front of him, BB-127. 

That, wasn’t just a license plate number, Sides realized, almost flat out stopping on the road. That was the format that lower class bots designations came in before the war. He had learned about pre-war cybertron in some class he had probably mostly slept through. He remembered that lesson though. He had stared at the board in discomfort, more of a weird horror story to him then a past reality. It was- what was the human word? - inhumane , the way that lower class mecha had been treated. Despite it being in the distant past, it had unsettled him. Maybe it was because deep down, he knew that if society still operated like that, still robbed “unworthy,” mecha of something as simple as a designation, that he would be one of them. 

His sparked dropped as his processor ran through the implications of such a designation. Just what had Bee really seen, been through, been born into? Why would he choose to keep such a stark reminder of it on his frame? He admittedly rarely thought of bots other than himself often, but this was jarring, this was real. 

He drove up to match Bee’s speed as they turned out of the woods and onto the road home. Side by side now, he glanced at Bumblebee's rear views as if they could tell him more about what Bumblebee had left behind. No , he thought to himself, not left behind. Escaped from.

He wondered if he had told Bee his whole story, his past, his present, what he believed his future to be. That instead of fake pity, fake care, he would understand.

The pair continued to drive in silence under the starlight, cool wind whistling over their frames, echos of the past faint in the air and in their processors as the road stretched on. Bee set the pace, constant, unwavering, steady. Sideswipe deviated, slowing if a new thought nudged at his processor or if he saw something in the distance and speeding back up to Bee when he realized.

Bee wondered if he had told Sideswipe too much. He glanced at his expressionless charge, worried. Of course he was expressionless, he was a car right now, Bee thought to himself at that. He tried to shake the exhaustion from his frame, but it draped over him like a wet blanket. He had started incorporating his scout coding and training into his missions and it had worked incredibly well. He was used to unconsciously dampening his senses, as if that would help to chase away the ghosts of his past. 

He supposed that no matter how hard he tried, he could not run from the past, it was who he was, who he would be. It was also incredibly draining and, come to think of it, probably draining for his team as well, who were used to a slower pace, not the quick decisions and pace dictated by well honed scout protocol. He supposed that was why he and Sideswipe had been unable to keep their tempers. 

He also supposed he would have to let his team in eventually. You live, recharge, refuel, work and relax with the same bots and you’re definitely bound to get to know them past surface level. He was a war mech, with a past and Sides, had his own demons as he had now found out, past the punk exterior he had been met with. Well, he supposed no ordinary punk would be this eager to help. He smiled mentally at that. Sides had always jumped at the opportunity to fight a con or set a trap or anything that involved some action. That train of thought spurred his memory, the memory of what he had been trying to tell Sideswipe earlier.

“Sideswipe,”

It took a few klicks before the sports car responded

“Oh, uh, yeah Bee? What's up?”

“When I pulled you aside before, you obviously know now, that I wasn’t doing that to dismiss you,”

“Oh, about that I-”

“No need for explanations. It’s fine Sides. We all have pasts.”

“What I had been meaning to say was that I’d be willing to give you more, in depth lessons. I think there's a lot I could teach you. I still have all my old war mods and scout protocol installed-”

Sideswipe would have winced if he were in bot form, the casual tone that Bee talked about being a warframe was a tad off putting.

“-and while I kept them for the most part deactivated during my time with you all, I’ve recently reactivated, some of the more, hefty, ones.”

Sideswipe kept silent. This was a wholeee new side of Bee as far as he was concerned. Warframe, war protocols, all that stuff… Though he had slept through almost all his history classes, only an idiot wouldn’t know that those were lethal. High clearance was necessary and even then it was extremely hard to be outfitted with war mods these days. He decided this was enough to not feel bad about being a little freaked out.

“Point being, it’s my responsibility to make sure our team is at our best. I want to teach you what I know, not just for our mission of catching the decepticons, though it would definitely help, but because if anything is going to live on from the war, it's going to be something useful,”

Sideswipe was still silent, so Bee continued.

“I want to teach you Sides, you and Strongarm, you deserve to be prepared for the world,”

You deserve more than I had, he thought silently.

Sideswipe’s chassis tightened at that. No one had offered such a thing to Sideswipe before. He took classes because he was required, trained on his own out of fear, yet had never had someone care enough about his well being in such a way. It was- weird. Almost uncomfortable. But not bad. Not bad at all.

Approaching the scrapyard, they slowed down before shifting into root mode. Exhausted, Sideswipe stumbled. Bumblebee held out a servo. Uncharactaristically silent, uncharacteristically calm, Sideswipe took it. Bumblebee read his silence and took it as a yes. 

For the first time, after a lifetime of let downs, Sideswipe felt a glimmer of hope, an inkling of security. 

Side by side in stride and in mind, the two trekked on pede into the scrapyard. Somewhere that two bots, from such different walks of life could walk into together, could call home. The stars twinkled above them, guiding them as they walked. The stars in the optics of their teammates welcomed them home.

Chapter Text

Peace in patterns.
Solidarity within the straight lines between what should and should not be.
Aligned algorithms that paved pathways for anyone in any possible situation.
She found peace in the system. She was the heart guiding the blood of society through carefully crafted veins of law and order.

Pressure grew high, but was eventually squeezed through the capillaries of protocol. So carefully laid out. So carefully formed from a broken world. So carefully crafted to hold those who dare break down what had been rebuilt and sentence them to the end of the horizon, never to tumble the skyscrapers that had been constructed on countless cybertronian corpses.

The aftermath of war led to a society that knew the value of order. That knew the value of strength within both its core and lining each pathway that one could follow. None would be lost unless they chose to. Or, so she thought. Perhaps they were too tired to fight, too tired to cause more turmoil on top of what had been lost.

This had always made perfect sense to some. They were eager to hold these tunnels, canals and paths together with their own two servos. To ensure that society was efficient, organized, sane. It made less sense to others, those who read between the lines. As one who had never strayed from structure, the proverbial box that would hold what was necessary, that provided protection and amnesty from the unruly and chaotic, was sanctuary, was an example of what society could be. She did not understand these ruthless types. Those who looked between the lines surely only saw a dark expanse and that, she believed, merely reflected dark voids within their sparks. A darkness in which swallowed all whole and could not be lit up. Like the dark alleys that sparked crime, festered disarray, they seemed to be drawn to any opportunity. It was not worth derailing from the path, and she vowed to keep the streets clean.

She did not know war, but she believed she saw it carved into the optics of the statues of their saviors. Plated in gold and towering as relics over a rebuilt world, she gazed up, in awe. Those who had stared into bleak darkness and began to light the way, law and order bridged islands across a dark expanse. Those who wove together the webs of society on a fragmented planet and a broken population.

Of course, she could only speculate, she had not been there to watch society as it was rebuilt. She however, did have an active imagination, useful for paying attention in history lectures, but stored tucked away in a box in the back of her processor for later when not productive. Yes, she found peace in the maze of boxes she had amassed. One for each function, one for each task, one for each rule and protocol learned over the orns.

She didn’t have to feel, if she didn’t open the box. She could focus if everything stayed in its box. No crossovers, no mess. Only logic, why couldn’t they understand that. Logic was all that mattered. To be pragmatic was to not make mistakes, was to make sure things stayed the way they were supposed to, was to not cause more pain.

She did not know suffering, but she believed she saw it in each unruly mech. Some driver had to convince them to derail from what had been very clearly laid out. It could not be logical, it could not be positive.

No she did not know true suffering, but she believed she did, staring at pages of laws to commit to memory, in the training she spent hours on and in staring down each and every panel in the mirror. Is this optimal? And once it was optimal; Is this… will I ever be... beautiful?

Small wars of logic and illogic fought their way through her processor and she took those pesky feelings and folded them nice and tightly out of the way. Optimization and function take precedence. In such she continued on, creating her reality and her place in society.

She found peace in neutrality, in monotony. In the shuffle between classes, in closing one box to open another. To let knowledge flow in and hold onto it tight. Everything had a place, every action had a complementary reaction. Hierarchies were important as well, to know who to submit to and who to hold dominance over was another net of security, holding bots as well as society together within its structure.

That was how she viewed it, while she had not experienced it, growing up with caring creators and in a safe area, she knew that order was necessary. If she could create order, spread her knowledge to the tangled areas of Cybertron, to Earth, she could do her part, fit into the nets and niches of society and maybe, just maybe, finally feel like enough.

She sat at a desk and studied. Letting rectangle after rectangle take her vision and mind, shaping and structuring it to the system.
~~

Perfect marks, perfect attendance, clean record, nothing unexpected.

Bumblebee let out a sigh as he closed yet another window of Strongarms records. Brief, monotonous, robotic – exactly as he expected. It gave some insight, though not what he had been searching for.

He pulled up another, searching for anything even slightly out of the norm.

Perfect marks, perfect attendance, clean record, nothing unexpected.

While not as obvious as he had hoped, he supposed that that degree of perfection was sometimes more of an indicator of underlying issues than outright behavioral issues (Sideswipe). These things tended to lurk deeper below the surface than expected.

He pushed his servos into his knees and stood up from his seated position. Record after record of both his subordinates and he had found nothing out of the ordinary. Well, nothing that he didn’t expect that is. Behavioral issues, crime, and a history of concerning behavior done to and by Sideswipe. Utter perfection on Strongarms end.

Sideswipe was textbook, sadly. Strongarm would be a harder case to crack. That was fine, Bumblebee was never one to turn down a challenge. A scout by trade, he would map out territory and scan it twice, no stone left unturned.

He fixed an eye on her across the scrapyard. He’d come to his senses. He could see beyond the shadows now, he knew his skills were top notch. She was one to figure out. Once he’d cracked the code to how his team thought, better use could be made of their strengths and he could train them as he now believed it was his responsibility to.

In human terms, as Denny might have described it, Bumblee had been, well, depressed. Uncaring and living behind a mask. Lowering that had allowed him to slowly crawl from the darkness. Learn to care, learn to love.

