Conceptions - 6
Title: Conceptions of the Self - Home - Mei's Fanfic Master List
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, PTSD, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b
Chapter Six: ... Before ...
-
Bumblebee had seemed so pleased with the idea of meeting up with the others that it should have come as very little surprise that Sam chose that very weekend to go down to visit the other Autobots. With a playful swerve, they skidded up toward the base sideways, kicking up an absurd amount of dust. Sam was grinning like a moron again, because for one: Bumblebee was in a good mood, and for another, even when he wasn't driving, it was a huge kick to feel powerful engines vibrating the entire metal frame he was trapped inside.
Ratchet -- and strangely, Ironhide -- were waiting in bipedal form outside of the several buildings, Ratchet with his arms crossed and the black bot looking rather bored but also looking like he wasn't really planning on going anywhere.
"Should I ...?" Sam questioned, wondering if Armageddon was going for a round two after that last practice run, or if he even wanted to know.
"Check ups," Bumblebee said with a note of exasperation. He played the cheesy music to ever B-movie whenever some horrible revelation came to light, the piano humming out over the speakers: duh duh du-unnn!
Sam snickered a little at that, climbing out when Bumblebee popped the door open. He didn't think much of it when Ratchet wanted to check Bumblebee up, after all, his car had been injured and in a healing process after the battle, and he was pretty sure Ratchet hadn't dropped by while he was asleep or in school or anything. While he didn't expect anything to be wrong with Bee, he suspected that Cybertronians needed to be maintained, too. Like a doctor's appointment, or changing the oil.
With a whirl-click of gears, the solid, perfectly innocent looking Camaro suddenly broke into a thousand pieces, shifting and whirling about as Bumblebee stood and cheekily chirped at the two bots. It sounded hilariously like 'What's up', and judging by the way the two older mechs glowered, might have been something more like 'waaaazzzup?!' Sam had certainly gotten his share of filthy looks when he had mimicked that movie.
"Good luck!" he hissed in a stage whisper, exaggerating a wince for Bee's benefit. Bumblebee crooned with maybe-not-so-mock-fright in return, cringing as he approached the medic, considering that once he was in arms reach, the larger bot grabbed him firmly by one of the spikes of yellow armor branching off from his chest. Bumblebee squeaked in complaint as he was hauled off.
Ratchet only paused briefly to turn his body in a way that would have made any human wince, pointing at Ironhide who was glowering threateningly at Sam. "Ironhide!" he snapped. "Show the boy around the base!" Then both yellow(ish) bots disappeared into a hanger.
Ironhide recoiled and was probably doing the equivalent of gaping. He certainly did stutter a few times, then whipped around to glower at Sam like it was his fault.
Sam eyed the giant black Autobot with two cannons that were currently humming dangerously while said bot gave him a look that probably would have even made high commander Prime hesitate. Sam tentatively cleared his throat, squeaked out a greeting, them hemmed and hawed for a moment. "Um," he finally said, louder. "Let's not and say we did?"
With a deep rumbling noise that Sam felt in his bones more than heard, Ironhide appeared to consider it. "Acceptable," he growled out, promptly turned around, and stormed off toward a different building.
Right. Um. Well, Sam knew which buildings to avoid now, anyway.
For the first time ever, as he had been a little distracted with Bumblebee's feats of driving, Sam rested his eyes upon the Autobot's hide out, and promptly decided that he hoped it was temporary. It was in California, of course, because putting it anywhere else was sheer idiocy (as far as Sam was concerned. He lived in California, after all, and he would have gotten severely peeved if more than seventy miles separated Bumblebee from the rest of his crew). It was also well away from human habitation. How they managed that, Sam was not certain. He'd been under the impression that pretty much everywhere was over-developed in his home state.
He couldn't decide if the base used to be military, or if it had been some rinkidink airport that had been abandoned in favor of something like the South Western Airlines and was just barricaded like a military base as a favor. Either way, there were quite a few large metal buildings that appeared to either be hangers big enough to fit decent sized plans inside. Eyeing them critically, he decided that it was very likely Optimus Prime couldn't stand upright in one of them, but Bumblebee made it sound like one shape was essentially as comfortable as another.
On impulse, he decided to ask, later, if it was true. To shape shifters, one form probably was equal to another. All of the Autobots had such a weird way of moving, like in something denser than water and lighter than air. Which ... ah, was impossible, and brought him around to square one: giant walking super computers were more graceful than interpretive dancers.
Having scoped out the place from his sort-of distance, Sam moved closer to the buildings. There were indications that the Autobots were considering reworking the structure of the base, but with limited resources and manpower, hadn't figured out how to do so. Seeing as how he was giving himself a tour, he couldn't ask how they were planning to do it, but his mind started to go wild, trying to provide visuals and ideas. It was like ... Area Fifty-One, or something. Trying to hide the fact that giant robots from outer space were living there. Cue brain sparks and whatnot; best to lower the floor than to jack up the ceiling, right? They could continue to pretend to be cars on the outside, go inside and down a ramp and retake their bipedal form --
They were really lucky the tallest guy around was Optimus Prime, who was less than thirty feet high. If he was like ... Godzilla or something, then they would have had some trouble.
By the time he had finished mapping the entire place, Bumblebee still hadn't reappeared. Sam sighed with exaggerated exasperation, looking around dully and jamming his hands into his pockets. After a moment, he quickly headed toward a building and the concrete sidewalk. He sat down on it and leaned back against the hot tin building, squinting his eyes against the sun.
Strangely, he didn't feel terribly overheated. It was a little bright against his eyes, but after a few moments of squinting, that resolved itself and he could see fine. Come to think of it, the base was actually ... really boring. He began to feel sorry for the Autobots, having such a reject base with such a boring view. There was dust, and grass, and more dust, and tin and concrete and dust.
Perhaps Sam should have expected it. Months after the fact, he still had a bone-deep soreness, an appetite that knew no bounds, and he liked to sleep more than ever before. His mother might have worried he was depressed (these were symptoms, after all), but the fact that he regularly hung out with Miles and Mikaela and 'played' with his car (driving fast on roads to nowhere, or relaxing under the tree and talking about serious things). Out under the hot sun, it felt good against his skin ... like he thought the All Spark might in his dreams. Searing-hot-shower and all around him. Beating from above and bouncing off the pavement below.
And he was walking down the street in the middle of the night, time frozen still, All Spark cradled close to his chest and hot, blue dancing sparks across the surface (just like when Bumblebee coaxed it to be smaller), Autobot on his heels with the slow and deliberate careless walk of something that had seen eons come and go and knew there were countless more ahead. Houses were dark, vehicles lining the road were sleeping, stars overhead were shining and the night was black velvet with showcase lights of orange and blue, trying to call attention to the glimmering scenery, like thousands of glittering shards of glass.
Though he was walking toward the end of the street that seemed to get closer only in inch increments for ever five or so steps he had taken, he also had a sense of waiting. Someone was looking for him.
He heard the whirl click of Cybertronian gears, and he easily located the source. From behind a large decorative bush, the nimble sleek form of a protoform stepped, eyes glowing the friendly blue of Autobots. It was smaller than any Autobot that he had seen, but much larger and ... different from that spastic little glitch who was partners with the demon cop from hell. Unlike that glitch, the protoform had substance, and the same denser-than-water, lighter-than-air way of moving.
As graceful as it was, there was something fierce and birdlike about this Autobot. It cocked its head at him, and the way it moved its legs was like ... it was like a stork, which was the only bird he knew of that was graceful enough to compare. Then he realized -- no, it wasn't looking at him. It was looking at the 'bot behind him. That one was smaller that even this bot, which would come up to Bumblebee's headlights when he was standing straight -- a few feet over ten. The one behind him was shorter by a few feet at least. He wasn't certain.
The Autobot said -- he thought it said -- something, but it was all static and clicks and electric squeals.
So, Sam answered. "We're here, waiting. Optimus Prime is waiting."
The Autobot behind him curled one hand around his neck, and the All Spark burned and burned.
Sam snapped awake with a clumsy flail and a blurted "guh?" that was embarrassing even in his muddled state. He flung up a hand and squinted up at what had nudged him out of his nap. Namely his sixteen foot tall robot guardian who liked yellow, lions, and disco balls. "What?" he asked blankly.
"You were sleeping in the sun, Sam," Bumblebee said in his incongruently formal voice.
Sam huffed and stretched against the cement sidewalk as if he were in bed -- arms above head, feet flat and toes down pointed, spine arched until his shirt and jacket pulled up -- before he rolled over and moved to his feet. "Yeah, yeah, I know. UV radiations going to eat my face off. My mom tells it to me all the time." He straighten out his clothing absently, dusting off dirt and small rocks.
Bumblebee made one of those odd electrical chirping/crooning noises he made sometimes. Sam was pretty sure that one was amusement. "Maybe you should listen to her," he said, straightening to his full height.
Sam made his own noise, though of course he had an organic voice box and who knew how complex Cybertronian verbal units were. Or whatever they were called. "So, what's the -- 911, 411, um, twelve-eleven? Seven eleven? ... forget it. Are you okay? Ratchet find anything?"
"I am in optimal shape," Bee admitted. "Ratchet was a little surprised, since it was a bit early for me to be seamlessly repaired, but it's been a long time since we've had a chance to -- R n' R?"
"Ah, normally don't get a chance to have fun, huh? Yeah, we usually have the opinion that laughter is the best medicine, so I'm sure having fun is part of that, too," Sam nodded in understanding. "Hey, Bee," he added suddenly. "Do you guys have Autobots that are smaller than you? I mean, like a lot smaller." He glanced up the height of his friend. "I mean, you're the shortest Autobot that I know, but there is a big difference between your height and Optimus."
Bumblebee actually paused in the middle of walking. It was a small movement, but it was a way obvious break in his usually graceful movements. "Cybertronians come in all shapes and sizes, Sam. I am not the smallest 'model' by far." He hesitated again. "Jazz's actually six inches shorter than I am. There are also some models that are several feet shorter."
"That should be fun," Sam said wryly. "They should be thrilled to come to Earth and have to take the form of some really small car."
