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Bumblebee was twisting in and out of cover as he drove through the ruins. He remembered coming here a few times, back when Cybertron was still Cybertron, to deliver a few out of city packages. Bumblebee had loved taking the out of city packages—he was seen as odd among his fellow couriers for it. They preferred the comfort and ease of city deliveries. But he loved how fast he could go without the speed limitations that were present within the city. He could pretend, for a moment, that he was a racer.
When Bumblebee was first forged, he wasn’t given a mentor, or really any kind of guidance. He wasn’t clueless, but he had yet to learn many of Cybertron’s—and Iacon’s— intricacies. Once, in a bar, he mentioned wanting to be a racer, and everyone laughed. They immediately assumed it was a joke. It wasn’t… that unusual, was it? Someone told him he would be a perfect courier—small, friendly, and wanted to be fast. Emphasis on wanted. He was fast, but he just left the bar with a quick “thanks” and went on his way. He needed a job, so he took the advice. And it was nice enough, but it wasn’t what he had wanted.
Either way, all of that was gone and zipping through ruins, hoping not to be seen, was the closest he’d get to racing. Of course, that hope also went into the scrapheap. Some seekers overhead. Maybe they were just patrolling? Maybe Bumblebee could stay hidden.
Then they started shooting. Scrap. Bumblebee kept driving and began to develop a quick subroutine to wipe his processor—just in case.
Starscream joined the seekers currently assailing him. 50 kliks away from the rendezvous point and he couldn’t risk calling for backup—the seekers might be intercepting his signals. Frag.
Then the cover he had been using went away—whatever there had been was gone now. Double frag. Bumblebee zigged and zagged, but a missile was aimed right at him. One of the three seekers let it loose and—
Boom. In the split second, Bumblebee had formulated a plan. He hid in a small alcove off to the right side, using the blast as cover. He just hoped that the seekers wouldn’t look too closely. While he wasn’t dead, the blast got him pretty good and he was rapidly losing energon. There’d be no chance for him against three seekers. Thrust and Ramjet landed, followed by Starscream. Triple frag.
“Where’d he go?” Thrust asked.
“He got blasted, idiot.” Ramjet replied.
“Bumblebee’s not that fragile, is he?” Thrust said.
“He’s a minibot. Minibots are fragile.”
“He wouldn’t have made it this far—“
“Both of you, shut up! You’re making my processor ache. Bumblebee got blasted, now go back and return to base. I’ll continue the patrol.” Starscream interrupted. The two coneheads complied and left promptly.
“Those two troglodytes. Megatron knows I don’t work well with anyone but Thundercracker and Skywarp. They’re my trine for a reason,” Starscream muttered under his breath. Then he looked straight at Bumblebee. Scrap. “I know you’re there, little scout, and I know you didn’t get out of that explosion unfazed. Come out and we’ll go somewhere I can take care of you.”
Bumblebee chose to speak. “How do I know this isn’t a trap? Why shouldn’t I fight?” He tried to hide any sign of pain from his voice.
“Because you’re actively losing energon and I just lied to my subordinates. I’ve got a few places the Decepticons don’t know about. Trust me.”
Not happening, but Bumblebee was losing energon steadily, and way too fast for his systems to repair themselves before he bled out. Any Autobot medic would be too far. He didn’t have a choice.
Bumblebee limped out with his hands raised, processor wipe code at the ready. “Okay, you got me.” He half expected Starscream to immediately point a null ray to his face. To his surprise, Starscream had an emergency welder in his finger at the ready, and actually looked concerned. Bumblebee guessed he looked worse than he felt. Though, he felt pretty bad. There was a good amount of damage to his pedes and his abdominal plates. Even his T-cog hurt. The amount of warnings and alerts that muddied his HUD made it hard to see. He just closed. He couldn’t worry about them right now. Though, Starscream was.
“I can’t do much right now. But I can keep you from losing more energon,” Starscream said, tone much more serious than Bumblebee would have expected as he began to staunch the wounds. “After that, you’re free to call a medic, if you’d like, or you can come with me to one of my hideouts. I highly suggest the latter however. From what I can see, you can’t transform, you can’t fight, you can’t even run away. You’d be sitting here until they came. And I can’t stop every Decepticon who wants to check out this city for scraps or lone Autobots. Like you.” Starscream said, pointedly.
“…Fine.” Bumblebee said, apprehensively as Starscream finished. Bumblebee noticed there were still sources of internal bleeding on his HUD, but the rate at which he was losing energon had dramatically decreased.
Starscream transformed and opened his cockpit. “Get in. You’re small enough, aren’t you?” Bumblebee gulped. This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. This was Starscream for Primus’ sake. This had to be a trap, and he was walking right in without any other Autobot knowing where he was. Bumblebee mentally gripped the processor wipe subroutine tightly. He should know better. Emphasis on should. He got in.