And he had begun to care more. He grew to see Sideswipe as somewhat of a younger version of himself. He found himself truly wanting to use this opportunity of them as a team not just to learn how to lead, but to set them up to be successful no matter where they ended up. This mission wouldn’t last forever and he was less shortsighted as he crawled out his shell of darkness. He began to see their futures in the new world he helped create and he wanted a part in helping them to get there.

The timer ticked down.

The count went up.

The trees shook above. A dragonfly soared across his vision. Wings of clear spirals jutting from a lean lanky body caught his optic and was gone as soon as it arrived.

Past the slog of uncaring, of stiff joints and a stiffer mind that he had fallen into after losing the fiery energy and fervor brought on by war. He found himself powered by new energy. Like sweet high grade. He moved towards the future.

And such, in his free time, he had taken it upon himself to read through their records. The scout he was gathering data and the mentor he had become weaving the information into lesson plans and training sessions.

The gleam in Sideswipes eyes and the spark of interest in Strongarms enough payment.

~~

If she followed the rules, if she just put in more effort than everyone else, she would come out on top - she was sure of it.

That was how the world worked; the harder you push, the more you gain. The more you learn the more you can apply, the more you- Arghhh.

If this was true, why was it so easy for Sideswipe?

As far as she knew, he had done none of the prerequisite courses to cadetship, yet had still landed his aft what was akin to an internship, no more than that, alongside Bumblebee.

She was humble, at least, she believed herself to be. Though she had been called arrogant or a know it all in the past, it wasn’t her fault she knew left from right, correct from incorrect.

The problem was mecha like Sideswipe, that defied logic and ran rampant across society, trampling on everyone around them. The problem was mecha like Sideswipe that moved against the grain, yet still ended up further than those who moved along the paths like they were supposed to. Was there some kind of secret handbook? A wild card drawn every so often in this game of life that pulled mecha ahead just to make others chase to catch up?

How did he weave between order? How could he disregard what had been put in place before him? Her biggest problem with Sideswipe, she logically deduced, was that he defied all logic. Definitely not that he was pulling ahead of her in most of their training except textbook. Yeah, definitely not that.

She roundhouse kicked a pile of tires and swiveled around to punch another. Combat training. Why she needed to learn abstract martial arts like Sideswipe and Drift? She didn’t know. She had her taser, she had her gun, she had her decepticon hunter and she had basic cadet training. As far as she knew, this type of training only occured for spec ops and advanced roles. Was that the category she fell into now? She still could not draw a sound conclusion on what she was now.

Bee’s teaching was unorthodox. No, that was sugarcoating, it was the strangest that Strongarm had ever borne witness too. On top of that, he had been acting differently too. She took some pride in her analytical skills, she was top of her class after all. From these, she had deduced so far that he was acting… different… Yeah. That was all she had so far… Cause unknown. But she knew something was up, he held himself different, moved smoother, stood taller, looked more alert, and was quicker on his feet. She didn’t know what sparked the change and however somewhat unsettling his new behavior was, she welcomed and took it in stride. It had not escaped her notice that he had been treating them differently. It had not escaped her notice that he had been more attentive, more alert, more productive. With an ice cold efficiency that he had somehow warmed, they felt more like an actual team then they had in months.

Not one to question authority, she knew her rank and she had been made aware what the circumstances of her birth had prevented her from seeing, knowing, experiencing and suffering through. Many in her generation took a subordinate stance naturally simply because of the dark shadows that seemed to follow many of their predecessors. Whether this was good or not, whether it would foster strong conscious leaders or a generation of meek followers was up for grabs.

She smiled inwardly at the dots that were being connected in her mind. She kicked out again then leapt back into a roll before popping onto her feet. Yes this was unorthodox and weird, but she was doing something other than straight patrols and missions. This was what she had wanted when she followed him, guidance, mentorship, a glimpse into the world of someone of his status, someone she hoped to be like, a chance to learn-

Sideswipe decked her across the face then. Well. He didn’t exactly do it, he had swung to punch a tower of boxes, but her roll had unfortunately put her in the path of his fist.

Strongarm’s head slowly turned to look at him from the ground. Creaking back into place like a zombie from a human horror film.

“You. Little-”

At least he had the sense to move out of the way before he lunged.

~~

Strongarm spent the rest of her day then stewing. It all came back to her and Sideswipe got off scot free. He messes up during training? Oh it's fine, he's fine. Strongarm just ends up with the dented bumper.

The next time he decided to drop in it was from somewhere above her. Where from? She still could not pinpoint.

What she did know however was that she had enough. She had worked her aft off to be here and he did nothing.

She whipped around and instead of her usual lecture and frustration, she made no effort to bite back her snarl.

“Why can’t you be normal? Huh? You screw up every. single. day. Yet nothing bad ever happens, you- you- Who taught you to act like this?”

Sideswipe was taken aback at this, for all her frustration and stick-up-the-aft attitude. She had never snapped like this.

Maybe it was the after training exhaustion, maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. But Strongarm was done.

“You are exactly what’s wrong with our society, people like you who just can’t say where they belong- where do you even belong anyway??”

She gestured out, flailing an arm and Sideswipe flinched. He was equal parts upset, put off and nervous?

“You know society, life, everything, would be better if everything stayed nice and neat in the boxes that society makes for us. What are you even doing here?”

Not one to let his pride be battered and beaten without his retaliation, his confusion turned to anger. Like usual, they fought fire with fire.

“Life isn't about boxes! Strongarm! Not everything fits neatly between four walls,”

“Of course not, there's always overlap, however-”

“This is what I’m talking about, you try and assign a label to everything, a place for everything, a plan or protocol or whatever the frag to everything!”

“Everything can be labeled! We have rules, we have protocols, when things happen, we react, we profile, we make sure everythings in its place,”

“Bull. Shit. If everything had a place, I would've had one a long time ago, if everything had a protocol, slag would be so much easier. But, it would have been so much more boring, there wouldn't be room for anything else and I wouldn’t be here with you!”

Sideswipe had gotten up her face at that last sentence, sneering his response as they glared daggers at each other.

Bee watched them, observing. He had been quick in the past to shut down arguments, to maintain peace. The tired soul within him still called out weakly for him to order them to stand down, to conform to their roles, to- to fit into their boxes. The hungry scout within him however craved the information he gained on their psyche, their mindsets, their patterns, what made them tick. Oh yes, it's a known fact that finding out what makes one fly off the handle is one of the best tools you can gain when it comes to profiling. And, as Sideswipe said, not everything fits neatly into boxes, certainly not new young recruits. Bee decided he would cut in when the conversation was no longer of any use to him or to recruits, he was not a sadist after all.

He smiled slightly, crookedly, to himself. He had buried so much of himself. He felt sharper now, tuned in, a blade ready to cut. Re-activating his scouting protocols and finally letting go of the stiff nature he had acquired as a coping mechanism, as a way to exist in this unfamiliar, peaceful world.

He stretched his wings, reenergized, he was a weapon. Even if he was fighting low level cons and training the wettest-behind-the-audials bots he had ever met in his life, he still had much use for his prior skills, he need not lock himself away to conform. He agreed, boxes were useful, but it was satisfying to break down the walls, see beyond restraints, search for more.

He trained his eyes on the situation in front of him, it was comical how they had forgotten he was there. Neither asked for input nor clarification. Textbook poor argumentation skills, a clear sign that they were not arguing to learn, but to output what they had inputted at some point and gain validation. He rolled his optics at the pair.

“Logically, everything has a place, every action has a response, surely you can admit something as simple and fundamental as that?”

Strongarm exclaimed, tossing her servos in the air in exasperation.

“Logically this logically that, this isn't a textbook or a simulation, this is real life Strongarm, why can’t you admit something as simple as that? As simple as there isn’t a fragging formula to life, we’re not robots,”

Sideswipe shouted back, apparently not realizing the irony of his statement.

Bee stifled a chuckle, he agreed more with Sideswipe in this scenario. Despite the fact that Sideswipe was not the sharpest sword in the scrapyard, he had lived more life then many of his peers. He had suffered more and he had bounced back with skills and even a good sense of humor.

It was at times like this where Sideswipe sounded, well, like he was actually thinking about something for once. He looked at them closer, watching the argument. They were a good pair of cadets to work together, they challenged each other and, whether they knew it or not, they had a lot to learn from each other.

He then caught Drift out of the corner of his eye, rubbing his nasal ridge and squeezing his optics shut to ward off a very specific type of headache only brought on by stupidity. The yellow bots doorwings lifted in curiosity as Drift moved towards the two arguing bots.

“The way I like to see it,”

The two surprisingly actually paused and turned to him. He cleared his vocalizer and continued.

“Yes, there are boxes. Life is a lot of boxes, Little boxes and big boxes Strongarm, to put things in your words, each box has its place. However, boxes are merely a visual. Sideswipe may prefer to visualize a stream, full of little atoms not visible to the eye and not relevant to most, the direction of the stream”

Strongarm and Sideswipe cocked their heads and looked at each other. The mutual confusion regarding Drift’s words breaking any tension or aggression.

“Learning to think abstractly is important. What use is it to exist in this world without attempting to understand it? However in that sense, we also must acknowledge that trying to divide the entire world into boxes is counterproductive at best and obsessive and illogical at most. Most “boxes” exist behind the scenes.”

Sideswipe did not wear his usual scowl nor were his arms crossed in his usual indignation and immature arrogance. Drift's words flowed with the river of thoughts in Sideswipes brain and made their way across the current.

Strongarm relaxed from her stiff posture and seemed to take in the words, filing them away into the neat boxes Bumblebee knew she had cultivated within her processor.

“The world is a big place”

Drift continued.

“You will meet bots whose brains seem to be filled with flies,”

He knocked Sideswipe on the head. The red bot pouted but did not speak.

“-And, you will meet bots who cannot fathom that there is anything outside of whatever they have made their world to be”

He rested a hand on Strongarm’s shoulder. For an instance, it seemed she might speak up -
That's not true! I know there's a lot out there, I’m just trying to make sure everything stays where it's supposed to! - She instead looked down.