"You might be surprised," Bumblebee said with amusement. "Parts can be folded or unfolded. The original Camaro model provided more room for me than my current alt form."
Ah -- that was something that Sam hadn't considered before. "So, like ... what would be the smallest vehicle you could change into?"
"I don't have that much folding capacity, Sam," he said. "I chose the original model for a reason -- it's my median. Anything roughly a foot larger or smaller is within my capacity. Other Cybertronians have more or less ability to compact themselves. Optimus Prime was forced to choose something that compacts him quite tightly, which is perhaps why he prefers not to use it. He is a commander, not an operative."
The world of Cybertronian battle technology was still new and boggling. He frowned slightly. "What about that ... spastic little silver monster that was with Demon cop from hell."
Bumblebee's gears whirled and click in that way that made Sam think of amusement. "That was Frenzy and Barricade," he said. "Frenzy is too small to have a vehicle mode. He is an ... extreme operative, which is to say that he's been modified heavily to ... be a virus in physical form."
"I wish someone had stepped on that spastic little silver monster," Sam grumbled.
There was a clear distasteful tone to Bumblebee's electronic voice. "If only stepping on Frenzy would work. He has no ... central circuit. Rather, his entire body is a central circuit, so as long as some part of him survives ..."
Sam thought about that. Thought about punting the spastic little glitch's head. He groaned, grinding a heel against his forehead. "Mikaela cut ... Frenzy? She cut Frenzy's head off and I punted it."
After a second (possibly cross referencing 'punting' and videos of such), Bee said, "Yes, as much stress relief as that was, it didn't cause him irreparable harm."
They walked in silence for a moment, and as Bumblebee got ready to transform back into a Camaro, Sam worked up his morbid humor again. "So he's like a starfish, right? Are there two Frenzies now?"
He didn't know an Autobot could fudge up their own transformation so badly. Thankfully, the only damage was to Bee's dignity, which could easily be repaired.
--
"I'm really disappointed with you, Mr. Witwicky."
A barely restrained heavy sigh, full of exasperation. "It's just make-work, anyway, isn't it?"
"It's practice, to make sure you understand the material. We assign homework so that you don't forget how to do what we teach you in class."
"Yeah -- well, obviously I don't need practice, okay? I aced the pre-final exam."
A sigh, just as heavy and exasperated as the one that had been restrained. The clip clop of two pairs of feet, and the click-shift of a door opening. "It's good that you've been able to understand the material so much more, Mr. Witwicky, but I wish you'd do your homework anyway. Humor me. I don't know how you managed to make a hundred percent, and I certainly didn't teach you those shortcuts -- and you won't tell me. Just ... go home, Mr. Witwicky. Have a good afternoon."
"You, too," sourly, and the door closed. Pausing in the silent hall, absolutely alone, the confession came softly, fearfully: "Yeah, well ... I don't know, either."
--
Sam was pretty baffled the day he and Bee came home, and in Bee's normal parking space was a small car -- the Mazda emblem gleaming silver and proud -- of a pale icy blue color that sparkled under the sun. His mother was standing on the porch eyeballing it threateningly with her Judy Olivia Taylor Baseball Bat of 'Don't Touch My Baby' Smiting in hand. The tiny convertible continued to sparkle harmlessly.
Actually, that was a particularly familiar 'I'm totally harmless, just an inanimate object, of course, nothing to worry about' sparkle.
Bumblebee coasted to a stop in front of the house, in the streets -- which was technically a no-go, but with a car in the driveway that his mother was glaring at, there was little other choice. "Friend of yours, Bee?" he inquired, popping open the door and sliding out. The fact that Bumblebee even let him spoke volumes, but he still stood in the protective embrace of the door, one hand on the roof and the other on the door. Before he got a chance to reply, his mother noticed them.
"Oh, Sam, honey!" his mother called in relief. "It just showed up an hour ago, all by itself." She gestured to it with the bat, now looking much more secure and threatening. "Is it a good one or a bad one?"
Bumblebee's radio sputtered and then a man's voice crooned, "I've got friends!" before flipping off.
"Oh my god, Bee," Sam muttered. "That's a song about a bunch of guys killing themselves -- each other -- whatever!"
The engine thrumming thoughtfully before the car alarm chirped at him cheekily.
"Yeah, yeah," he snapped the door closed gently. "It's fine, mom!" he called, trotting up the path. "It's one of Bumblebee's friends. Put - the bat - away."
His mother pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the small car. "Camaros -- Miatas ... aren't any of your friends something other than sports cars?"
"Umm," he said, reaching around her to coax the bat away from her. Her hands, while bony and frail looking, had a hold on the handle like a bulldog's teeth. "I think -- let go -- these are the only -- honestly Mom, let go! -- ones, really." He finally twisted it out of her grip and they shared a fierce look before she frowned at the icy blue Miata.
"Well, how come the only ones I ever see are sport cars? You're not driving too fast, are you? If you get a ticket --"
"Mom!"
"Well, you are a teenager, I expect you to be a bit reckless. Ron already had to bail you out of jail for using Mojo's pills --"
"Mo-om, cut it out!" He yanked open the front door. "Come on, inside the house -- and I told you, I wasn't taking them, they tested me and I'm clean -- Jesus Christ."
"Oh honestly," she huffed, stopping in the door way and giving him one of her looks of severe concern. "You've been so strung out ever since those Auto-computer-whatsits came to town --"
"Inside," he insisted.
"Maybe you should schedule more Happy Time -- whatever happened to that nice pretty girl we found in your room?"
"Oh my God, Mom, no!"
She huffed and shuffled inside, and he cast an embarrassed look over at the two Autobots who bore witness. Both sets of headlights flashed at him, and he made a strangled noise of despair and rubbed his free hand over his burning face before retreating inside. He set the bat aside, then peered out the door window. The icy blue Mazda and the yellow Chevy both sparkled harmlessly, radiating innocent inanimateness.
Yeah right! Sam wasn't fooled. The last time he trusted an innocent looking car, it tried to kill him. With a snort, he turned away, shaking his head.
Of course, there was only so long that Sam was willing to ignore the fact that there was a strange Autobot in his driveway. He figured that after dinner would have given Bumblebee and the stranger enough time to get things settled and figured out, so the first chance he go, he went back outside to get the word on their new ally.
But maybe later would be a better time.
He hesitated outside the door, seeing how the two Autobots had arranged themselves in the street. There was no room for them to situate in any other manner that probably wouldn't have been awkward, so they were parked nose to nose ... rather close. Someone would have to back up if anyone was planning to go anywhere. As far as Sam knew, Cybertronians preferred their space because they needed a lot of room to move safely. He bit his lip, taking a step backward.
Well, a Miata was something like a toy car, and that particular shade of blue was more like metallic baby blue, and ... was this the equivalent of Bumblebee's girlfriend? Bumblebee and Sam had the discussion about Cybertronian lack of gender, and that what would be perceived as females were just shorter, slimmer and more streamline 'bots with voices on a congruently higher register. For a species that didn't reproduce, having gender was hardly an issue. Bumblebee himself was barely a register and a slightly blockier stature away from receiving the linguistic identifier that humans didn't have concepts for (the closest was 'eunuch', but that wasn't right either). They earned it for more reasons than just being shaped different -- it was also an acknowledgement that they were more nimble and quicker than their larger blockier counterparts. It was more of a rank or model than a gender (though there were several models of such Cybertronians).
Sam broke his brain over trying to understand the grammatical rules of Cybertronian languages quiet often.
In either case, just as there was something off about a vehicle that was projecting innocence, there was something about the lack of space there that made Sam feel (for the first time) as if he was doing something wrong where Bumblebee was concerned. He remembered how Mikaela mentioned that Bumblebee would probably like to see the others, and ... well, if this small car-shaped Autobot was a friend, or ... equivalent-of-a-girlfriend, then ...
Well, Sam didn't know what then. He just knew that he finished stepping back and closed the door as quietly as he could.
--
He was walking through the night darkened street, All Spark clutched desperately to his chest. If he shrugged up his shoulders and tucked down his head, he could press his cheek against the burning heat and feel the crackling blue sparks that were shooting across it's surface tingle in his face instead of just in his hands, arms and chest. The darkness seemed less welcoming, a little colder, but the promising steps of the small Autobot behind him was reassuring, the whirl-click of his joints and the soft clink where the rubber on his feet didn't fully muffle the sound of his feet hitting the pavement. The end of the street was before him, silent cars and sleeping houses splotched with orange and blue on either side, and he couldn't see past the end but it was getting closer.
"Just a little further," the Autobot promised him, mechanical hand pressed gently to his back behind his shoulder. "The time is coming."
I am coming.
"I'm waiting," Sam admitted, and: "I'm scared."
"It'll all be fine," he promised.
No harm shall befall you. Patience, Samuel James Witwicky. All in good time.
"I'm waiting," he repeated helplessly.
"Not much longer," the familiar mechanical soothed.
The All Spark burned.
--
Sam was going insane.
The first time it happened had been before bed, while he was sitting with Mom and Dad, watching a movie that had come on over the normal channels. The Fast and the Furious, as a matter of fact. Nice cars. He had to wonder what genre the Cybertronians would label it as. They weren't cars, after all, even though they looked like them. He didn't even know what kind of shapes they normally took! Did Cybertron have cars? It didn't look like it was too hospitable to anything with wheels, but was that smoldering sky and molten rivers natural, or a state of collapse?
Well, anyway, when all of the fun scenes were over, Sam left the movie and fully intended to go to bed, already in his pajamas and socks, heading for the stairs.
That was when he swore the new computer his parents had gotten moved.
For a good fifteen minutes, Sam stared frozen at it, beyond freaked out and worried that the little spastic glitch Frenzy had managed to get into his house and was now pretending to be the computer. However, he reasoned, the actual computer itself would require disposal. And, daring to glance away from the computer for a moment, he eyed the rest of the room.
No. No sign of any destroyed computer. With one last lingering frown of suspicion, he made his way upstairs.
That had been last night. Then he'd had that strange dream, with the strange voices, and while he was rushing around this morning ... well.
He thought he saw something move.