“Sorry about… the energon and debris stains.”
“I’ll have Skywarp wash it out. He’s probably done something I need to punish him for. And I can trust him and Thundercracker to keep things to themselves.”
“…Why are you helping me?”
“Oh what, I can’t help a frail little Autobot out of the kindness of my spark?”
“No, you can’t.”
“Then perhaps I do you a favor, and later you ro a favor for me.”
“You know I’d never do that. I won’t betray the Autobots.”
“…Fine. You got me. I… I see the way you look on the field. Your determination—even though you’re not the biggest, or the strongest, or even the fastest—“
“Thanks.” Bumblebee grumbled sarcastically.
“…You still manage to hold your own against us. You still manage to stand on equal grounds with the other Autobots. You don’t let fear get in the way and you don’t let people tell you what you can’t do. I… admire that. The Autobots would be a lot better off if there were more bots like you there. I’d like to keep seeing you on the battlefield. Not dead in some rubble.”
Bumblebee was dumbfounded. Starscream wasn’t lying. At least it didn’t seem like he was.
Starscream continued, “Megatron will be defeated at some point. Optimus with him, I imagine. I hope to be able to pick up the pieces after. I hope you can too.”
“…Thanks. That means a lot, Starscream.”
“We’re here.” Starscream said, landing. “And don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. I don’t need rumors about me being sentimental or soft going around.”
“Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets.” Bumblebee started to climb down, but the lack of energon made him stumble and he fell onto the ground—his HUD told him that some of his wounds had reopened. He was losing energon at a dangerous rate, and then he lost consciousness. Starscream immediately transformed, cursing under his breath. He picked Bumblebee up in one arm, disengaging the base’s locks and traps with the other.
Once inside, Starscream quickly put Bumblebee on a berth and hooked him up to an energon line. Bumblebee had gone critical way too fast for comfort and Starscream had to act. He online’d the medical computer at the base and told it to scan for internal bleeding. While it scanned, Starscream welded up the wounds that had opened up.
The computer told Starscream that Bee had a few areas of internal bleeding and damage to his T-cog. The internal bleeding Starscream could take care of, but the T-cog… if Bumblebee’s other option was a Decepticon medic, he’d have tried, but thankfully Bumblebee had Ratchet. Starscream knew that Bumblebee had information about the Decepticons, but frankly, he couldn’t care less. If they were that sloppy with their information, then it deserved to be taken. Soundwave would disagree. Soundwave wasn’t here.
Starscream cut into Bumblebee’s internals to staunch whatever bleeding there was. Then, once Bumblebee was no longer losing energon, Starscream took the time to make a comfortable berth for Bee. Starscream asked himself why he was doing this—he hadn’t lied to Bumblebee, but why did he go out of his way to help the minibot? If anyone found out…
He guessed it was out of the tiniest bit of hope that hadn’t been crushed by this world. He disconnected the energon line, and carried Bumblebee to the berth. There, he reconnected the energon line. Bumblebee’s energon levels were improving. That was good. Starscream sat in a chair and stared at Bumblebee’s recovering form. His self-repair would work for whatever other internal damage there was, especially now that he had the energon for it.
—
Bumblebee found it hard to online his optics. His abdominal plates felt sore, and he felt sluggish. He had… gotten blown up? Was he back at base? He online’d his optics slowly and was shocked to see Starscream’s red optics staring at him. Bumblebee immediately remembered the code he’d prepared in case he got captured, and was about to use it until he remembered the rest of what had happened. Starscream had saved him. Bumblebee let go of the code, letting it dissolve into his processor unused.
Starscream stood up. Bumblebee’s EM field was still apprehensive and on guard, but Starscream walked over carefully.
“How are you feeling?” Starscream asked, with an uncharacteristic concern in his optics.
The jolt of adrenaline that had made Bumblebee aware of where he was slowly passed, and Bee’s energy levels went back down to where his optic shutters felt heavy.
“Really sore. And really tired” Bumblebee said. He noticed the pillows under him and the heat retention blankets on top of him. Huh. Starscream treated his guests nicely.
“That makes sense. Some of your internals were damaged. I patched up the wounds as best I could but I couldn’t do more. You’ll have to get that cranky medic to properly fix you up—especially your t-cog.”
Bumblebee stared at Starscream, still surprised that he was helping, but gave the jet a smile. “Thank you.”
“Again, don’t mention it. Or I’ll finish the job those idiot coneheads could never do properly.”
Bumblebee began to laugh, but then his voice hitched in pain. “I won’t. Your reputation perseveres.”
“Good. And don’t worry about that information in your processor. I haven’t touched it. If the Decepticons are that sloppy with information, it’s yours to take.”