“-And then, you will meet bots that seem as if their minds are run by scraplets and their lines are filled with hatred in place of energon. You will never know how one thinks. How they see the world. That is deeply personal. It is a one dimensional view to frame how others may think using your own perspective.”

The two both looked up, Drift's vocalizer grew lower as he spoke, clearly speaking from experience. Red optics and energon coated claws flashed in the back of his processor. He looked back down at the two and his face softened.

“Every bot has a story. Every living thing thinks a certain way because of a million factors that you could never guess. Learn to assess, predict, and react. Learn from each other. Keep an open mind”

At that, Drift walked across the scrapyard and out of sight. The two looked at each other, their optics conveying the same surprise. That was the most either of them had heard him speak. They stood in silence. Strongarm attempting to think non-linearly and Sideswipe putting some abstract pieces together in his processor. Sideswipe, not one for long pauses, eventually broke the silence.

“You’re a box, I’m a river or something, Drift is like a cheesecake, Bee is like a forest covered in fog and Grimlock is like tetris, everytime a row gets deleted he has a thought “

He then walzed off, presumably to slash boxes with his sword or try to dodge between the scrapyard piles again.

Sideswipe needs to be studied. Strongarm thought to herself, shaking her helm. No venom sat behind the words, only raw bewilderment and the need to process new information.

Bumblebee flicked his wings in amusement in the shadows, with his knowledge of Earth media, he caught the earth food and game references from sideswipe. Rich and eaten in smaller amounts. He thought that was quite accurate, Drift spoke infrequently but each word was to be savored. He stifled a laugh at Grimlocks, it was so unfortunately accurate.

Those two were quite accurate and he cocked his head at the implications of his own. Foggy seemed to imply confusing, or maybe that he had a lot going on behind it? Or maybe that he was just confused. He debated asking his mentee about that later.

He however viewed his own processor quite differently. The river of thought flowed freely and the boxes held what was necessary. All hovering over an abyss that he could never get rid of no matter how hard he tried. He swam above the current, only sometimes brushing the murky bottom. It was better than it had been, better than being sucked into the mud and grime, forced to watch as the world flowed on. He could at least wipe the mud from his frame and the dirt from his eyes now. See the world as it was instead of through grime-coated glasses.

There would be gaps in his psyche, rips and holes in the boxes, mud at the bottom of his river of thoughts. His processor was tainted by war, by death, the spilled energon of comrades and enemies alike congealing along the sides of his very being.

He caught Drifts optics. He quirked a doorwing. Drift may not have had that particular anatomy but he knew he understood. Much had to be learned in war.
Drift opened a half shut box and fluttered a digit in imitation of a doorwing as a response.

Bee smiled back. He had always appreciated grounders that knew wing-speak.

– They will learn. –

– Slower than we did –

good.

~~

Strength came from certainty. Strength came from her hardened expectations of the future and a faithful trust of the steps that would bring her there. Strength came from fortitude. Or the illusion of it.

A shooting star shot across the sky, streaking past the void of night and back into the abyss. She calculated its trajectory. He made a wish.

Chapter Text

Wind whistled and whispered through the forest. Organic breath and mechanical whirling became one underneath the twilight sky. Under the forest canopy, a tail swished between the pillars of pine that twisted the land into a dark maze. 

What could have been optics flashed briefly in the shadows. What could have been eyes gleamed in the darkness.

It mattered not the form of those who traversed the night. The function was what determined whether you saw the morning dew collect on soft pine nettles. The sharpness of tooth, be it enamel or metal, was what brought every living creature's dream of survival to fruition.

Steeljaw saw a certain appeal to the earthy forests, the organic what would be hellscape for most bots. It seemed to conform to his very nature and it felt more like home to him than the metallic prison Cybertron had been.

His claws mirrored those of the native predators of these lands. Their eyes gleamed the same yellow in the dark. Out here, they were one and the same.

Of course, he was the strongest, the apex predator of the land he now inhabited. Power flowed naturally through his limbs and to him, it was only right that he had a domain of which to rule.

His fans whirled softly as they wafted air into his olfactory sensors. His optics dilated and scanned as he patrolled the territory he had claimed as his.