It had, understandably, disrupted his entire morning ritual, as he suspiciously hunted down every piece of electronic he could think of that the small bot might have fit in. When he reached the both relieving and frustrating conclusion that there was no little Decepticons in his house, it seemed to send him for the hills -- or rather, the door. A strange, nearly frantic eagerness drove him to complete his morning ritual and rush out to Bee, like someone fleeing a cemetery after a particularly frightening movie. (It was only once, he swore! It was all Miles idea, anyway -- as it normally was.)
Once outside and rushing to his friend's side, Sam forgot all about his worrisome optical illusions and paranoia, noting immediately that the blue Miata was gone. "Hey, Bee," he said as he slid into the cab of the Camaro, picking up on the nearly pensive air. "Where'd your friend go?"
"That was Arcee," Bumblebee said, starting up his engine and pulling out of the driveway. "I forwarded the coordinates so that she could meet up with Optimus Prime. I would have gone with her ..."
Wow, so that was a femmebot? "But what?" Sam asked.
"Arcee received a private encoded transmission," he answered slowly. "It was not safe to send out information on how to reach the Autobots here on Earth, so we only sent out the coordinates to the planet itself. While it will take a while to gather everyone together, it is the safest way to do so. Once on Earth, we should be able to locate one another. However, Arcee received coordinates to your house, Sam."
"Say what?" he demanded.
"Yes," Bumblebee said. "That is why I've stayed behind. It was an unknown transmission; she's never communicated with them before, and is carrying a copy of this information to Optimus Prime to find out if he has any ideas."
"Why ... her, why my house?" he groaned, pinching his nose. That didn't really help, so he rubbed his neck instead.
"The information she was able to gather implied it was because she was the closest to Earth. There were no other known Cybertronians in the vicinity."
"In other words, you had to stay behind to protect me, in case it was some sort of plot," Sam summed up. He sighed heavily and leaned back against the warm leather seat. "I'm sorry, Bumblebee. It is the last week of school, though, so this Thursday we could meet up with everyone again. Or you could --" he controlled his wince, "-- put me under Ironhide's guard so you wouldn't have to worry."
" ... would you like Ironhide to watch over you?"
Sam puzzled at the neutral sound of Bumblebee's voice, but answered honestly, "Not really," he said. "Guy's a little intense, you know? Besides ..." He struggled with himself, trying to figure out a way to say it that wouldn't be presumptuous. Or sound stupid. There's a mystical bond between a man and his car ... and a boy and his robot. "Well, I've always felt safest with you," he blurted out, then could have slapped himself. In his rush to say something acceptable, he'd made a slightly different embarrassing admission. "What I meant was," he hurried forward, "that just because I'm still a target for anyone who isn't up to date on recent events or wants to -- bite their thumb at the Autobots doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to be around your -- friends."
Bumblebee abruptly swerved through traffic, instead of cruising at around normal speeds toward the school. Sam yelped in surprise, then in indignation as a corner was taken a little sharply to remain legal by traffic signal standards, and his giant robotic alien swerved to a halt in the parking lot of an abandoned store. The locks clicked in to place with an audible snap, and the engine made the equivalent of a thoughtful and satisfied murmur before sputtering off. "Sam," Bumblebee said in a no-nonsense tone, and it made Sam stop sputtering and he took his hands off the wheel. "You were very dedicated to the idea of us being friends, and against my better judgement, I -- succumbed. Therefore, Sam," he said, increasing the volume when Sam tried to object, "I find your presence comforting, not a burden. Yes, I have other friends. So do you. Watching out for you is not a burden, and it ... is pleasing to know that you consider yourself safest with me."
Sam just licked his lips, wordless, burning with that pleasant warmth. It was like having the All Spark inside him, he supposed. Not like Chernobyl. Not like that at all. It made him feel weird and soft, instead of hollow and sharp and hard. He felt like a machine when Chernobyl was burning, but the soft purring warmth made him feel human.
Not waiting for a response, the engine started again and the locks unlocked. Sam made a response anyway. "Yeah, but --" he wasn't sure how to reference what he saw, the two of them so close. He couldn't explain the perceived intimacy, didn't know how to ask for whatever information it was he was looking for. Instead, he made demands: "Well, just remember that as a friend, you can ask things of me, alright? I'll understand."
There were, he thought with trepidation, few things he wouldn't do to get that warm feeling again.
--
While there were few things he wouldn't do for that warm feeling, he'd rather have Chernobyl and Bee than warmth and nothing.
--
If Sam had ever thought that Cybertronians were fundamentally different from humans, he had just been proven wrong. Very, very, wrong. (Okay, so maybe he was generalizing, but there were some things so similar between the two, he forgot that they were fundamentally different, and all similarities were purely superficial.)
"Well," Mikaela whispered, watching Bumblebee grow increasingly agitated as they waited for Arcee to show up. "I think someone has a girlfriend."
"I do not!" Bumblebee protested, and it was so weird to listen to his normally calm formal voice quicken and sharpen in indignation. It made his British accent even more obvious.
Though a little discomforted, Sam had to grin at the peculiarity. "Come off it, Bee," he cajoled, "we'd understand, don't we, Mikaela?"
"Of course we do," she said with that coy voice of thick satisfaction.
"No, you don't," Bee said, exasperated. Tensely, he added, "She's my girlfriend in the same way Mikaela was your girlfriend, when we first met."
Sam's lips made a small 'oh' shape and he bobbed his head in understanding.
"Aw, how cute," Mikaela gushed with faux enthusiasm.
"Knock it off," Sam murmured at her, head ducked. Bumblebee just made another one of his electronic noises that was not exactly unlike the whimper of a small dog. Truthfully, though, all of Bumblebee's small noises had nothing in common with anything they had heard before, and belonged in a unique category of it's own.
But it was still kind of amusing to watch Bumblebee wind himself up like that. Sam was pretty sure that the moment Arcee got there, he'd be like a completely different robot. Miles had gotten that way, though ... in the opposite direction. Miles was a bit of a goof when with friends, and then he turned into some weird suave debonair wannabe when he was trying to impress a girl: lower voice and strange abstract thoughts and all. Bumblebee was ... more like Sam, in that respect. Sam used to get something similar to hyper and mouthy when the rare episodes appeared that he worked up enough courage to talk to Mikaela ... though that was possibly because her boyfriend or girl friends were never far.
From the way that Bumblebee explained it, Arcee was a naturally active Autobot, which meant that the very last thing she wanted to do was sit around doing nothing. Sam would have expected such behavior of someone like Ironhide, but that was apparently not so. The spark that powered every Cybertronian was equal -- which meant that Bumblebee's soul ... his power source, what drove him was capable of powering something as large as Optimus Prime. Naturally, this meant that many smaller model Cybertronians were less likely to remain inactive and many larger models were less excitable.
Of course, Sam broke his brain over trying to understand this as well, since no human language on earth was really appropriate to explain what sparks were and their effect on the body. Every time he thought he had it worked out, Bumblebee had to tell him that the way he was phrasing it implied things that were simply untrue. It was like comparing some terrier dog to a Labrador or a dolphin to a killer whale. Cybertronians had a complex auditory language, using sound wavelengths the same way a human used nonverbal communication. Sam thought that Bumblebee's engine sounded different and his gears or pumps were moving in emotional ways because they were. Of course, the human auditory organ wasn't nearly precise enough to hear the nuisances, and most of the 'inflection' going on was too high or low for humans to notice.
Which was part of the reason why Bumblebee was producing them on a level that he could hear. Apparently, the Autobot had been spending his hobby time learning Sam's auditory range. It was also why the Autobots had put out the effort to learn and mimic human nonverbal communication, as well as word inflection, which was a bit of a foreign concept to them when their entire body was the equivalent to a band that could simultaneously put meaning to words while at the same time projecting general mood. When inflection and expression was basically music to them, the concept of changing how the words themselves were said was difficult.
It was also why they seemed to like 'dissonant' songs. It was their idea of comedy, to couple information with inflection that meant something else completely.
Accompanied with that crash-course in Cybertronian habits, Bumblebee had produced more information on their culture as a whole. According to him, there were several different 'tribes' of Cybertronian, dependant on model ... or rather, the hardware and software that powered the model. Femmes (for lack of a better human word, an inability to pronounce the static-word that was the right one, and the fact that Bumblebee simply never gave him an alternative to use) were one of these 'tribes', and therefore, much preferred to listen to their own. Basically, Arcee acknowledged Optimus Prime's ultimate rank, but it was simply better for everyone involved (and caused less split hairs) for Optimus to not order her around, especially since they were not currently in danger or at war. The femmebot leader, Elita-One, was apparently on her way, so there was little problem with Arcee scouting in the meantime.
This was also the origin of most femmebots being on the Autobot side. The Decepticons only had room for one leader, while Optimus (having been a ruler for some time on their planet) had plenty of experience dealing with the Cybertronian equivalent of state senators, and was also a familiar face. Well, that and most of them weren't terribly violent to begin with, and Optimus was only violent because he had no other choice. Or so Bumblebee said. Sam, being in high school, was well aquatinted with the idea of 'point of view', as was every other kid who had Mrs. Mallenois. Crude jokes were made in abundance.
In either case, Mikaela and Sam were curious about a 'femmebot' and Arcee was willing to meet them. Sam sincerely hoped no one mentioned that he'd killed their ... beginning-and-end: the All Spark. He wasn't even Cybertronian, and it haunted his sleeping mind, so how must they feel about its loss when it was what they came from?
So Bumblebee went through the effort of setting up a meeting, and apparently he had gotten the coordinates from Optimus, who had scoped it out last month to wait at while he hijacked (with permission) a satellite to broadcast the signal up into space, calling for his people. (There was the worry of what they were going to do with an entire race of giant robots, but apparently they had agreed to mostly regroup around Earth for a few hundred years and try to find another planet to inhabit -- or sooner, if their exhaust proved harmful to the planet. It shouldn't, but introducing alien energy emissions could have strange effects.)