Bumblebee double checked that by doing a once over on his processor. While in depth processor searching could be hidden, Bumblebee doubted that Starscream had those facilities in this hideout.
Starscream continued, “You’re free to stick around and rest for as long as you need. Then I’ll take you somewhere you can call Ratchet, and head back to my own base. There are signal and tracker dampeners here, you won’t even know where you are. And I’m not turning them off. I’m taking a risk even with you being here, I can’t have you knowing where one of my private bases are.”
“I won’t tell anyone. You have my word. Thanks, Starscream, for helping me.”
“Mhm.” Starscream got up and went to check his computer. Bumblebee couldn’t see, and honestly, didn’t really care. The berth was nice, and sleep would be so nice… and just like that, he was in recharge.
—
After a few days, Bumblebee’s self repair had him mostly back to normal. His HUD indicated that his internals were still damaged and his t-cog wasn’t much better than a few days ago. Bumblebee wouldn't be able to transform until he saw Ratchet. Just like Starscream said.
Whenever Bumblebee wasn’t in recharge, he and Starscream actually had… nice conversations. He would have never imagined it. They talked about life before the war, what they wanted life to be like after the war, and even talked scrap about some factionmates (Starscream had a lot more to say than Bumblebee did).
Then, a few cycles later, when the pain from laughing wasn’t as bad, Starscream and Bumblebee both understood that this brief reprieve from the war must end.
“I’ll take you close to the nearest Autobot controlled area. It’s been too long since I’ve reported back and Thundercracker and Skywarp can only cover for me for so long. I assume it’s the same for you.”
“Yeah. So we just… go back to being enemies?” Bumblebee said, more disappointment in the air than either of them expected.
“Yeah.” Starscream said, and that was that. He transformed, and Bumblebee boarded. They spent the ride in silence.
In an area where Autobots wouldn’t notice a random seeker, but still close enough to one of their bases that a random Decepticon wouldn’t find Bumblebee before Ratchet got there, Bumblebee walked out and Starscream transformed back into rote mode.
“Hey, Starscream,” Bumblebee said before he was about to activate his distress signal. “Thanks, again. I hope to see you at the end of this.”
“You too.” Starscream said melancholically before transforming and flying away. That was that. Bumblebee activated his distress signal and quickly Ratchet came, accompanied by Jazz. Bumblebee explained that he had some internal damage and couldn’t transform, but that the data he collected was safe.
A few hours after Ratchet fixed up Bumblebee’s internals, Jazz and Ratchet came into the medibay.
Ratchet said, “The amount of wounds you had, you wouldn’t have been able to patch them up on your own. You’d have gone into stasis lock before you could.”
Jazz continued, “And you wouldn’t have been able to get from the ruins to just outside of the base on your own—especially not without a functioning T-cog. What’s up? What really happened out there?”
Bumblebee hesitated. Starscream had told him not to tell anyone, but he could trust Jazz and Ratchet.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone.” Jazz looked at Bumblebee suspiciously.
“Bee, you know I can’t promise that.”
“Fine. Then promise to trust me.”
“I trust you, Bee. What happened?”
“…I was driving through the ruins, coming back to base with the information. A few seekers found me while they were on patrol. They kept shooting at me and eventually dropped a missile. I was able to hide, but I got injured real bad. Starscream was with them, and… to my surprise, he covered for me. He sent them back to base and kept me from bleeding out. Then he took me to one of his hidden bases and staunched any internal bleeding there was. He saved me. None of the information was touched—I double checked. You can triple check if you want. Once I was well enough, he dropped me off where you picked me up.”
Jazz’s EM field was held close to him. Same with Ratchet. Bumblebee was worried they wouldn’t believe him, worried they’d accuse him of betraying the Autobots.
Jazz finally spoke. “I trust you, Bumblebee. I don’t trust Screamer and y’know that. But as long as you let Ratchet scan your processor just in case, I’ll cover for you. I won’t tell anyone.”
Bumblebee smiled. “Thanks, Jazz.”
“You got it, bud.”
Ratchet spoke up. “You’ll be on medical leave for a few cycles. Your t-cog needs time to integrate those repairs. I don’t want you transforming unsupervised and I especially don’t want you driving around all willy-nilly around base. I’ll be the one to tell you when you can go back on the field.”
Bumblebee’s smile turned into a scowl. “Fine.” He groaned. Then, he groaned again, this time out of pain.
“That’s why.” Ratchet said.
“Cheer up, Bee. We can go tell the other spec ops how you took on two seekers and got away.” Jazz said, patting Bee on the back, nicely leaving out any mention of Starscream. He helped Bumblebee off the berth, and they left.
Ratchet shook his head. Bumblebee and Starscream, huh?