He had found his home. Curse all those who tried to take it from him..

~~~

The next time Bee checked the status of their mission, he was shocked to see that it read as more than half complete. They had, according to his latest calculations, made more progress over the last few months than they had during their first year on Earth. He really had gotten it together after all.

He looked to the moon above him, framed and slightly obscured by swaying pine branches.

He had expected to feel more homesick. He had expected to feel.. Something. Bumblebee reached down to the depths of his being, attempting to sift through the hardening mud and stir up any sort of emotion regarding home. Perhaps a longing to be surrounded by his kind, those like him. Maybe a homesickness for the lands he had fought for all those orns. He came up with… nothing. Mud slipped through his digits, barely catching on the seams. 

It was just.. Soft. Not the sticky guilt-sadness-pain hurt it had once been. His servos were dirty, yes, they always would be, but it did not slip into crevices and impede his movements. It merely was.

He gazed at the stars. Where he once could only see the optics of those past burning down at him he now just saw glimmers of light. Sparks dotting the sky. Possible galaxies blazing far away. A part of him expected to feel a pull towards them but his pedes remained anchored to the ground. His spark soft and content in his chassis. For now at least, he felt nothing but peace.

Old memories and pain were left to decompose much like the countless organic bodies he knew lay somewhere between his pedes and the molten center of Earth. Each one lined a sowing ground for something new. Planets would keep turning on their axis, wind would keep whistling through the treetops, metal would rust and be reforged. 

~~

Organic life was, at face value, nothing like the neat, structured composition of metal, wire and energon that built up everything she had once known on Cybertron. There, everything from hard drives to cities, from the enforcement of laws to the mechanical makeup of her own processor fit into grids, boxes and logics. Lines of code orchestrated the quiet symphony of each piece of technology, cites were planned and carefully constructed, and her own mind ran on 1s and 0s.

At face value, compared to what she had grown up with, organic life was some of the most disorganized existence she had ever seen. Plants exploded from the Earth wherever their seeds were scattered, forests tangled in on themselves, and life seemed to war against itself for space and sustenance.

Everything was in a constant fight just to continue living. 

Yet it held that fight so gracefully. 

She appreciated the literature on Earth science that she had read. Very much so. It had been required of them by Bumblebee as of late but she quickly found herself breezing past assignments and into her own personal study. He was becoming seemingly more involved with their training and she took to that like a moth to a flame.

Cybertronians as a collective society were very well versed on physics and chemistry, topics she had seen explored by humanity as well. Cybertron however was eons more advanced, interacting regularly with elements that humans were centuries from discovering. Additionally, nuclear fusion and fission, a growing field of study for humanity, was one of the earliest forms of scientific development for Cybertronians. 

So yes, of course she knew physics and chemistry, she had even considered the field of engineering at one point. She did not know however, that organic life was merely an extension of these fundamental constants. The metaphorical phylogenetic tree connecting the two forms of life diverging at the very base, anatomical level. Organic cells spun with the laws of physics just as Cybertronian molecules did. 

On the chemical level, organics even had their own chemical reactions. She saw ‘organic chemistry’ however as a daunting topic and she sympathized with the humans that were made to study it. 

The field of biology was particularly fascinating, a set of needs and wants that life had evolved to meet in countless different ways. It seemed to be most similar to the Cybertronian area of study known as cyberkinology, or, in human terms as described by Russel, “Cybertronian biology with some other stuff mixed in,”.  Sentient, spiritual and non automatic mechanisms were quite a novel concept among humans.

Over a stretch of time that barely matched a few Cybertronian generations, Earth has spawned its own creations from primordial soup and this life had been clawing and scraping just to exist since then. It was unruly and almost unpredictable. But it had goals. Laws. Fundamental structure. It followed a complex set of logic pertinent to survival and reproduction.

Perhaps she could learn from this. Perhaps this was the type of logic that she could emulate in her practice. Her team was admittedly right, she was rigid in practice. No sunlight? Grow straight to the sun, that's protocol. But maybe she could learn how to work like an Earth plant, weaving her way around others, growing wider in scope and practice. It may not be exact, may not be perfect, but everything was logical in the end.

~~

Sideswipe watched as fungi and moss began to grow across a tree he had knocked over the previous week. Earth plants always got up. Earth plants always kept moving, growing, and working around anything that got in their way. Not enough sunlight? Fine! It would just switch gears and grow taller, wider, wrap itself around some other plant and crowd them out. Earth plants didn’t take shit.

Ever since Russel had shared his “Earth science homework” with the bots a few months ago, it was all Sideswipe could think about as he walked through the forest on patrol. He was never an academic, or an artist, or any of that studying desk-sitting stuff, but he did know something cool when he saw it. To him, Earth was a survivor, and as weird and sticky it could get, he could respect that. Metal or organic, they had that in common.

The team walked through the forest and Sideswipe paid no mind to the grass he trampled, something would grow in its place. Apparently, according to biology, the Earth would create life as soon as it had two molecules to rub together.

“Hey Strongarm,” Sideswipe tossed his head back to look behind his shoulder at her. 

“What Sideswipe,” Strongarm responded, voice flat.

“That tree kind of reminds me of you, all it does is go up, one way. Heavy and hard to move”

He enunciated the last part specifically, grinning as a scowl spread across Strongarms face plates.

“You’re right, that tree follows logic, it goes up for sunlight, down for water and lives its damn life. You however remind me of a rabid fox, jumping all over the place and foaming at the mouth. Oh, and afraid of water, you stink.”

She quipped back tartly. 

Sideswipe pulled his face into mock hiss and Bee rolled his eyes at the gesture.

“Enough you two. If you’d been paying attention, you’d notice that we’d crossed into Steeljaws self proclaimed territory,”

The pair pulled their attention from their shenanigans and finally looked around. The foliage was dense and 5 strike deep claw marks marred the surrounding trees. Bee shook his head and spoke with a light layer of confidence and nonchalance that had not previously accompanied any discussion of Steeljaw. 

“He’s a bit of a nuisance, we give him more credit than he deserves,”

Drift chimed in following this statement. He was 6 paces behind Bee, slightly to the right. As per usual.

“A nuisance yes, but egotistical and honestly quite frightening if one were to imagine him actually gaining traction among his kind,”

Bumblebee smiled inwardly. Drift had begun to speak more. Participate in training drills more. He even allowed his minicons to have their own responsibilities, time and lives outside of training. It was more than refreshing to see him like this. Moreover, Drift was smart . Bumblebee had known him before to be wise, philosophical and of few words,  but hearing him speak more made him genuinely realize how intelligent this bot was. Bumblebee could tell the job of sniper was wasted on Drift. He was more than a marksman. So much more. 

He stepped back, breaking formation slightly and ghosted a servo over Drift's shoulder. The action was closer than he used to ever think of getting, but it felt right. Breaking formation unnecessarily would be unheard of in war, but it felt okay now. They were close, they were a team, the others had their back. And besides, he need not be wary getting close to the warframe, Drift wasn’t the only deadly one.

“That’s why we’re nipping him in the bud now,”

He then turned to face his cadets, walking backwards flawlessly through the brush.

“We take the stealth and tracking lessons I’ve been giving you, as well as the Cybertronian hybrid morphology lessons and get this bot back in the cell where he came from.”

Strongarm and Sideswipe nodded back sharply and Sideswipe punched a fist in the air. 

“Oh yeah, that fraggers gonna get it from me!”

“Ah ah ah Sideswipe, he's stronger, faster and has a better sense of smell than you, that's why we keep getting thrown off bridges, outran and inevitably lose him,”

He turned to face forward and slowed his pace so as to end up walking between the two younger bots, pausing before continuing to speak. 

“So, what do we have that they don’t?”

They looked at him expectantly, keyed in to the lesson with a focus that was honestly quite rare for the hyperactive pair. (Strongarm didn’t realize it, but she was just as reactive as Sideswipe).

“We’re more coordinated, more precise, we have better eyesight and, at this moment, have the element of surprise. Now, let's go back to my lesson on Cybertronian morphology from before. As indicated by the presence of an organic-like circadian rhythm as well as documented behavioral patterns on our prisoner subsets, they are creatures of habit. They are also, depending on type, territorial, and like to make it known where they are,”

He gestured to the aggressive hash marks across bark.

“Now, stereotypes can either help us or hurt us. Patterns and statistics are usually quite accurate, however they can be rendered relevant or irrelevant depending on the individual and their personal profile. I find much of this to be quite accurate to Steeljaw, and, combined with more niche personal attributes, we get a pretty good picture of his potential actions and next moves.”

Bee nodded his helm in the direction of Strongarm. 

“Strongarm, this is going to be especially useful to you in law. When it comes to enforcing the law, whatever branch or specialty you chose, you will have to deal with all different types of bots. Don’t let yourself be blinded by your own assumptions, but don’t forget to use the knowledge you have at your disposal.

Strongarm perked up slightly, but she had already been listening with rapt attention.

“Sideswipe, I have no clue what you want to do at all actually. But chances are you’re gonna be around bots and need to read rooms and most importantly know when to not act like an idiot.”

Sideswipe simply blinked back. 

“Now, we’re gonna enter this territory, you two are gonna brainstorm and im gonna open up a doxcom for us. In that, you’re gonna write down everything you all can think of. Potential obstacles we could run into, a nice little steeljaw profile, potential plans, how his cyberbiology may affect his behavior..”

He trailed off and stepped back into formation at the front, picking up the pace.

“Just work your processors,”

Strongarm and Sideswipe looked at each other, perplexed. Did Bumblebee just give them… Homework ?

“Uhhh lets see,”

Sideswipe trailed off. 

He checked the doxcom that got sent and found that Strongarm had already written half a page.

Frag.

Bumblebee’s processor wandered as he spearheaded the group. They wove between trees and his thoughts drifted from topic to topic. For one, Bumblebee found the large range of Cybertronian builds to be extraordinarily fascinating – perhaps in another life he would have been a scientist. For now at least, he was content with stockpiling info, sorting through data and patterns and coming up with a cohesive, deployable profile on the various subsets. Stereotyping based on personal beliefs was closeminded, but using patterns and probability was a skill every spy and scout had to become well accustomed with.

Of course, the second piece of the puzzle would be the specific individual. That however would not be a problem. Unfortunately, Bee knew Steeljaw like the back of his hand. 

He felt like an idiot for a second, for the longest time, they had treated Steeljaw and many of the other criminals like standard Iaconians or Polyhexians – textbook autobots and decepticons. They were not. Actually doing research on the specific demographic of prisoners they had been set to capture revealed much about what they were actually dealing with. 

The criminal ship was almost exclusively filled with warrior-class decepticon soldiers developed in a similar process to dino bots or maximals. They were based on the organic life on earth and developed using the premises of earth properties that would allow them to better adapt to rougher terrain, various types of environments such as aquatic. Based on Earth animals and with the robust nature of a Cybertronian, they could be deployed over a wide range of planet environments. Unlike maximals and more similarly to dinobots, they took on a wheeled or flight based vehicular alt form for more efficient transportation. It was extraordinary. Wheeljack and Ratchet would love to see this. 

He paused for a second. Mentally. Physically he was on autopilot, leading his crew and scanning his surroundings. His technique was so practiced, so perfect, that his mind could be on cybertron and no one would suspect a thing. 

His mind was not on cybertron. Far from it. The planet a blip in his memories. He truly had not spent much time, well, much positive time, on the planet. His processor instead sifted through memories of his old team. The backgrounds grew slightly fuzzy as he focused on them. Earth, cybertron, deep space – it didn’t matter. He valued his mechs. They were the only real ache left.

Wheeljack and Ratchet. He was not particularly close with them, not on the superficial level of conversation . It grew deeper than that, a camaraderie, a shared mission that 

Sideswipe stumbled over a tree branch. Slipping slightly before sheepishly composing himself. Bee’s head swiveled back instinctively and his attention soon followed. Slipping from his old mechs to his new ones.