The spot that Optimus Prime had chosen for it's isolation -- well, it was isolated. That meant that there was no chance of just anyone seeing them, mostly because there was no easy way to get there. While this meant that it was pretty safe for the Autobots to unfold and stretch their legs, it also meant it was hell on Camaros and worse on Miatas -- or so Sam assumed. The Miata didn't look much like a power car. What happened if some of the long grass got tangled in the engine?
Then again, they were talking about giant shape shifting robotic aliens that nonchalantly changed the very shape of their metal armor in the seconds it took to take on an alt-mode. At some point in time, the average person just had to shrug and allow that they weren't going to get it.
To this point, when Arcee finally did arrive, she did so upright and silently. Sam had an uncanny flashback to the nightmares he used to have in fourth grade, when he found out that there had been giant carnivorous ostriches in Australia back in the day. Jurassic Park the movie did little to help this matter, especially when they gave the velociraptors feathers on their head.
As a femme, she wasn't that obvious. At least to humans, anyway, who were accustomed to soft curvy shapes indicating females. True to Bumblebee's explanation of 'femmes', she mostly looked fast and nimble. There was no bust or hips -- no more than the regular Cybertronian, which made sense: they weren't mammals, never mind organic! She didn't need wide hips to pass children through, or breast to feed it with! Her legs definitely sounded like they had dozens of more gears, though, and were bulky and lean and long. After seeing all the Autobots and Decepticons who had huge barrel-chests, it was strange to see a Cybertronian who was fairly lean on top and powerful in the legs. She was tall enough to come to the Camaro headlights on Bumblebee's chest and had the same strangely graceful way of moving -- well, mostly the same. After all, Sam didn't have flashbacks to nightmares when looking at the other Autobots. Maybe Arcee was just that scary, and no amount of cutesy metallic baby blue armor was going to change that.
"Bumblebee," she greeted -- and yeah, femme was right. They were going to be cursed with 'she' whether they liked it or not.
"Hi, Arcee," he returned, shifting on his feet. Bee quickly gestured to the humans. "This is Sam Witwicky, my ward, and Mikaela Banes who is currently Ratchet's student."
"Student, huh?" Arcee echoed, placing her claw-like hands on her hip plates as she shifted her stance. Looking down at the two humans, her various facial components moved in a benign way -- probably a smile -- while hidden motors purred in a friendly way. "Poor kid. I assume you haven't had to learn from the Hatchet directly."
" ... the Hatchet?" Mikaela echoed weakly. She had the same expression of polite if baffled disbelief she had when Bumblebee first introduced himself.
"Ratchet is known for having a temper," Bumblebee explained with embarrassment. "Especially with those who repeatedly get injured. He's a bit notorious ..."
"Notorious like a turbofox," Arcee said, amusement obvious in the clicking of her gears. Returning her attention to the two humans, she explained: "Optimus Prime's group is a bit notorious anyway -- a bit like Elita-One's chosen. Saying Ratchet is well known is like saying ..." she apparently cross referenced through the Internet, "this Catwoman character is notorious. It's more like infamous."
" ... great," Mikaela said weakly. It was not lost on either humans that Catwoman was really a gray character -- neither good nor evil.
Arcee derived some sort of cruel pleasure from this, Sam was sure. He was becoming a bit alarmed by his friend's taste in women, and wondered if it was too late to hide behind Bee. Unfortunately, that was just about when she decided to take note of him, her blue optics flickering slightly in a way that he was sure meant that there was some scanning or referencing going on somewhere in her head.
"And you're the Witwicky kid, huh?" she inquired, swiveling to face him more directly. He nodded numbly, and she looked up to cocked her head at Bumblebee. "You sure this fleshling really helped out?"
And wow, Sam had never heard that sound before. It was a strange hissing, not quiet white noise or air from a tire, but it was the only comparisons that Sam could make -- and it was coming from Bumblebee. "Sam was willing to die to protect the All Spark, Arcee," Bumblebee said, voice strangely flat -- and it seemed pretty damned likely he was using some of that audio communication that humans couldn't hear. "He denied Megatron just as any Autobot would have."
Arcee straightened and leaned away slightly, holding up both of her hands and making a pushing motion. "Alright, calm down," she said, then added something in sputtering crackles of static and car-alarm chirps. When she continued in English, her voice was slightly sulky. "I was 'teasing', anyway. I know timid characters when I see them -- and I shouldn't need to remind you that I should also know not to underestimate timid 'bots, too."
Sam wondered if this was a rerun of the 'why does the super-advanced robot turn into a piece of crap Camaro?' incident from the other side. He scratched his neck in uncertainty and shared helpless looks with Mikaela. "Is there a story we should know behind that?" he wondered. "Do they have an Autobot equivalent to the Hulk? 'You won't like me when I'm angry'?"
Both bots had to cross reference that, which was a bit surprising. He used the Hulk because he thought they would have already had the pop culture downloaded.
" ... the Hulk's normal persona is not timid," Bumblebee said, sounding baffled.
Giant walking super computers did not understand approximation, apparently. "Never mind."
After a few more moments of staring at them in puzzlement, the two shared a few quick words in their native language before Arcee switched back to English. "By the way," she said coyly, "when Ratchet gets around to the upgrades, specifically the expression masks, I think I'm going to wait until after you go."
A slight muffled whirling sound began somewhere in Bumblebee's chest. "I don't need upgrades," he said.
"Baby."
"Expression masks?" Mikaela cut in, perhaps seeing just exactly where such a conversation was going. So could Sam, but he wasn't quite sure if they wanted to be interrupted.
"Like Optimus Prime has," Arcee explained.
"Part of my mission was to collect information like that," Bumblebee said, looking down at them. "I transmitted the information back to Ratchet, who then implemented it to create the human-like face Optimus Prime sports. He specifically requested it, as we hoped to remain at peace with the humans -- especially when we discovered how sapient you were."
"So it's like learning the local customs and native language," Sam summarized tentatively. Just about every time he had tried to understand Cybertronian motive, he'd ended up being wrong.
"That is dedication," Mikaela said.
"It makes sense," Arcee said flippantly. "Humans are less likely to attack what they can empathize with."
Except that he'd been screaming and they didn't care -- even though they stopped quickly enough when he was yelling at them to stop, to let him go, they were still spraying that ice and he was screaming and they didn't stop. Sam ducked his head and rubbed at his scalp, and knew that his knuckles were white.
"And you don't want this 'expression mask'?" Mikaela asked.
"It's not that," Bumblebee said defensively.
"Then what is it?" Arcee taunted. "Should I go first? I mean, if it would help to have a bot of my model go first?"
"Model has nothing to do with it! And I don't see how such an upgrade would appeal to you, anyway."
"Hey, just because I'm a shoot-first kinda bot doesn't mean I'm not interested in the shiny extras. There's nothing to shoot -- I might as well get new toys."
Sam was seriously starting to doubt Bumblebee's taste in women.
--
Still mulling over Arcee and the afternoon spent listening to the two bots bicker -- which was strange in its own right -- Sam wandered into his house and into the living room, noting his father at the computer. "Hey, given up yet?" he asked with amusement.
"No," his dad said lightly, turning in the chair to cast him an exaggeratedly nonchalant cocky look. "Actually, I haven't been having any problems at all."
" ... wow, really?" Curiously, he came over to look at the monitor, absentmindedly setting his hand on the tower. It was warm to the touch and vibrated faintly under his fingers. To his surprise, it seemed like his father really was getting something done ... which ... was, apparently, ordering stuff off online stores. "Wow," he repeated dryly, idly patting the computer. When he realized what he was doing, he stilled his hand, vaguely embarrassed. Bumblebee seemed to have gotten him in the habit of being ... er, nice to electronics, even when they didn't have a spark. With one last pat, he withdrew the limb and tucked it safely away into a pocket.
"I don't know why I've had so much difficulty before," Ron continued, almost half to himself. "I always find what I'm looking for with this one."
Sam wasn't really paying attention to what his father was saying, though. Instead, he was staring in affront at the corner of the flat-screen monitor. "What the hell is this?" he demanded.
"Language," his father said sternly, then glanced at that. " ... I mentioned to your mother that the computer was named Gateway."
He continue to stare in horror at the glittery holographic sticker letters and flowers that curved around the corner of the screen. " ... what did the computer ever do to deserve this?"
"I don't know, son," Ron said, staring morosely at the pink and purple letters. "I just don't know."
"This has gone on long enough," Sam said fiercely. "It's time to start a rebellion -- a revolution!"
"Now, now," his father said, turning to look at him warily. "Let's not get ... carried away."
He considered it. "Are we having lasagna tonight?"
Ron picked up the bottle of anti-acids that were standing out of view and rattled it at Sam, the large chalky multi-colors pills rattling slightly.
"Then ... the revolution shall wait," he said reluctantly. "But one of these days ... one of these days ..."
"Atta boy, Sam," Ron said fondly. "Choose your battles."
Sam reflected wryly that while he was unwilling to skip lasagna night, he was apparently willing to fall off tall buildings to protect ancient alien artifacts. Choosing his battles, indeed.
-- To Be Continued --
- Arcee and her 'tribe' (more correctly: her 'function class') -- Robots: they don't has a gender. All 'she/he' is determined by the human voice they either mimic or create, because gender is human, so the other mechs respect the 'human identity' each chooses to present. For the smaller bots with congruently higher communication registers, it's simply easier to mimic female voices than search for a male voice that's high enough. (You notice how Bumblebee's voice, even if it's male, isn't deep and rumbly? He had a LONG time to search.) SO: 'she/her' bots are only female the same way Jazz is black. Does that make sense?
- RE: 'femmebot' -- this is Sam's own inability to juggle the concept of "no gender" with "you said 'she'!" It's an incorrect identifier for Arcee and her function class. Sam will eventually get this sorted out in his head. You may have noticed some foreshadowing in this chapter for the more correct term for her function class.
- "Expression Masks" and Ratchet's part in it -- He was a civilian doctor before the war. Considering the highly adaptive technobiology of Cybertronians, he would know how to induce certain transformation patterns. PLZ to be remembering that Optimus Prime's was made with second-hand knowledge, during a time of suspense and pressure. Of course it's not his best work.