They were his too. He was ashamed of himself for distancing himself from them so much. He hadn’t realized how much he had shut them out, created a mental bubble for them, and, regarding Sideswipe and Strongarm, treated them like children. 

They were young, but they were not helpless nor stupid. They hadn’t gone through what he had, but they had their own experience and the capacity to learn from him. 

He checked the doxcom then, two pages from strongarm (expected) and two sentences from sideswipe (remarkable).

Let’s see, he thought to himself, what did these two write.

** Designation - Strongarm. Unit - BE. Section Rank - Recruit ^ 23:11:01 MST - ERTH**

#####

Steeljaw

Modeled after Earth Species Canis Lupus, more commonly known as a wolf.

Circadian rhythms are predicted to mirror this species, wolves are crepuscular and primarily active during dawn and dusk. 

The timing of Steeljaw related incidents supports this theory – the highest concentration of which occurring between the hours of 1600-2200 and the hours of 0500-1100.

Given our current positioning at 23:11, the probability of catching him off guard/locating the subject before he locates us, is around 75%.

However, the probability of moderate-severe violent engagement is around 95%.

Pertinent History

Reason for arrest: Attempted rebellion

Areas of expertise: Sub-sonics

#####

** Designation - Sideswipe. Unit - BE. Section Rank - Recruit ^ 23:16:07 MST - ERTH**

#####

Steeljaw is a decepticon prisoner that seems to want to take over parts of earth for his own gain. He will be aggressive and probably kick our asses if we aren’t careful.

#####

Very insightful Sideswipe. Very insightful

The group ventured further, making note of any disturbed foliage and other evidence of Steeljaw’s unauthorized residence. Pede prints in the soft Earth, scrapes against trees, purposeful and accidental, that could only be caused by heavy machinery were all noted silently. Following the path of least resistance (which was logically the most used) they eventually found a seemingly abandoned structure buzzing with Cybertronian electromagnetic activity.

Viewing the building from the treeline, Bee beckoned his team close.

“Drift, you’re out here, let's put those sniper skills to good use, shall we? Sides, you’re with Strongarm, I want you two spearheading this operation – you’re breaching and going in first. Grim’s back at base as backup if needed, but to be truthful I didn’t take him because this was meant to be a stealth operation. Fixit’s on standby – he’s fixing up some of the stasis pods today with Slipstream and Jetstorm so don’t expect much intel from him today. Got it?”

Clearing his throat and surveying the area again before continuing, their leader spoke with ease and confidence.

“Our goal is to incapacitate and contain our target with as little harm as possible to every bot involved. Don’t be afraid to use force, but we are not soldiers and this is not war - Got it?”

Helms bobbed in the affirmative and the team was off. Bumblebee was proud, he knew he shouldn’t revel in that feeling until the job was done - but this was the smoothest his team had run in a while. A cohesive unit all working towards the same mission, with all bots accounted for. 

He had not had much time lately to check up on Grimlock or the minicons of their squat, nor their human hosts, but that would soon be rectified. They just had to get through tonight. 

He could sense Drift's EM field, hidden in the brush. He was amazing at masking his location, but for some reason Bumblebee was more sensitive to his field than others. Not thinking too hard on it, he chalked it up to being an experienced scout. He made a note of Drift's location and moved forward, tailing a few lengths behind Strongarm and Sideswipe.

He hoped he made the right decision sending them in first, especially together. They bickered and were still just cadets, but he had faith that they would be able to pull through. Their training had been more focused and they were, despite their immaturity, some of the quickest learning and gifted bots he had gotten the chance to train. 

They were quiet now, focused and moving as a unit, steps almost in tandem. It was a sharp 180 from their usual behavior and boded well for their mission. They were usually more in sync then they realized, so it was no surprise that when they got over their interpersonal squabbles that they would function well. Sideswipe was quick on his feet, quick to act and quick to make decisions, he was agile and a natural athlete. Strongarm was smart, calculated and could produce thorough courses of action. She was also a unit. Femme builds usually tended to be on the leaner, lighter end, but Strongarm’s designation was quite accurate – she certainly packed a punch. They contrasted each other in almost every way, but in Bee’s professional opinion, they could make the perfect team. 

They chose to breach the building through a gaping hole in a side wall. Strongarm held up the veneers while Sideswipe entered first, surveying the inside of the building before entry. Bee skirted to the side as she entered and chose to breach through a half open garage door. More points of access and exit were definitely a good thing. He moved like a ghost through the building, continuing to trail his charges as they made their way down the hall. Various rooms and architecture were mapped and cleared and Bee made a mental map to compare to theirs at the end of the mission. Scene visualization was of utmost importance.

As they reached the far end of the building, he could practically sense decepticon presence. He was pleased to see that Strongarm and Sideswipe seemed to as well, slowing their pace.

They reached a large boiler room and- after surveying, split up to take both sides. 

Bee elected to follow Sideswipe, he was more impulsive as well as quicker. The red bot was also moving in the direction of Steeljaw, who Bee had already pinpointed.

~~

The sun set on his organic haven. He would soon welcome his decepticon brethren to the lands that had welcomed him. After the unfortunate capture of the latest members of his pack, he could not recall their designations, Steeljaw had decided the most logical course of action was to develop his weaponry. 

The old warehouse, some sort of chemical plant, he deduced, had been perfect. Its facilities were large and spacious and it offered reprieve from the planet's unfortunate mood swings.

When gusts of wind bellowed through the trees and precipitation pelted their branches, Steeljaw remained.

He had thought often of the Autobots as he paced about his fortress. They seemed intent on his capture, but against little old Steeljaw, their team had not yet succeeded. It stoked the embers and flames of his egos that against so many mechs, including the infamous Bumblebee, he stood tall and unmoving. Yes, he would be a good leader to continue the decepticon cause. 

It was the faction of progress. By any means. That had, according to the history he could unearth, the reason for the war. Decepticons had always fought for progress, warred against the system, and went to extremes because that was the way to get things done.

They did not fear cruelty to meet their ends. They did not fear violence and force. It was quick. It was focused. It sent a message. It showed that they would stop at nothing to obtain what they desired.

Autobots feared power, they feared change. It showed in how they re-established the government systems that his faction had revolted against. It showed in how they showered their soldiers in praise, yet let their skills dull as mere ‘lieutenants’. They were the ‘nicer’ faction, the more peaceful faction. But below the surface they were cowards stuck in their ways, more focused on keeping the peace than in fixing flaws in the system and strengthening their society. Power would be their  peace, rather than relying on a weak system. Power would bring the progress that minds like his desire. 

He preened for a second in the reflection of a boiler tank. He would be that figure of power that decepticons could look to. Leave Cybertron to rust. Leave the autobots to their fragile systems. 

Steeljaw had found a new land to conquer and he would bring about a new age of decepticons.

He sneered to himself as he turned back to his workstation, tail slashing through the stagnant air. The only thing standing in his way was that pathetic autobot task force. A washed veteran,  decepticon traitors, idiotic cadets and minicons would not stand in the way of his destiny.

An Earth week had been spent gathering resources. Wiring and electric systems cut and stolen from human structures. Scrap metal. Vehicle parts. Everything he could get his claws on. He was an engineer at heart and even enjoyed the challenge of working with such rudimentary technology and resources. Steeljaw also cared little about inconveniencing the planet's native sentient population. Their developments were obsolete and they were weak and fleshy. He assumed they would die out with or without intervention and paid little mind to them.

It was fate that the Alchemore had crashed. It was fate that the stasis pod had not fully deactivated him and he had that time in stasis to plan. Sparks flew under his soldering iron as worked. This was an opportunity he could not afford to miss. 

He worked as stars painted the sky and he worked even as he grew drowsy. His limbs were puppeted by spite and determination. His circuits ran on rage. Lost in a haze of labor, he barely leapt out of the way in time as a pipe swung just past his helm.

He stumbled back, snarling as he was faced with a cherry red mech grinning cheaply at him, a lead pipe fisted in his servo

“Wakey wakey Steeljaw, falling asleep on your desk?”

The cocky, infuriating mech reared back to swing again and Steeljaw lunged. 

“How did you even get in here?”

Steeljaw growled. He slashed at air, claws infuriatingly empty as Sideswipe maneuvered past him. The red mech was annoyingly quick, rivaling Steeljaws own speed and agility.

The wolf whipped around again, bristling and not hesitating with his attacks. 

The two began a high stakes, intense dance around the room. They alternated positions, offense and defense, dodging and swinging. Steeljaw was faster, stronger, better , but it felt like the autobot was predicting his every move, somehow just an inch further from the swipes of his claws.

He was used to the cadet rushing in, headstrong and one-tracked in his pursuits. This was different. He was evasive, calculated even.

Enough was enough. He darted back, dropping his defensive stance and offensive maneuvers just enough to bait the red mech. Of course he fell for it. For all of his unpredictable moves and new approach, Sideswipe could not resist jumping the gun. The red mech lunged and Steeljaw dove under him, catching a leg and crashing his shoulder into Sideswipes abdominal plating. He then swung the mech into a wall before releasing the leg to pin his arms.

Sharp fangs from a gaping jaw filled Sideswipes vision. He was inches from the red mech's faceplates, venting roughly and glaring down at him. The mere seconds Sideswipe was pinned felt like hours before an elbow collided into the back of Steeljaws helm. Just as the wolf released Sideswipe, his servos were pinned behind his back.

He could sense her. That annoying, smart ass femme cadet. He should have expected that these bots would never move alone. Cowards. The wolf perked his audials, listening for other bots. It was unsurprising that Bumblebee had entered the room, he knew the lieutenant by pede step.

“Gigs up for good this time Steeljaw, Strongarm’s got your servos and if you’re good on the way back we might even give you a pillow in your stasis pod,”

Hearing the smile on Bumblebee's faceplates made Steeljaw’s fuel lines boil. He kept his frame and processor cool in his rage, composing himself and relaxing as he waited for the right moment to revolt. She would relax her hold at some point and he would seize that opportunity. 

“You would think that Bumblebee,”

Bee spoke calmly. Ice coating his words.

“I would know that Steeljaw”

The whisper directly in his audial from beside him sent a shiver down Steeljaw’s spinal struts. How had that clunky washup made it across the entire room that quickly and completely undetected. No matter. He would find a crack to slip through. He always did. 

Stasis cuffs were fastened to his wrists and he trine began to lead him towards the exits, forcing his compliance.

Fools, he thought to himself. An innovator in his own right, he had installed a mini sub-sonic emitter beneath a claw cap. Though intricate to develop and quite hard to piece together, it had been entirely worth it. The cuffs were deactivated seconds after they had been applied.

Just as they reached the narrow doorway, he broke through the deactivated cuffs, shoved past Bumblebee and Strongarm and made a break across the room for his workstation. They were quick to recover from shock, but Steeljaw was quicker. Reaching his desk, he swiped his latest work from its surface and flung it at the autobots. 

There was a reason that after countless altercations, they hadn’t managed to catch Steeljaw. He was quicker, stronger, faster, more inventive for sure. But that was not the main reason. The main reason was that they were soft. They barely used any force, didn’t even knock him out whenever they pursued his capture. That would be their undoing and that would enable his beginning.

This time had been odd however, he had heard Bumblebee as he had entered the room but had not heard the lieutenant as he approached. A sense of unease washed over Steeljaw. He had only heard Bumblebee because the lieutenant had wanted him to.

He slipped out a large window then, looking back for a second to watch as the autobots were left in the ruins of the inside of the building. He did not wait for the dust to clear and escaped swiftly under the cover of night. They were still alive, he knew, but this would at least buy him time. 

~~

A bomb.

Of course they had to ambush Steeljaw right when he was working on a bomb. It was comical really, how Steeljaw always managed to slip from their grasp. Drift hadn’t even been able to get to the other side of the building before Steeljaw took to the night. 

He was used to it at this point. Steeljaw would be a continual thorn in their side until they finally found themselves in a situation where they could truly back the wolf into a corner. Now that would be a celebration. He would throw the party himself, maybe even displaying Steeljaw’s pod as an oversized centerpiece.

It was nice to let loose a little bit, fall a bit further into his old ways of running point. Easing off the micromanaging gave him more time to macromanage – that is, actually train his team. Turns out having a stick up your aft just makes things harder. Smiling to himself about the thought of a Steeljaw themed party, he found he didn’t regret how the mission went. His cadets showed considerable improvement in all sectors; teamwork, scene survey, combat, data gathering and analysis. It was good for them to lead today, that's how they’d learn to make decisions on their own. Besides, they still had days and days to catch Steeljaw. He had faith they’d have him in stasis as soon as he next showed his ugly, spikey face. 

At the end of the day, Bumblebee had fought for Cybertron. He had fought for his kind. He had fought for the idea, the conception of a rebuilt, refurbished world. But he had also fought for freedom and the right to choose his own path, his own life past the one he was forged for in the midst of war.

He had a mission. He had a team. He had a legacy. He even had a party plan in mind. He just had to stay the course. Tomorrow was another day.

Chapter Text

The sky blazed a bright red as the sun rose above the scrapyard. Dew lifted from the sparse patches of grass littered amongst the piles of wood, plastic and metal. 

It was beautiful, the sharp red that streaked across the skyline and softened as it reached the surface of the earth. Alongside, gentler hues blanketed wherever they could reach. Bee wondered if the sun got tired of rising in the morning. If it wished it could take a break from shining. He shook the sleep from his optics. Useless thoughts. Red. Softening into orange at the edges, chasing the stars from the sky inch by inch. 

It glared, it gleamed, it whispered, it spoke. The earth hummed as it rotated upon itself. It whispered of new beginnings and of old constants; spoke of softness and of sharp, angry heat.

The sun would rise. It would soften and scorch the earth as it pleased. Night would be clawed from the sky. Shinings stars fading from view. The sun was not gentle in its pursuits.

On cybertron, solar energy units would be activating at the first glimmer of light. Rousing the city as electricity buzzed beneath the surface. Metal, matte and chrome, would shine, absorbing and reflecting as another day cycle claimed the planet. 

On Earth, organics would shift their faces, leaves and hearts to the sun. Following as it drifted across the sky. 

Bumblebee mimicked the sunflower, tracing the path of the sun across the sky as it rose. Watched as it conducted life in a soft symphony. He sighed with the breeze and drifted with the clouds. His mornings were for him. Well, him and Drift. They knew the luck that came with seeing the beginning of each day. Their eyes were pried open by the many hands of those that never would. 

Drift sat still on a slowly warming boulder. Swords at bay and watched as light streaked the sky. He said a prayer for the innocent. He whispered homage to the dead. 

His mornings were for him. Well, him and Bumblebee. The yellow scout had begun to sit with him. He deemed it progress, to meditate rather than disguise his restlessness with a patrol. He knew they both had been conditioned to rise early. He knew that would never fade. He was ok with that.

He pictured Strongarm and Sideswipe. Recharging in berth, none the wiser to the world before their eventual rousing. 

He smiled. Children of the light. He had heard the term once and now he decided that it applied to them. They had seen shadows, he knew, more than he believed they should. He would be happy to carry the darkness for them if he could and he knew he already mostly had. He had walked in so much darkness. So much that it was comforting. Drift could hide there, seek refuge in the shadows. He was used to having to stay hidden, to view darkness as an ally. Most were afraid of the dark because it was unknown, uncertain what lay unseen, but how could the marksmech be afraid if he was what was lurking in the shadows? If he was the dagger, the sword, the gun, the danger, they were so afraid of? No, he was more afraid of the light. Of what would be seen if one were to look. 

He saw them though, raised in the light that had been brought as his generation chased away the darkness, hopefully for good. He could see now, after the dust had finally settled, that it had been worth it. They were unafraid to bear themselves to the day, to be seen. It was almost admirable to one who had spent his whole life hiding, creeping and dancing with the shadows.

Some light had crept in. He had been wary. Bee. His Charges. Sideswipe. Strongarm. Grimlock. Fixit. 

Some of his soul had been bared to the daylight. He hoped he would learn to walk in the light. Like so many effortlessly did. He hoped, but he knew that if he needed to, he could walk the darkness as he had countless times before.

Bee looked up as the sun grew higher. As more stars outshone until dusk. 

In war, light stood out against darkness. Strong souls forced to shine. Optimus. Elita. Countless sparks. He supposed he counted amongst them, at least in the eyes of others. He had endured, he had even helped bring about this new age, new dawn. The world now shone, he didn’t have to anymore. 

Hide in the darkness and hide in the light. Shine in darkness, learn to shine with light.

The duality of it was perplexing. He vented in the cool morning air, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. He had more time to think now. Life wasn’t just about survival anymore. 

Red didn’t mean decepticon optics. Gleaming and hateful in his days, nights and nightmares. Red wasn’t dull on scraped, faded autobot symbols. Nothing meant what it once did and Bee decided he was more than okay with that. It was a new day.

Ice melted from his spark as dew drifted from grass.

The sun rose and fell and Bumblebee endured. It was a fact. Not a restriction. Claws had since loosened from his spark chamber. Ghosts had been put to use, partially settled as he used his coding as it was meant to be, rather than stuffing everything from the war to the back of his processor. 

He had taken the time before dawn to collect himself, before those he had once believed could never understand him came to walk by his at side. He would face the light as he faced the darkness. He would face darkness as he faced light. No one could exist in inbetweens forever.

~~

Red glinted differently as he gazed at a different red chevron. The soft morning light had illuminated a bulky, winged figure as it entered the scrapyard. Familiar pede steps echoed across the ground, scattering dust as they grew closer.

Confusion had permeated the air at first. Optics darting. Energy signature identification protocols firing. 

The newcomers' Doorwings flared, high against the dawn. Casting shadows across Bee, Strongarm, Sideswipe and a section of the scrapyard. They had been standing at Bee’s side when the mech had entered, yet had drifted back, even Sideswipe blanching at his presence. Bee stood at attention as the trespasser stepped forward. The two had locked optics instantly, narrowed, but far from hostile. Doorwings raised and flicked then, stoic at first but eventually reaching a crescendo of rapid flicks, flares and twitches. The motions were intricate, delicate and precise, a known characteristic of praxians and, apparently, former scouts. Sideswipe glanced over at Strongarm, surely she knew these patterns, she had the same flimsy metal sheets attached to her back struts after all. 

Strongarm herself had not been raised in praxis, but as a doorwinged model, she could recognize some basic patterns. She ignored Sideswipes questioning glances at her, narrowed her optics and focused in on the sweeping motions of the two. She recognized a greeting. It was tense and somewhat formal, but in a manner that suggested that the two knew each other quite well. Odd. Normally there were formal and informal greetings, coated ever so lightly in one tone or another. The tone of the doorwings was very apparent here and normally tonnage movements did not take precedence over the actual greeting movements. I nteresting, she thought and, come to think of it, more characteristic of older eras, war eras. War eras, where more had to be hidden and more had to be seen.

The rest was too fast, too complex, too intricate, for her to understand. She vented in frustration, watching helplessly as words unknown to her floated overhelm, just out of reach.

Eventually, Bee’s wings flattened against his back. He nodded stiffly,  turned on a pede and stalked into shadows. Strongarm and Sideswipe made eye contact then, confusion saturating their gazes.

The mech, white and grey plated with a noticeable bright red chevron, vented as Bee retreated. His shoulders dropped. His wings dipped. Sorrow, regret, pity. She read.

He then seemed to notice them. Optics glancing over the two, expression unreadable even with her wingspeak knowledge. He turned to her first when Sideswipe crossed his arms across his chassis.

:You Speak?:

His wings floated upwards, questioning. She dipped hers in affirmation. She knew no more complex way to convey this and knew that he would know of her limited knowledge just from this. Insecurity seeped in then and she wished she knew more of what should be her native language.

She could not be insecure for long however, curiosity would replace that at his next words. He mimicked her affirmation and swished up to neutral elegantly. He knew, she knew he would, yet no negativity was shown in these actions. From neutral he swept down and flared out with a slight quiver.

:Designation - Prowl:

:Designation - Strongarm. Unit - BE. Section Rank - Recruit:

She greeted him formally, just noticing the enforcer decals on his wings as he signed his designation and could swear a hint of approval flickered across his expression. He was high ranking, she could tell from their shapes, higher ranked then their lieutenant. Commander? 

Wait. She froze then. Prowl. Commander Prowl. The Prowl that had, in history books, spearheaded the tactical forces of the autobots and had recently taken over autobot affairs following the fall of Optimus Prime.

Commander. Prowl. 

How had she not seen this??

A new dawn it seemed, had risen to scorch the surface of the earth, to burn everything in its wake.

~~

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair . He had done his time. He had served, he had given everything to the cause. He was the cause. 

Bumblebee stalked across his ‘quarters’ - a dark, more private section of the scrapyard. His shadow followed.

For frags sake they were tired. When would this end? When would this unending cycle END? He scoffed, he knew it never would. For as long as they were to see the stars burning above, war would blaze on in their minds, in their chassis. Too deep, too far gone to recover. It was easier to break than to rebuild. He grabbed his helm with his hands. As long as he lived he would be forced to watch as everything burned around him, as long as he lived he would be trapped in this cycle.

Couldn’t Primus tell they were tired? Bee was tired. He knew Prowl was too. They were all done with this, with war, with conflict. They had fought tirelessly, countless quarts of energon spilled just for this. 

He looked up, a human action towards their human gods. Why? He had seen the pit. He had seen hell. Why must they continue to throw him back, he had just crawled out.

Couldn’t they just have this peace? They had all worked so. hard. Each building, piece by piece. Structure by structure. Him and his team, tattered and worn and so, so tired . Had finished their ascent from hell and had rebuilt their planet from the ground up. On the burial grounds of countless Cybertronians. None of Cybertron, after millennia of war, was thought to be salvageable. But they had. They had created life from nothing. They had shoved everything they had into a mechanical version of primordial soup and prayed. And they had succeeded.

He felt like a dog. He was a dog, a scout. A mutt to be led around on a leash. It was like he was being toyed with. A puppet on the strings of a god to be used as entertainment. To be dipped by these strings into the pit of hell again and again and again. His hands will always be stained with spilled energon. He would never get it out of each and every crevice and joint. He will always be followed by the stench of death.

Bumblebee had killed, Bumblebee had apparently unknowingly signed a contract with the devil. Killing for a cause lost to time and willing his soul to bear witness to hell again and again and again.

A callback, another uprising. He was right back where he started. A tool. A dog. Called into action for the sin of growing good at the role he was forced into at forge. He lived for war and he would die in its greedy, rabid, salivating jaw. A “hero” in the eyes of those who had never had to suffer and another casualty to those that did.

The sky was red. The sky was angry. He was full of rage. All he could see was scuffed autobot signs and Decepticon optics. The red that meant hatred. The red that meant war. The damned rusted red dawn that might be his last. 

When the earth churned its way into daylight and blue smeared the sky all he could be reminded of was spilled energon and cracked optics.

Many thought death happened in darkness, in rain, on cloudy stormy days. They knew nothing of homes scorched in bright, dazzling sunlight. Of daisies and daffodils spattered with the inner fluid of whatever met their forced, untimely end. 

His optics blazed. They had been so close to peace. A few criminals to round up. Easy jobs, light work, cleanup for someone of his caliber. But no. Nothing gold can stay. 

“What do you mean Decepticons! This is supposed to be over . We ended this. Starscream should not be back, he should have been dead ten times over.” 

“I fragging killed megatron, that was supposed to be the end. I watched their savior, I watched their cause die at my hands. I stabbed him through the spark, felt it shatter and watched as life left his worthless frame. He was the cause. He was the motive. But no, like a virus they have armies. Forces. Goals.”

“They’re torching cities. Capturing innocent and killing our kind. Those who should be safe now. We have suffered enough.”

Bumblebee spat, well, tonnage wise as he arced his doorwings above his head and swung down with

He supposed then that the devil must have followed him out of hell and was intent on burning him and everything around him to the ground. Magma spilled from his eyes and mouth and dripped. 