- Songs: "I've got friends!" -- ("Big Ass Rock," From The Full Monty, Broadway Version)
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, PTSD, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b
Chapter Six: ... Before ...
-
Bumblebee had seemed so pleased with the idea of meeting up with the others that it should have come as very little surprise that Sam chose that very weekend to go down to visit the other Autobots. With a playful swerve, they skidded up toward the base sideways, kicking up an absurd amount of dust. Sam was grinning like a moron again, because for one: Bumblebee was in a good mood, and for another, even when he wasn't driving, it was a huge kick to feel powerful engines vibrating the entire metal frame he was trapped inside.
Ratchet -- and strangely, Ironhide -- were waiting in bipedal form outside of the several buildings, Ratchet with his arms crossed and the black bot looking rather bored but also looking like he wasn't really planning on going anywhere.
"Should I ...?" Sam questioned, wondering if Armageddon was going for a round two after that last practice run, or if he even wanted to know.
"Check ups," Bumblebee said with a note of exasperation. He played the cheesy music to ever B-movie whenever some horrible revelation came to light, the piano humming out over the speakers: duh duh du-unnn!
Sam snickered a little at that, climbing out when Bumblebee popped the door open. He didn't think much of it when Ratchet wanted to check Bumblebee up, after all, his car had been injured and in a healing process after the battle, and he was pretty sure Ratchet hadn't dropped by while he was asleep or in school or anything. While he didn't expect anything to be wrong with Bee, he suspected that Cybertronians needed to be maintained, too. Like a doctor's appointment, or changing the oil.
With a whirl-click of gears, the solid, perfectly innocent looking Camaro suddenly broke into a thousand pieces, shifting and whirling about as Bumblebee stood and cheekily chirped at the two bots. It sounded hilariously like 'What's up', and judging by the way the two older mechs glowered, might have been something more like 'waaaazzzup?!' Sam had certainly gotten his share of filthy looks when he had mimicked that movie.
"Good luck!" he hissed in a stage whisper, exaggerating a wince for Bee's benefit. Bumblebee crooned with maybe-not-so-mock-fright in return, cringing as he approached the medic, considering that once he was in arms reach, the larger bot grabbed him firmly by one of the spikes of yellow armor branching off from his chest. Bumblebee squeaked in complaint as he was hauled off.
Ratchet only paused briefly to turn his body in a way that would have made any human wince, pointing at Ironhide who was glowering threateningly at Sam. "Ironhide!" he snapped. "Show the boy around the base!" Then both yellow(ish) bots disappeared into a hanger.
Ironhide recoiled and was probably doing the equivalent of gaping. He certainly did stutter a few times, then whipped around to glower at Sam like it was his fault.
Sam eyed the giant black Autobot with two cannons that were currently humming dangerously while said bot gave him a look that probably would have even made high commander Prime hesitate. Sam tentatively cleared his throat, squeaked out a greeting, them hemmed and hawed for a moment. "Um," he finally said, louder. "Let's not and say we did?"
With a deep rumbling noise that Sam felt in his bones more than heard, Ironhide appeared to consider it. "Acceptable," he growled out, promptly turned around, and stormed off toward a different building.
Right. Um. Well, Sam knew which buildings to avoid now, anyway.
For the first time ever, as he had been a little distracted with Bumblebee's feats of driving, Sam rested his eyes upon the Autobot's hide out, and promptly decided that he hoped it was temporary. It was in California, of course, because putting it anywhere else was sheer idiocy (as far as Sam was concerned. He lived in California, after all, and he would have gotten severely peeved if more than seventy miles separated Bumblebee from the rest of his crew). It was also well away from human habitation. How they managed that, Sam was not certain. He'd been under the impression that pretty much everywhere was over-developed in his home state.
He couldn't decide if the base used to be military, or if it had been some rinkidink airport that had been abandoned in favor of something like the South Western Airlines and was just barricaded like a military base as a favor. Either way, there were quite a few large metal buildings that appeared to either be hangers big enough to fit decent sized plans inside. Eyeing them critically, he decided that it was very likely Optimus Prime couldn't stand upright in one of them, but Bumblebee made it sound like one shape was essentially as comfortable as another.
On impulse, he decided to ask, later, if it was true. To shape shifters, one form probably was equal to another. All of the Autobots had such a weird way of moving, like in something denser than water and lighter than air. Which ... ah, was impossible, and brought him around to square one: giant walking super computers were more graceful than interpretive dancers.
Having scoped out the place from his sort-of distance, Sam moved closer to the buildings. There were indications that the Autobots were considering reworking the structure of the base, but with limited resources and manpower, hadn't figured out how to do so. Seeing as how he was giving himself a tour, he couldn't ask how they were planning to do it, but his mind started to go wild, trying to provide visuals and ideas. It was like ... Area Fifty-One, or something. Trying to hide the fact that giant robots from outer space were living there. Cue brain sparks and whatnot; best to lower the floor than to jack up the ceiling, right? They could continue to pretend to be cars on the outside, go inside and down a ramp and retake their bipedal form --
They were really lucky the tallest guy around was Optimus Prime, who was less than thirty feet high. If he was like ... Godzilla or something, then they would have had some trouble.
By the time he had finished mapping the entire place, Bumblebee still hadn't reappeared. Sam sighed with exaggerated exasperation, looking around dully and jamming his hands into his pockets. After a moment, he quickly headed toward a building and the concrete sidewalk. He sat down on it and leaned back against the hot tin building, squinting his eyes against the sun.
Strangely, he didn't feel terribly overheated. It was a little bright against his eyes, but after a few moments of squinting, that resolved itself and he could see fine. Come to think of it, the base was actually ... really boring. He began to feel sorry for the Autobots, having such a reject base with such a boring view. There was dust, and grass, and more dust, and tin and concrete and dust.
Perhaps Sam should have expected it. Months after the fact, he still had a bone-deep soreness, an appetite that knew no bounds, and he liked to sleep more than ever before. His mother might have worried he was depressed (these were symptoms, after all), but the fact that he regularly hung out with Miles and Mikaela and 'played' with his car (driving fast on roads to nowhere, or relaxing under the tree and talking about serious things). Out under the hot sun, it felt good against his skin ... like he thought the All Spark might in his dreams. Searing-hot-shower and all around him. Beating from above and bouncing off the pavement below.
And he was walking down the street in the middle of the night, time frozen still, All Spark cradled close to his chest and hot, blue dancing sparks across the surface (just like when Bumblebee coaxed it to be smaller), Autobot on his heels with the slow and deliberate careless walk of something that had seen eons come and go and knew there were countless more ahead. Houses were dark, vehicles lining the road were sleeping, stars overhead were shining and the night was black velvet with showcase lights of orange and blue, trying to call attention to the glimmering scenery, like thousands of glittering shards of glass.
Though he was walking toward the end of the street that seemed to get closer only in inch increments for ever five or so steps he had taken, he also had a sense of waiting. Someone was looking for him.
He heard the whirl click of Cybertronian gears, and he easily located the source. From behind a large decorative bush, the nimble sleek form of a protoform stepped, eyes glowing the friendly blue of Autobots. It was smaller than any Autobot that he had seen, but much larger and ... different from that spastic little glitch who was partners with the demon cop from hell. Unlike that glitch, the protoform had substance, and the same denser-than-water, lighter-than-air way of moving.
As graceful as it was, there was something fierce and birdlike about this Autobot. It cocked its head at him, and the way it moved its legs was like ... it was like a stork, which was the only bird he knew of that was graceful enough to compare. Then he realized -- no, it wasn't looking at him. It was looking at the 'bot behind him. That one was smaller that even this bot, which would come up to Bumblebee's headlights when he was standing straight -- a few feet over ten. The one behind him was shorter by a few feet at least. He wasn't certain.
The Autobot said -- he thought it said -- something, but it was all static and clicks and electric squeals.
So, Sam answered. "We're here, waiting. Optimus Prime is waiting."
The Autobot behind him curled one hand around his neck, and the All Spark burned and burned.
Sam snapped awake with a clumsy flail and a blurted "guh?" that was embarrassing even in his muddled state. He flung up a hand and squinted up at what had nudged him out of his nap. Namely his sixteen foot tall robot guardian who liked yellow, lions, and disco balls. "What?" he asked blankly.
"You were sleeping in the sun, Sam," Bumblebee said in his incongruently formal voice.
Sam huffed and stretched against the cement sidewalk as if he were in bed -- arms above head, feet flat and toes down pointed, spine arched until his shirt and jacket pulled up -- before he rolled over and moved to his feet. "Yeah, yeah, I know. UV radiations going to eat my face off. My mom tells it to me all the time." He straighten out his clothing absently, dusting off dirt and small rocks.
Bumblebee made one of those odd electrical chirping/crooning noises he made sometimes. Sam was pretty sure that one was amusement. "Maybe you should listen to her," he said, straightening to his full height.
Sam made his own noise, though of course he had an organic voice box and who knew how complex Cybertronian verbal units were. Or whatever they were called. "So, what's the -- 911, 411, um, twelve-eleven? Seven eleven? ... forget it. Are you okay? Ratchet find anything?"
"I am in optimal shape," Bee admitted. "Ratchet was a little surprised, since it was a bit early for me to be seamlessly repaired, but it's been a long time since we've had a chance to -- R n' R?"
"Ah, normally don't get a chance to have fun, huh? Yeah, we usually have the opinion that laughter is the best medicine, so I'm sure having fun is part of that, too," Sam nodded in understanding. "Hey, Bee," he added suddenly. "Do you guys have Autobots that are smaller than you? I mean, like a lot smaller." He glanced up the height of his friend. "I mean, you're the shortest Autobot that I know, but there is a big difference between your height and Optimus."
Bumblebee actually paused in the middle of walking. It was a small movement, but it was a way obvious break in his usually graceful movements. "Cybertronians come in all shapes and sizes, Sam. I am not the smallest 'model' by far." He hesitated again. "Jazz's actually six inches shorter than I am. There are also some models that are several feet shorter."
"That should be fun," Sam said wryly. "They should be thrilled to come to Earth and have to take the form of some really small car."
"You might be surprised," Bumblebee said with amusement. "Parts can be folded or unfolded. The original Camaro model provided more room for me than my current alt form."
Ah -- that was something that Sam hadn't considered before. "So, like ... what would be the smallest vehicle you could change into?"
"I don't have that much folding capacity, Sam," he said. "I chose the original model for a reason -- it's my median. Anything roughly a foot larger or smaller is within my capacity. Other Cybertronians have more or less ability to compact themselves. Optimus Prime was forced to choose something that compacts him quite tightly, which is perhaps why he prefers not to use it. He is a commander, not an operative."
The world of Cybertronian battle technology was still new and boggling. He frowned slightly. "What about that ... spastic little silver monster that was with Demon cop from hell."
Bumblebee's gears whirled and click in that way that made Sam think of amusement. "That was Frenzy and Barricade," he said. "Frenzy is too small to have a vehicle mode. He is an ... extreme operative, which is to say that he's been modified heavily to ... be a virus in physical form."
"I wish someone had stepped on that spastic little silver monster," Sam grumbled.
There was a clear distasteful tone to Bumblebee's electronic voice. "If only stepping on Frenzy would work. He has no ... central circuit. Rather, his entire body is a central circuit, so as long as some part of him survives ..."
Sam thought about that. Thought about punting the spastic little glitch's head. He groaned, grinding a heel against his forehead. "Mikaela cut ... Frenzy? She cut Frenzy's head off and I punted it."
After a second (possibly cross referencing 'punting' and videos of such), Bee said, "Yes, as much stress relief as that was, it didn't cause him irreparable harm."
They walked in silence for a moment, and as Bumblebee got ready to transform back into a Camaro, Sam worked up his morbid humor again. "So he's like a starfish, right? Are there two Frenzies now?"
He didn't know an Autobot could fudge up their own transformation so badly. Thankfully, the only damage was to Bee's dignity, which could easily be repaired.
--
"I'm really disappointed with you, Mr. Witwicky."
A barely restrained heavy sigh, full of exasperation. "It's just make-work, anyway, isn't it?"
"It's practice, to make sure you understand the material. We assign homework so that you don't forget how to do what we teach you in class."
"Yeah -- well, obviously I don't need practice, okay? I aced the pre-final exam."
A sigh, just as heavy and exasperated as the one that had been restrained. The clip clop of two pairs of feet, and the click-shift of a door opening. "It's good that you've been able to understand the material so much more, Mr. Witwicky, but I wish you'd do your homework anyway. Humor me. I don't know how you managed to make a hundred percent, and I certainly didn't teach you those shortcuts -- and you won't tell me. Just ... go home, Mr. Witwicky. Have a good afternoon."
"You, too," sourly, and the door closed. Pausing in the silent hall, absolutely alone, the confession came softly, fearfully: "Yeah, well ... I don't know, either."
--
Sam was pretty baffled the day he and Bee came home, and in Bee's normal parking space was a small car -- the Mazda emblem gleaming silver and proud -- of a pale icy blue color that sparkled under the sun. His mother was standing on the porch eyeballing it threateningly with her Judy Olivia Taylor Baseball Bat of 'Don't Touch My Baby' Smiting in hand. The tiny convertible continued to sparkle harmlessly.
Actually, that was a particularly familiar 'I'm totally harmless, just an inanimate object, of course, nothing to worry about' sparkle.
Bumblebee coasted to a stop in front of the house, in the streets -- which was technically a no-go, but with a car in the driveway that his mother was glaring at, there was little other choice. "Friend of yours, Bee?" he inquired, popping open the door and sliding out. The fact that Bumblebee even let him spoke volumes, but he still stood in the protective embrace of the door, one hand on the roof and the other on the door. Before he got a chance to reply, his mother noticed them.
"Oh, Sam, honey!" his mother called in relief. "It just showed up an hour ago, all by itself." She gestured to it with the bat, now looking much more secure and threatening. "Is it a good one or a bad one?"
Bumblebee's radio sputtered and then a man's voice crooned, "I've got friends!" before flipping off.
"Oh my god, Bee," Sam muttered. "That's a song about a bunch of guys killing themselves -- each other -- whatever!"
The engine thrumming thoughtfully before the car alarm chirped at him cheekily.
"Yeah, yeah," he snapped the door closed gently. "It's fine, mom!" he called, trotting up the path. "It's one of Bumblebee's friends. Put - the bat - away."
His mother pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the small car. "Camaros -- Miatas ... aren't any of your friends something other than sports cars?"
"Umm," he said, reaching around her to coax the bat away from her. Her hands, while bony and frail looking, had a hold on the handle like a bulldog's teeth. "I think -- let go -- these are the only -- honestly Mom, let go! -- ones, really." He finally twisted it out of her grip and they shared a fierce look before she frowned at the icy blue Miata.
"Well, how come the only ones I ever see are sport cars? You're not driving too fast, are you? If you get a ticket --"
"Mom!"
"Well, you are a teenager, I expect you to be a bit reckless. Ron already had to bail you out of jail for using Mojo's pills --"
"Mo-om, cut it out!" He yanked open the front door. "Come on, inside the house -- and I told you, I wasn't taking them, they tested me and I'm clean -- Jesus Christ."
"Oh honestly," she huffed, stopping in the door way and giving him one of her looks of severe concern. "You've been so strung out ever since those Auto-computer-whatsits came to town --"
"Inside," he insisted.
"Maybe you should schedule more Happy Time -- whatever happened to that nice pretty girl we found in your room?"
"Oh my God, Mom, no!"
She huffed and shuffled inside, and he cast an embarrassed look over at the two Autobots who bore witness. Both sets of headlights flashed at him, and he made a strangled noise of despair and rubbed his free hand over his burning face before retreating inside. He set the bat aside, then peered out the door window. The icy blue Mazda and the yellow Chevy both sparkled harmlessly, radiating innocent inanimateness.
Yeah right! Sam wasn't fooled. The last time he trusted an innocent looking car, it tried to kill him. With a snort, he turned away, shaking his head.
Of course, there was only so long that Sam was willing to ignore the fact that there was a strange Autobot in his driveway. He figured that after dinner would have given Bumblebee and the stranger enough time to get things settled and figured out, so the first chance he go, he went back outside to get the word on their new ally.
But maybe later would be a better time.
He hesitated outside the door, seeing how the two Autobots had arranged themselves in the street. There was no room for them to situate in any other manner that probably wouldn't have been awkward, so they were parked nose to nose ... rather close. Someone would have to back up if anyone was planning to go anywhere. As far as Sam knew, Cybertronians preferred their space because they needed a lot of room to move safely. He bit his lip, taking a step backward.
Well, a Miata was something like a toy car, and that particular shade of blue was more like metallic baby blue, and ... was this the equivalent of Bumblebee's girlfriend? Bumblebee and Sam had the discussion about Cybertronian lack of gender, and that what would be perceived as females were just shorter, slimmer and more streamline 'bots with voices on a congruently higher register. For a species that didn't reproduce, having gender was hardly an issue. Bumblebee himself was barely a register and a slightly blockier stature away from receiving the linguistic identifier that humans didn't have concepts for (the closest was 'eunuch', but that wasn't right either). They earned it for more reasons than just being shaped different -- it was also an acknowledgement that they were more nimble and quicker than their larger blockier counterparts. It was more of a rank or model than a gender (though there were several models of such Cybertronians).
Sam broke his brain over trying to understand the grammatical rules of Cybertronian languages quiet often.
In either case, just as there was something off about a vehicle that was projecting innocence, there was something about the lack of space there that made Sam feel (for the first time) as if he was doing something wrong where Bumblebee was concerned. He remembered how Mikaela mentioned that Bumblebee would probably like to see the others, and ... well, if this small car-shaped Autobot was a friend, or ... equivalent-of-a-girlfriend, then ...
Well, Sam didn't know what then. He just knew that he finished stepping back and closed the door as quietly as he could.
--
He was walking through the night darkened street, All Spark clutched desperately to his chest. If he shrugged up his shoulders and tucked down his head, he could press his cheek against the burning heat and feel the crackling blue sparks that were shooting across it's surface tingle in his face instead of just in his hands, arms and chest. The darkness seemed less welcoming, a little colder, but the promising steps of the small Autobot behind him was reassuring, the whirl-click of his joints and the soft clink where the rubber on his feet didn't fully muffle the sound of his feet hitting the pavement. The end of the street was before him, silent cars and sleeping houses splotched with orange and blue on either side, and he couldn't see past the end but it was getting closer.
"Just a little further," the Autobot promised him, mechanical hand pressed gently to his back behind his shoulder. "The time is coming."
I am coming.
"I'm waiting," Sam admitted, and: "I'm scared."
"It'll all be fine," he promised.
No harm shall befall you. Patience, Samuel James Witwicky. All in good time.
"I'm waiting," he repeated helplessly.
"Not much longer," the familiar mechanical soothed.
The All Spark burned.
--
Sam was going insane.
The first time it happened had been before bed, while he was sitting with Mom and Dad, watching a movie that had come on over the normal channels. The Fast and the Furious, as a matter of fact. Nice cars. He had to wonder what genre the Cybertronians would label it as. They weren't cars, after all, even though they looked like them. He didn't even know what kind of shapes they normally took! Did Cybertron have cars? It didn't look like it was too hospitable to anything with wheels, but was that smoldering sky and molten rivers natural, or a state of collapse?
Well, anyway, when all of the fun scenes were over, Sam left the movie and fully intended to go to bed, already in his pajamas and socks, heading for the stairs.
That was when he swore the new computer his parents had gotten moved.
For a good fifteen minutes, Sam stared frozen at it, beyond freaked out and worried that the little spastic glitch Frenzy had managed to get into his house and was now pretending to be the computer. However, he reasoned, the actual computer itself would require disposal. And, daring to glance away from the computer for a moment, he eyed the rest of the room.
No. No sign of any destroyed computer. With one last lingering frown of suspicion, he made his way upstairs.
That had been last night. Then he'd had that strange dream, with the strange voices, and while he was rushing around this morning ... well.
He thought he saw something move.