A butterfly floated past. The grass swayed in the wind. Bumblebee wondered what it would look like splattered in energon. Littered with death. Was one planet not enough?

Steeljaw wove between the trees like a serpent and crawled across the earth like a parasite. They were a disease. Bumblebee grew weary.

He shook his head then. There was no time for weariness. There was no time for weakness . Yesterday's mission had been, from an optimists perspective, a learning experience. His team had done well. But he could do better. 

He pushed past the gate, pausing as he saw Prowl approach Sideswipe and Strongarm, no doubt drafting them along with him.

He shook his head. They had a choice. He didn’t. Once Prowl realized their rank and status within the system – especially Sideswipe, he was sure to dismantle the team. Reassign them or give them the choice to join the ranks of countless new enlistees. 

There wasn’t time to think about this. He told himself as his processor raced. Countless scenarios and variables flashed by. He then regretted the additional tactical software he had installed upon becoming lieutenant. With the new age of Cybertron the end of the war had brought, scientific advancement had skyrocketed. 

He felt some pity for Prowl, tactical programs were woven into his very hardware. He couldn’t imagine how that could feel. His programs were running wild, driving his anxiety and his primus forsaken war coding up the wall. 

He tore through the woods behind the scrapyard. Branches slapped and scratched against his plating and he clawed them away. Charging through the undergrowth and brush, he was blind. 

Ghosts he had tried so hard to put to rest wrapped their digits around his neck cables. 

He allowed himself to fall apart just this once. Just this once before he had to pull himself, his skills and his team together.

Clawing at his neck cables and batting away imaginary digits he continued to race through the forest. Clouds passed overhead, darkening the forest. The newly cast shadows churned and he could swear he saw the gleam of optics.

He whipped his helm to the left. Plating gleamed. Or was that just light passing between clouds?

To the right. Slash marks. He paused, had he breached Steeljaws territory? Bumblebee then reviewed his cache logs, he had subconsciously ran his way straight into the scene of their last defeat. Even in his madness there was duty. It was sick.

He snarled to himself then. Bumblebee was a war machine. Everything about him proved that. He pulled up an old interface, one he hadn’t used since his final battle with Megatron.

Weapons Systems – REBOOTING – Status 27%

Bumblebee hadn’t used the weapons built into his very frame as a lieutenant. Not only were they overkill for the rowdy civilians he had to deal with, but they were also highly illegal in most sectors of cybertron. He laughed at how society had called a mere thief or swindler a criminal. Bumblebee had seen criminals. He had seen mechs with kill counts that rivalled the populations of towns and cities. He had seen mechs that singlehandedly torched said towns and cities. 

Weapons Systems – REBOOTING  – Status 62%

Steeljaw was far from the worst mech he’d had to deal with. He should have gotten the stray under control months ago. Unfortunately for him, his team was not around to serve as backup. Fortunately, if he decided to stop being a bitch and actually use the weapons that had been built into his very frame, he could take care of this fragger on his own. 

Weapons Systems – REBOOTING – Status 81%

He pulled all his war coding online, it was easily accessible, slipping up to the surface in nano seconds. Ceasing his mindless charging, he began to move stealthily, helm on a steady swivel.

Soft moss was crushed beneath his pedes as he followed yesterday's trail. On high alert, he saw each broken twig, each slightly displaced brush, everything.

He saw him nanoseconds before he was struck and his frame moved on its own. Steeljaw’s claws swiped at air. 

Weapons Systems – REBOOTING – Status 86%

Bumblebee leapt to the side and backwards as Steeljaw tumbled forward, having launched himself at Bumblebee from the undergrowth. Pedes digging into dirt the scout wasted no time before darting forward.

Steeljaw righted himself and whipped around as Bumblebee twisted midair to elbow his helm. Yellow optics grew wide as Bee’s elbow smashed into the lupines faceplates. The scout twisted further, whipping a leg around to kick Steeljaw in the side.

Steeljaw tumbled sideways to the forest floor and Bumblebee danced back, catching himself on both pedes. He wasted no time before shooting forward again. Every ounce of rage, every ounce of frustration poured through his lines and he moved on instinct. Combat was an art, a dance, improvised but predictable with enough experience.

Grabbing Steeljaw by the shoulders before the wolf could right himself, Bumblebee picked him up and chucked his bulky frame across the small clearing and into a tree. 

Weapons Systems – REBOOTING – Status 94%

He lunged forward again, landing squarely on Steeljaw. He snarled, more wolflike than Steeljaw, before grabbing the mech by the back of his helm and smashing his faceplates into rough bark. 

Before he could repeat the action, Steeljaw shot up from underneath him, roaring as he reared back up and whipped around. 

Bumblebee was vicious, not just a scout but a hunter in his own right, but for all the rage that fueled him Steeljaw still had an edge. The wolf barrelled into him, optics full of rage and was that.. Confusion? It didn’t matter, Bumblebee found himself pinned beneath Steeljaw in nanoseconds.

His optics weren’t red like most cons. An eerie yellow gazed down at him instead. It was almost comforting. In a sick sense, he was used to the dance with him and Steeljaw. He began to laugh, choked chuckles wracked his frame and Steeljaw pulled back. He felt insane, he probably looked insane. Good.

Weapons Systems — REBOOTING – Status COMPLETE

Weapons Systems — ACTIVE

Wasting no time, he swung an arm up, transforming it into a blaster that was quickly pressed into the side of Steeljaws helm. Bumblebee felt circuits activate that he hadn’t used in ages. He felt powerful. They felt like they’d just been active yesterday.

Steeljaw's eyes widened in shock as he felt the war-grade blaster against his helm. The wolf froze, jaw hanging open for a second before he began to speak.

“You- when?- we’ve never-”

“ Off .” 

Bumblebee interrupted him. 

Steeljaw obeyed, backing off, eyes darting between the steel-faced, expressionless mech in front of him. Bumblebee was as cool as ice as he pushed himself off the ground, not once letting his blaster cease contact with Steeljaws plating. He then drew himself closer, his own face mere inches from Steeljaws. He could feel the wolf’s shaky ventilations, his trembling, his fear. 

“These little games? These back and forths we’ve gone through for months? Done. Today.”

Bumblebee hissed. Steeljaw was nothing to him. A pest. A checkbox on a list.

“Who are you?”

Steeljaw whispered. The lupine had never seen Bumblebee like this. He had sensed a slight shift in the bumbling, blundering scout the day before. He had seemed more composed, more confident, sharper. But not like this. The disheveled, stoney faced mech in front of him was not the Bumblebee he knew. This mech reeked of danger. 

He had stayed awake that night, analyzing each move the lieutenant had pulled. Not that it had done him much good. The lieutenant had never shown a single sign of built in weaponry, the largest weapon he had ever pulled on Steeljaw being his decepticon hunter. He had also never been this forceful, this aggressive. Preferring to yield rather than escalate. 

Bumblebee ignored Steeljaw's words, instead forcing the wolf’s back to him. He snagged a pair of stasis cuffs and restrained him one handedly. Steeljaw stumbled slightly, bound and dazed from the brief but intense and surprising fight. Bumblebee then forced Steeljaw to face him.

He gazed quizzically at the wolf. Seemingly mulling over something. He then reached down, ripping the digit that contained Steeljaw’s means of escape clean off. 

Steeljaw’s eyes widened in horror before desperately darting around the clearing looking for any way to escape. This was enough for Bee’s gaze to harden into a glare.

“Better safe than sorry,”

Steeljaws eyes widened and that was the last he heard as Bee’s blaster arm smashed into his helm. He felt his faceplates crumple slightly under the impact and sharp, intense pain before everything went black. 

Bee hoisted a limp Steeljaw onto his shoulder. Swift and steady, not a single shake or strain in his movements as he carried the larger mech all the way back to the scrapyard.

He had given Steeljaw too much leeway. He did not regret letting Sideswipe and Strongarm lead, but the truth was apparent, the job was done better when he did it alone.

He pulled up his internal mission log. ‘Steeljaw’ was swiftly marked complete and overall mission status was set to archived. He internally filed the mission away and pulled up a file sent by Prowl. Clearing his interface of anything related to their current work on Earth, he pulled up his tactical networks for maximal analysis of Prowl’s overview and instructions, neat as always. Steeljaw was now neutralized and safe in stasis and while around 13% of the Alchemors prisoners were scattered across, they were rust specks compared to the claws that were about to tear their very way of life from their digits.

Data was stored and he was digitally briefed. Their new assignment was moved to top priority in his systems and he moved from one mission to the next as he had done so many times in the past. Rusted metal and ghosts would rise from where they were buried. Old memories would be relieved and Bee would need everything at his disposal. He was what he would always be once again.

<SPECIAL OPERATIONS: MISSION [REDACTED] UPDATED STATUS: PRIORITY>

Chapter Text

Sharp static sounded across the ship, a frequency both soft enough to ignore but penetrating enough to uncomfortably fill silence. As the ship buzzed, eerily alive, the metallic creak of moving parts was the only break to the ever-present static among the harshly lit corridors.

Chrome and silver lined the halls and it was perfectly clean of any and all hints of the organic planet those that walked them had entered from.  If one paused to listen they could hear the buzz of the sharp lighting just under the static. 

The sterile, clean surfaces were foreign, unsettling even, to those who had learned to move amongst dirt and push past the grime in their joints. In the static, sterile, space air, nanites danced across plating and wiped even the faintest hint of earth from the plating of its forlorn former inhabitants. 

Bee’s frame itched. 

Drift was expressionless.

To travel was to adapt. To readapt to one's former nature was like relearning an old dance with new limbs. The past restitched itself into the present and the present hung loosely across frames that had been formed against their nature. 

Strongarm was the first to settle into their new quarters. She made the transition from earth berth to stasis pod effortlessly. Like flipping a switch.

The buzzing kept certain mechs awake. Some longer than others. 

Sideswipe had not realized that he had compartmentalized his time on Cybertron as ‘other’ than his time on earth. Would he still be as worthless as he had been on his home planet now? Earth was the only place he had begun to matter. Could all that be rewritten?

The lights shone as sharp as once judging optics had and the walls seemed to close in. He yearned for the sky, freedom to move and dance as himself. He could sense himself being pushed into another box, physically and metaphorically. The thought alone made him want to crawl from his frame.

The stars glistened like teardrops and suspended rain from the port windows. The glass was littered with scattered scratch marks. Both small nicks from careless frames and digits, as well as longer, deeper, scratches. Claw-like. Desperate.

Prowl had informed them of little so far, and what they were given was sent out in terse comms or in datapackets. 

Bee found himself speaking more and more in wing-speak to all except Sideswipe. Perhaps it was instinct, from when the tense air made vocalizers tight and speech terse. Perhaps it was a habit, from the time he had spent as a mute. 

The ship was cold and metallic and somehow alive. Small and barely any character, it was still undeniably Cybertronian. It sung with the songs of his homeland and all construction could be traced back to Iaconian, Velocitron, Praxian and many other cities' design patterns over the eons. When they began to orbit above Cybertron itself, Bee could trace energon rivers from city to city. Ridges and canyons looked just as they did in the memorized maps he could never erase from his processor. 

The planet glowed. It buzzed and seemed to speak a language of its own as lights pulsed and energy signatures rippled past the ship. 

His spark called out and the planet called back.

The planet glowed. It seemed almost untouched and from here, Bee could not see a single flaw. There was no evidence of war, no distress emanating into space, no outages or visible scarring of its surface. It was beautiful. A soft blue that beckoned, beckoned, called.

Bee tore his optics from the window. As entranced as he was in knowing deeply where his spark originated. It felt eerie, unfamiliar, to the mech he has grown to be over the years. His spark called out to Cybertron and Cybertron called back, but the idea of returning clawed a void into his chassis.

This was where Bee had been forged but not who he had become. Not where he chose to sink his roots. His frame felt wrong in the clean, sterile air. He wished for the comfort of the sun, of the Earth, of the planet he felt he had not just adapted to mentally, but physically. It made him sick to think of the new vehicle form he had to adapt. Leaving behind the skin he had just grown into for an ill-fitting suit of a dark, painful past. 

To his right, he could just see Strongarm out of the corner of his optics. Her stance was rigid against the paned glass and her doorwings bobbed slightly in excitement. Blue femme optics drank in the sight of Cybertron in awe. Her planet, her home. 

He looked back down and instead of calling to his spark, Cybertron glared back up at him. It was beckoning him, taunting him as they grew closer and closer to the world he didn’t even realize he had been trying to escape from.

~~~

In the room over, a series of calculations had begun to take place in a mind that believed at times it was all seeing and all knowing. 

Piercing blue optics flicked across datapads and face plates were stoic as always as Prowl loomed over the glowing glyphs and figures. 

He worked with precision. Age and experience may tire the soul but nothing would dull his mind. It was debatable to some whether he had the first attribute at all. He scowled at that thought but let his faceplates meld to neutral quickly after. Opinions were often based on ill-logic. He shifted his attention to more important matters.

It wasn’t what he personally had expected for the scout, but it made sense logistically. Bee was a good scout. One of the best actually. He had been moved to many areas and was a member of many units and teams, yet transitioned quickly and performed well in each. A sign of emotional dissonance but that was something Prowl could appreciate. He however seemed to have an affinity for the organic life -specifically humans- that inhabited the earth. He supposed most of his mission had taken place there so that was to be expected.

Prowl preferred the smooth chrome of Cybertron. He was content with the soft hum of electricity and glow of energon. He reveled in the holograms that danced across any and all surfaces and basked in the new technology that he appreciated after the far outdated war equipment. 

He reached down, crumbling earth between his digits before it could be erased from his plating by nanites. It was so far from their world. They had fought for Cybertron. For their homeland and for the land that their frames were built from and for. Prowl could see no logic in remaining on a planet that not only acted as a temporary base during the worst of the war, but also fought against their very frames. 

Against Prowl’s logic, even after the war for their planet, Prime's prized scout, a decorated war hero, had still chosen to walk through dust and rot light years from his own kind. Estranged and living in a somber past. 

Yet, when Prowl saw him, he looked almost content.

Prowl’s doorwings quivered slightly. He looked up at the parting dawn and even he could admit  this made sense for Bee. Always on the move. Buzzing like an earth insect and becoming a part of anywhere he stayed. He was as much an Earthling as he was Cybertronian it seemed. He walked like a creature of these lands and Prowl felt almost an unease pulling his roots from the ground.

Despite his reputation. Despite the fact that it was the best- the most logical use of Autobot resources. He hated to tear his mechs from the lives that they had finally gotten to choose for themselves. Ever the bearer of bad news. Ever the logical drone. Faceplates ever stoic and vocalizations ever cold.

The cadets showed promise. They were technically in the system as well. Prowl had no choice but to reassign them as well. It was protocol. It was imperative to the cause.

That was what he told himself. He tucked the soft whispers that screamed at him to for once, show mercy, away. They were to be drowned out by the numbers he knew to be fool proof.

The femme cadet. The respectful one, would be tactical. He could sense it upon first wing flick. 

He read through her file from the police academy and deemed her fit to at least train in the tactical branch. She had no reason to leak data and was too young to have ulterior motives in the first place given her upbringing and records. She was logical and even had similar hardware to himself. Perhaps he would train her himself. 

The mech cadet would be harder to place. A troublemaker, barely even registered as a mech in Cybertronian population records at all. His history was scattered and bleak. He truly would have nowhere to go. Prowl would have to take him. As per protocol, all available units would need to report in the advent of a crisis and Sideswipe was technically registered now under Bumblebee. It wasn’t like he would have anywhere to go but the streets anyways. Mixed unit training until he could better place him.

With.. relation to another unit?

Unit redrafting… Pin that concept for later. Moving on.

Drift. A known ally to the cause. Contrastly, a wildcard to be handled with care. Sniper unit. Pair with known loyalists and calmer mech to keep tabs on him. Bluestreak could handle Drift if it came to it. Next.

Fixit. A defective minicon that was tagged to an unaffiliated prison ship rather than the Autobot faction as a whole was not draftable nor useful. He supposed that situation needed taking care of. The minicon would stay. Next

Grimlock. Another wildcard. Suspected hard drive injury and amnesia. He was not thrilled with the track record of the mech nor with what he had seen. He supposed he could spare him to work with the minicon. He did not want to deal with transferring that mech across factions formally anyways. 

Applicable units for new mission assignments and live data from active units would need to be prioritized next. Jazz would handle the rest of the unit assignments.

His processor hummed the oh so familiar tune of logic and calculations, sorting and shifting, that it had sung since his birth. 

A slight twinge of unease prickled across his frame. He would hold it together. The cause needed him. He would be their anchor and their rope. 

~~ 

Fixit watched forlornly as Strongarm and Sideswipe packed up machinery, wincing when their servos were too rough. He had been informed of their new mission far after the rest of the team. This was a slicing blow to his pride, Fixit had hoped that after his countless orns of service and support that he would be viewed as a part of the team. But, like always, the minicon was pushed to the side, only told when others finally remembered that he was more than just a glitching search engine.

It was bad. They all knew it was bad, the faction would not be pulling all eligible and available bots and units if there wasn’t a crisis. Russel had called it a draft. What a foreign concept. It was just who they were. Their duty to their factions and, as war frames, a subtle duty to their very creation.

To Bee, he knew it was just a way of life, he knew his scout leader could not fathom life without never ending searching. Never ending movement.

He looked to the stars then. Imagined he could see the ship taking off. The closest thing the minicon had ever had to a real mission. A real team. A real purpose. 

He shut off his vocalizer then. There was no one to listen to his sputtering anyways. 

All that was left was to bleakly take in his surroundings. They had left him where he belonged. The scrap heap. Grimlock was here, left to finish the mission as an untagged unofficial member of the autobots. It was an insult to his service but the minicon couldn't help but be selfishly happy. At least he wasn’t alone.

Russel for once decided to lay low. Dave wove amongst the stacks like a ghost in a graveyard.

He wondered if they felt slighted too. They had seemed to weave into the culture of the team seamlessly. Eagerly teaching about Earth culture while risking that very way of life for just a peak into the greater starset of the universe.

Their galaxies had touched for a minute. They had been part of something outside their ozone covered world. 

Fixit began drifting amongst the stacks of rubble, mindlessly cataloging the scrapyard. An ever running processor feared laying idle and he let it lend itself to aid Denny’s work. Perhaps it could be a meek way of thanking them.

Him and Grimlock were set to relocate. Prowl lent little audial to their mission other than to pull them from human contact. 

A security risk. Unnecessary for both ends.

Fixit shook his helm roughly, angrily at that thought.

Mechs like him could only think in terms of finding means to ends. Mechs like him could only calculate the wind rather than feel it across their plating. Could only analyze and never feel.

It was lonely at the top but it took a certain type of bot to begin that ascent in the first place. 

Orange minicon treads trailed across terrain and anger arose softly in the evening air. The dull red of sunset began to streak across the sky all too quick and in the haze blue optics glared up at the swiftly appearing stars.

~~

Shining silver glimmered into view through crystal clear windows. They grew closer yet to a usually unoccupied sector of Cybertron. It was still unclear why they chose to take a ship. Certain war mechs believed this to be more ominous than their leader had let on. 

A soft landing and the hiss of doors brought optics to gaze at the newcomers as they disembarked. The silence was as permeable as the ships and the very hum of Cybertron danced across their sparks. It sang of unease and it sang of pain.

Clicks away from the newcomers, sparks cried and screamed in agony. Deeper than war and deeper than merely death, rot and decay danced between life and the afterlife, conducted and led astray. Their shrieks echoed to the planet's core and it churned from within.