It had, understandably, disrupted his entire morning ritual, as he suspiciously hunted down every piece of electronic he could think of that the small bot might have fit in. When he reached the both relieving and frustrating conclusion that there was no little Decepticons in his house, it seemed to send him for the hills -- or rather, the door. A strange, nearly frantic eagerness drove him to complete his morning ritual and rush out to Bee, like someone fleeing a cemetery after a particularly frightening movie. (It was only once, he swore! It was all Miles idea, anyway -- as it normally was.)
Once outside and rushing to his friend's side, Sam forgot all about his worrisome optical illusions and paranoia, noting immediately that the blue Miata was gone. "Hey, Bee," he said as he slid into the cab of the Camaro, picking up on the nearly pensive air. "Where'd your friend go?"
"That was Arcee," Bumblebee said, starting up his engine and pulling out of the driveway. "I forwarded the coordinates so that she could meet up with Optimus Prime. I would have gone with her ..."
Wow, so that was a femmebot? "But what?" Sam asked.
"Arcee received a private encoded transmission," he answered slowly. "It was not safe to send out information on how to reach the Autobots here on Earth, so we only sent out the coordinates to the planet itself. While it will take a while to gather everyone together, it is the safest way to do so. Once on Earth, we should be able to locate one another. However, Arcee received coordinates to your house, Sam."
"Say what?" he demanded.
"Yes," Bumblebee said. "That is why I've stayed behind. It was an unknown transmission; she's never communicated with them before, and is carrying a copy of this information to Optimus Prime to find out if he has any ideas."
"Why ... her, why my house?" he groaned, pinching his nose. That didn't really help, so he rubbed his neck instead.
"The information she was able to gather implied it was because she was the closest to Earth. There were no other known Cybertronians in the vicinity."
"In other words, you had to stay behind to protect me, in case it was some sort of plot," Sam summed up. He sighed heavily and leaned back against the warm leather seat. "I'm sorry, Bumblebee. It is the last week of school, though, so this Thursday we could meet up with everyone again. Or you could --" he controlled his wince, "-- put me under Ironhide's guard so you wouldn't have to worry."
" ... would you like Ironhide to watch over you?"
Sam puzzled at the neutral sound of Bumblebee's voice, but answered honestly, "Not really," he said. "Guy's a little intense, you know? Besides ..." He struggled with himself, trying to figure out a way to say it that wouldn't be presumptuous. Or sound stupid. There's a mystical bond between a man and his car ... and a boy and his robot. "Well, I've always felt safest with you," he blurted out, then could have slapped himself. In his rush to say something acceptable, he'd made a slightly different embarrassing admission. "What I meant was," he hurried forward, "that just because I'm still a target for anyone who isn't up to date on recent events or wants to -- bite their thumb at the Autobots doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to be around your -- friends."
Bumblebee abruptly swerved through traffic, instead of cruising at around normal speeds toward the school. Sam yelped in surprise, then in indignation as a corner was taken a little sharply to remain legal by traffic signal standards, and his giant robotic alien swerved to a halt in the parking lot of an abandoned store. The locks clicked in to place with an audible snap, and the engine made the equivalent of a thoughtful and satisfied murmur before sputtering off. "Sam," Bumblebee said in a no-nonsense tone, and it made Sam stop sputtering and he took his hands off the wheel. "You were very dedicated to the idea of us being friends, and against my better judgement, I -- succumbed. Therefore, Sam," he said, increasing the volume when Sam tried to object, "I find your presence comforting, not a burden. Yes, I have other friends. So do you. Watching out for you is not a burden, and it ... is pleasing to know that you consider yourself safest with me."
Sam just licked his lips, wordless, burning with that pleasant warmth. It was like having the All Spark inside him, he supposed. Not like Chernobyl. Not like that at all. It made him feel weird and soft, instead of hollow and sharp and hard. He felt like a machine when Chernobyl was burning, but the soft purring warmth made him feel human.
Not waiting for a response, the engine started again and the locks unlocked. Sam made a response anyway. "Yeah, but --" he wasn't sure how to reference what he saw, the two of them so close. He couldn't explain the perceived intimacy, didn't know how to ask for whatever information it was he was looking for. Instead, he made demands: "Well, just remember that as a friend, you can ask things of me, alright? I'll understand."
There were, he thought with trepidation, few things he wouldn't do to get that warm feeling again.
--
While there were few things he wouldn't do for that warm feeling, he'd rather have Chernobyl and Bee than warmth and nothing.
--
If Sam had ever thought that Cybertronians were fundamentally different from humans, he had just been proven wrong. Very, very, wrong. (Okay, so maybe he was generalizing, but there were some things so similar between the two, he forgot that they were fundamentally different, and all similarities were purely superficial.)
"Well," Mikaela whispered, watching Bumblebee grow increasingly agitated as they waited for Arcee to show up. "I think someone has a girlfriend."
"I do not!" Bumblebee protested, and it was so weird to listen to his normally calm formal voice quicken and sharpen in indignation. It made his British accent even more obvious.
Though a little discomforted, Sam had to grin at the peculiarity. "Come off it, Bee," he cajoled, "we'd understand, don't we, Mikaela?"
"Of course we do," she said with that coy voice of thick satisfaction.
"No, you don't," Bee said, exasperated. Tensely, he added, "She's my girlfriend in the same way Mikaela was your girlfriend, when we first met."
Sam's lips made a small 'oh' shape and he bobbed his head in understanding.
"Aw, how cute," Mikaela gushed with faux enthusiasm.
"Knock it off," Sam murmured at her, head ducked. Bumblebee just made another one of his electronic noises that was not exactly unlike the whimper of a small dog. Truthfully, though, all of Bumblebee's small noises had nothing in common with anything they had heard before, and belonged in a unique category of it's own.
But it was still kind of amusing to watch Bumblebee wind himself up like that. Sam was pretty sure that the moment Arcee got there, he'd be like a completely different robot. Miles had gotten that way, though ... in the opposite direction. Miles was a bit of a goof when with friends, and then he turned into some weird suave debonair wannabe when he was trying to impress a girl: lower voice and strange abstract thoughts and all. Bumblebee was ... more like Sam, in that respect. Sam used to get something similar to hyper and mouthy when the rare episodes appeared that he worked up enough courage to talk to Mikaela ... though that was possibly because her boyfriend or girl friends were never far.
From the way that Bumblebee explained it, Arcee was a naturally active Autobot, which meant that the very last thing she wanted to do was sit around doing nothing. Sam would have expected such behavior of someone like Ironhide, but that was apparently not so. The spark that powered every Cybertronian was equal -- which meant that Bumblebee's soul ... his power source, what drove him was capable of powering something as large as Optimus Prime. Naturally, this meant that many smaller model Cybertronians were less likely to remain inactive and many larger models were less excitable.
Of course, Sam broke his brain over trying to understand this as well, since no human language on earth was really appropriate to explain what sparks were and their effect on the body. Every time he thought he had it worked out, Bumblebee had to tell him that the way he was phrasing it implied things that were simply untrue. It was like comparing some terrier dog to a Labrador or a dolphin to a killer whale. Cybertronians had a complex auditory language, using sound wavelengths the same way a human used nonverbal communication. Sam thought that Bumblebee's engine sounded different and his gears or pumps were moving in emotional ways because they were. Of course, the human auditory organ wasn't nearly precise enough to hear the nuisances, and most of the 'inflection' going on was too high or low for humans to notice.
Which was part of the reason why Bumblebee was producing them on a level that he could hear. Apparently, the Autobot had been spending his hobby time learning Sam's auditory range. It was also why the Autobots had put out the effort to learn and mimic human nonverbal communication, as well as word inflection, which was a bit of a foreign concept to them when their entire body was the equivalent to a band that could simultaneously put meaning to words while at the same time projecting general mood. When inflection and expression was basically music to them, the concept of changing how the words themselves were said was difficult.
It was also why they seemed to like 'dissonant' songs. It was their idea of comedy, to couple information with inflection that meant something else completely.
Accompanied with that crash-course in Cybertronian habits, Bumblebee had produced more information on their culture as a whole. According to him, there were several different 'tribes' of Cybertronian, dependant on model ... or rather, the hardware and software that powered the model. Femmes (for lack of a better human word, an inability to pronounce the static-word that was the right one, and the fact that Bumblebee simply never gave him an alternative to use) were one of these 'tribes', and therefore, much preferred to listen to their own. Basically, Arcee acknowledged Optimus Prime's ultimate rank, but it was simply better for everyone involved (and caused less split hairs) for Optimus to not order her around, especially since they were not currently in danger or at war. The femmebot leader, Elita-One, was apparently on her way, so there was little problem with Arcee scouting in the meantime.
This was also the origin of most femmebots being on the Autobot side. The Decepticons only had room for one leader, while Optimus (having been a ruler for some time on their planet) had plenty of experience dealing with the Cybertronian equivalent of state senators, and was also a familiar face. Well, that and most of them weren't terribly violent to begin with, and Optimus was only violent because he had no other choice. Or so Bumblebee said. Sam, being in high school, was well aquatinted with the idea of 'point of view', as was every other kid who had Mrs. Mallenois. Crude jokes were made in abundance.
In either case, Mikaela and Sam were curious about a 'femmebot' and Arcee was willing to meet them. Sam sincerely hoped no one mentioned that he'd killed their ... beginning-and-end: the All Spark. He wasn't even Cybertronian, and it haunted his sleeping mind, so how must they feel about its loss when it was what they came from?
So Bumblebee went through the effort of setting up a meeting, and apparently he had gotten the coordinates from Optimus, who had scoped it out last month to wait at while he hijacked (with permission) a satellite to broadcast the signal up into space, calling for his people. (There was the worry of what they were going to do with an entire race of giant robots, but apparently they had agreed to mostly regroup around Earth for a few hundred years and try to find another planet to inhabit -- or sooner, if their exhaust proved harmful to the planet. It shouldn't, but introducing alien energy emissions could have strange effects.)
The spot that Optimus Prime had chosen for it's isolation -- well, it was isolated. That meant that there was no chance of just anyone seeing them, mostly because there was no easy way to get there. While this meant that it was pretty safe for the Autobots to unfold and stretch their legs, it also meant it was hell on Camaros and worse on Miatas -- or so Sam assumed. The Miata didn't look much like a power car. What happened if some of the long grass got tangled in the engine?
Then again, they were talking about giant shape shifting robotic aliens that nonchalantly changed the very shape of their metal armor in the seconds it took to take on an alt-mode. At some point in time, the average person just had to shrug and allow that they weren't going to get it.
To this point, when Arcee finally did arrive, she did so upright and silently. Sam had an uncanny flashback to the nightmares he used to have in fourth grade, when he found out that there had been giant carnivorous ostriches in Australia back in the day. Jurassic Park the movie did little to help this matter, especially when they gave the velociraptors feathers on their head.
As a femme, she wasn't that obvious. At least to humans, anyway, who were accustomed to soft curvy shapes indicating females. True to Bumblebee's explanation of 'femmes', she mostly looked fast and nimble. There was no bust or hips -- no more than the regular Cybertronian, which made sense: they weren't mammals, never mind organic! She didn't need wide hips to pass children through, or breast to feed it with! Her legs definitely sounded like they had dozens of more gears, though, and were bulky and lean and long. After seeing all the Autobots and Decepticons who had huge barrel-chests, it was strange to see a Cybertronian who was fairly lean on top and powerful in the legs. She was tall enough to come to the Camaro headlights on Bumblebee's chest and had the same strangely graceful way of moving -- well, mostly the same. After all, Sam didn't have flashbacks to nightmares when looking at the other Autobots. Maybe Arcee was just that scary, and no amount of cutesy metallic baby blue armor was going to change that.
"Bumblebee," she greeted -- and yeah, femme was right. They were going to be cursed with 'she' whether they liked it or not.
"Hi, Arcee," he returned, shifting on his feet. Bee quickly gestured to the humans. "This is Sam Witwicky, my ward, and Mikaela Banes who is currently Ratchet's student."
"Student, huh?" Arcee echoed, placing her claw-like hands on her hip plates as she shifted her stance. Looking down at the two humans, her various facial components moved in a benign way -- probably a smile -- while hidden motors purred in a friendly way. "Poor kid. I assume you haven't had to learn from the Hatchet directly."
" ... the Hatchet?" Mikaela echoed weakly. She had the same expression of polite if baffled disbelief she had when Bumblebee first introduced himself.
"Ratchet is known for having a temper," Bumblebee explained with embarrassment. "Especially with those who repeatedly get injured. He's a bit notorious ..."
"Notorious like a turbofox," Arcee said, amusement obvious in the clicking of her gears. Returning her attention to the two humans, she explained: "Optimus Prime's group is a bit notorious anyway -- a bit like Elita-One's chosen. Saying Ratchet is well known is like saying ..." she apparently cross referenced through the Internet, "this Catwoman character is notorious. It's more like infamous."
" ... great," Mikaela said weakly. It was not lost on either humans that Catwoman was really a gray character -- neither good nor evil.
Arcee derived some sort of cruel pleasure from this, Sam was sure. He was becoming a bit alarmed by his friend's taste in women, and wondered if it was too late to hide behind Bee. Unfortunately, that was just about when she decided to take note of him, her blue optics flickering slightly in a way that he was sure meant that there was some scanning or referencing going on somewhere in her head.
"And you're the Witwicky kid, huh?" she inquired, swiveling to face him more directly. He nodded numbly, and she looked up to cocked her head at Bumblebee. "You sure this fleshling really helped out?"
And wow, Sam had never heard that sound before. It was a strange hissing, not quiet white noise or air from a tire, but it was the only comparisons that Sam could make -- and it was coming from Bumblebee. "Sam was willing to die to protect the All Spark, Arcee," Bumblebee said, voice strangely flat -- and it seemed pretty damned likely he was using some of that audio communication that humans couldn't hear. "He denied Megatron just as any Autobot would have."
Arcee straightened and leaned away slightly, holding up both of her hands and making a pushing motion. "Alright, calm down," she said, then added something in sputtering crackles of static and car-alarm chirps. When she continued in English, her voice was slightly sulky. "I was 'teasing', anyway. I know timid characters when I see them -- and I shouldn't need to remind you that I should also know not to underestimate timid 'bots, too."
Sam wondered if this was a rerun of the 'why does the super-advanced robot turn into a piece of crap Camaro?' incident from the other side. He scratched his neck in uncertainty and shared helpless looks with Mikaela. "Is there a story we should know behind that?" he wondered. "Do they have an Autobot equivalent to the Hulk? 'You won't like me when I'm angry'?"
Both bots had to cross reference that, which was a bit surprising. He used the Hulk because he thought they would have already had the pop culture downloaded.
" ... the Hulk's normal persona is not timid," Bumblebee said, sounding baffled.
Giant walking super computers did not understand approximation, apparently. "Never mind."
After a few more moments of staring at them in puzzlement, the two shared a few quick words in their native language before Arcee switched back to English. "By the way," she said coyly, "when Ratchet gets around to the upgrades, specifically the expression masks, I think I'm going to wait until after you go."
A slight muffled whirling sound began somewhere in Bumblebee's chest. "I don't need upgrades," he said.
"Baby."
"Expression masks?" Mikaela cut in, perhaps seeing just exactly where such a conversation was going. So could Sam, but he wasn't quite sure if they wanted to be interrupted.
"Like Optimus Prime has," Arcee explained.
"Part of my mission was to collect information like that," Bumblebee said, looking down at them. "I transmitted the information back to Ratchet, who then implemented it to create the human-like face Optimus Prime sports. He specifically requested it, as we hoped to remain at peace with the humans -- especially when we discovered how sapient you were."
"So it's like learning the local customs and native language," Sam summarized tentatively. Just about every time he had tried to understand Cybertronian motive, he'd ended up being wrong.
"That is dedication," Mikaela said.
"It makes sense," Arcee said flippantly. "Humans are less likely to attack what they can empathize with."
Except that he'd been screaming and they didn't care -- even though they stopped quickly enough when he was yelling at them to stop, to let him go, they were still spraying that ice and he was screaming and they didn't stop. Sam ducked his head and rubbed at his scalp, and knew that his knuckles were white.
"And you don't want this 'expression mask'?" Mikaela asked.
"It's not that," Bumblebee said defensively.
"Then what is it?" Arcee taunted. "Should I go first? I mean, if it would help to have a bot of my model go first?"
"Model has nothing to do with it! And I don't see how such an upgrade would appeal to you, anyway."
"Hey, just because I'm a shoot-first kinda bot doesn't mean I'm not interested in the shiny extras. There's nothing to shoot -- I might as well get new toys."
Sam was seriously starting to doubt Bumblebee's taste in women.
--
Still mulling over Arcee and the afternoon spent listening to the two bots bicker -- which was strange in its own right -- Sam wandered into his house and into the living room, noting his father at the computer. "Hey, given up yet?" he asked with amusement.
"No," his dad said lightly, turning in the chair to cast him an exaggeratedly nonchalant cocky look. "Actually, I haven't been having any problems at all."
" ... wow, really?" Curiously, he came over to look at the monitor, absentmindedly setting his hand on the tower. It was warm to the touch and vibrated faintly under his fingers. To his surprise, it seemed like his father really was getting something done ... which ... was, apparently, ordering stuff off online stores. "Wow," he repeated dryly, idly patting the computer. When he realized what he was doing, he stilled his hand, vaguely embarrassed. Bumblebee seemed to have gotten him in the habit of being ... er, nice to electronics, even when they didn't have a spark. With one last pat, he withdrew the limb and tucked it safely away into a pocket.
"I don't know why I've had so much difficulty before," Ron continued, almost half to himself. "I always find what I'm looking for with this one."
Sam wasn't really paying attention to what his father was saying, though. Instead, he was staring in affront at the corner of the flat-screen monitor. "What the hell is this?" he demanded.
"Language," his father said sternly, then glanced at that. " ... I mentioned to your mother that the computer was named Gateway."
He continue to stare in horror at the glittery holographic sticker letters and flowers that curved around the corner of the screen. " ... what did the computer ever do to deserve this?"
"I don't know, son," Ron said, staring morosely at the pink and purple letters. "I just don't know."
"This has gone on long enough," Sam said fiercely. "It's time to start a rebellion -- a revolution!"
"Now, now," his father said, turning to look at him warily. "Let's not get ... carried away."
He considered it. "Are we having lasagna tonight?"
Ron picked up the bottle of anti-acids that were standing out of view and rattled it at Sam, the large chalky multi-colors pills rattling slightly.
"Then ... the revolution shall wait," he said reluctantly. "But one of these days ... one of these days ..."
"Atta boy, Sam," Ron said fondly. "Choose your battles."
Sam reflected wryly that while he was unwilling to skip lasagna night, he was apparently willing to fall off tall buildings to protect ancient alien artifacts. Choosing his battles, indeed.
-- To Be Continued --
- Arcee and her 'tribe' (more correctly: her 'function class') -- Robots: they don't has a gender. All 'she/he' is determined by the human voice they either mimic or create, because gender is human, so the other mechs respect the 'human identity' each chooses to present. For the smaller bots with congruently higher communication registers, it's simply easier to mimic female voices than search for a male voice that's high enough. (You notice how Bumblebee's voice, even if it's male, isn't deep and rumbly? He had a LONG time to search.) SO: 'she/her' bots are only female the same way Jazz is black. Does that make sense?
- RE: 'femmebot' -- this is Sam's own inability to juggle the concept of "no gender" with "you said 'she'!" It's an incorrect identifier for Arcee and her function class. Sam will eventually get this sorted out in his head. You may have noticed some foreshadowing in this chapter for the more correct term for her function class.
- "Expression Masks" and Ratchet's part in it -- He was a civilian doctor before the war. Considering the highly adaptive technobiology of Cybertronians, he would know how to induce certain transformation patterns. PLZ to be remembering that Optimus Prime's was made with second-hand knowledge, during a time of suspense and pressure. Of course it's not his best work.
- Songs: "I've got friends!" -- ("Big Ass Rock," From The Full Monty, Broadway Version)