Work Text:
It was less of a fight and more like a game for them at this point.
They were engaging in their little charade, while the sounds of battle, loud crashes and blaster shots of their respective teams were echoing among the concrete forest of columns that was the underside of the speedway.
Blitzwing put fractional effort into maintaining the impression that his actual goal of this encounter was to crush the Autobots' most infuriating scout to bits, but he was holding back his strength a notch or two and his aim was strangely off today. Bumblebee was playing along, showing off his speed and agility, weaving between the columns, provoking a chase Blitzwing was gladly about to fall for, when from behind the concrete supporting arch, right where Bumblebee was racing to, rose the enormous form of Lugnut.
All fun and games, but this time Blitzwing had let them drift too close to the actual threat.
Lugnut was busy fighting the Autobot leader and the wrecker, but as Bumblebee landed in the range of Lugnut's reach, it took one swing of his massive servo to send the petite minibot crushing to the hard wall of the arch with shattering impact.
Blitzwing froze on instinct with wide optics, feeling in his dentas the crunching sound of a powerful crash.
Bumblebee's lithe form collapsed onto the ground with a heavy thud as chunks of concrete fell crumbling atop of him, further denting his armor like a tin can.
Slag. Blitz realized how serious it was when Bee's optics dimmed and went offline.
Shame, they had so much fun.
The loud shout of the ‘bot Leader alerted the other Autobots, and Blitzwing watched dumbly as Team Prime rushed in panic to Bumblebee's limp frame lying beneath debris, unresponsive.
The rescue accompanied by frantic shouting was conducted in the blink of an optic, the medic transformed, the ninja extricated Bee's lifeless frame from the rumble and laid it inside the ambulance that as soon as Bee's unconscious frame was well secured, screeched away, vanishing from the battlefield and out of sight.
The mechanism controlling Blitzwing's switches whirred, but blocked in time.
Now that he recovered his processor activity, it took great effort to hold back his more impulsive sides from taking over and acting on the anger at his killjoy partner.
It was just their fun little game — Bee wasn't supposed to actually get his back strut cracked. On the other side: what else was there to expect? On the battlefield they were on opposite sides, meant to harm one another, and he couldn't exactly tell Lugnut not to go for the yellow one.
Occupational hazard, he supposed.
A substantial force struck him on the back of his helm, causing him to nearly lose his balance, his audials rung.
It was Lugnut, smacking him on his helm.
"Stop glitching, or did that puny Autobot manage to crack your processor?"
Blitzwing nearly blasted him with his cannons, but instead of Hothead, Random replied, cackling maniacally.
"You certainly cracked his, no doubt!"
He spun back and, gaining consciousness of his surroundings, he noted the Autobots had retreated and that Lugnut was holding the device the whole fight was about.
"We're done here," Lugnut said, "our Glorious Leader awaits." With that he transformed and took off, not waiting for Blitzwing, who stood there for a moment, staring at the crumbled wall, contemplating. He approached the pile of rubble that had broken off the concrete arch, spotting something reflective — scattered among the debris were shatters of Bumblebee's tinted windshield stained with drying energon.
It looked like he wasn't going to see the yellow bug for a while, he thought, before transforming and setting off after his partner.
The whole night he spent as Random, which forfeited the already slim chances of falling into recharge. Today's events and the mass of conflicted thoughts thrashing his processor was too much to withstand for anyone else but his already mad persona, so he just laid in the cave on his makeshift berth, letting the unfamiliar emotions be processed whichever way Random did it.
After that night, he decided that that incident took entirely too much of his processor power and his recharge time to be left without a closure. For the sake of relative peace of mind.
Without any means of communication with Bumblebee — a precautionary mean that was now backfiring — Blitzwing had to resign himself to making rounds in his scarce spare time of the spots that Bumblebee most often patrolled, waiting in hope he'd see the yellow minicar with a black stripe.
Just seeing him functioning would be enough, then he could at least focus on other things than the little yellow buzzing bug.
"Teeny weeny buzzy bug smashed into the wall~" Random sang quietly. He hadn't even felt the switch.
The clouds scattered sparingly across the sky did little to mask the dark heavy jet flying to and fro over the forest; the yellow vehicle wasn't too inconspicuous among the green mass of trees either.
Blitzwing's optics lit up when he saw.
He spotted the clearing where Bee was heading to. He dived as fast as his heavy mode allowed, barreling straight down with wind howling under his wings, transforming in the air and landing with a powerful thud rumbling through the ground, just in time, as Bee entered the clearing, simply driving in.
No screeching wheels, no drifts, or donuts, no showing off. Then he simply transformed, just normally, an odd, distant look on his face.
At first glance the Autobot seemed fine, armor buffed, windshield in place, paint job redone. Everything was in order, but as the bot approached closer, Blitzwing was assaulted with a buzzing mess of Bee's EM field. He could almost feel the acrid electrostatic invading his olfactory sensors.
“You're back in commission." Blitzwing observed in lieu of a greeting, deciding not to mention the turmoil in the air around the Autobot.
Bee pressed his lips into a thin line, looking increasingly distressed. "Yeah, kinda…" He mumbled, as his EM field grew wobbly, distorted by the nerves. "Blitzwing,” Bee decided to skip the pointless preamble, “can we talk?"
His full name in all its seriousness was enough of a cue for Blitzwing to kneel on one knee, reducing their height difference. Regardless of whether he was going to get ditched or asked to run away together, he wanted to be able to look the small bot relatively straight into his optics when he said no to both of the options.
Bumblebee squirmed, the distraught look in his dimmed optics, the way he bit his inner derma and kept silent for a few torturous nano-kliks made Blitzwing think that if one of his hypotheses was right, it was the first one.
Aww, no— Random spinned into control, pulling an exaggerated frown. "You're dumping me?"
"—They know everything."
Bumblebee said at the same time, cutting Random's whine off, then paused, thrown off-balance.
Blitzwing's optics widened. Immediately, Icy was back, the color fading from his face plates.
"You told them about us?" He breathed out, disbelief taking over his voice, and Bee knew Icy was barely staying in charge, only mere inches from losing it.
Bumblebee cringed and nodded, too unnerved to repeat the dreadful truth. "I'm sorry!" He choked out in a pathetically high voice. "I didn't have a choice— it was too obvious, anyway! They started guessing ! And it's not like there's a lot of mechs on this planet, so eventually they figured it out— It's not my fault! ”
Blitzwing stared at him, tense and eerily silent for a good moment, before he tilted his head and said with his usual calmness. “I think… I fried my circuits trying to understand what you just said.” A whirr and a cackle — he leaned forward, closer to his itty-bitty bug. “Can you make sense this time? I want to know exactly what I'll be killing you for!”
The ominous grin in too close proximity made Bumblebee take a step back, even if he knew Blitz was just toying with him.
“Promise you won't be mad.”
Blitzwing laughed. “I can't promise that, silly.”
“Then promise you won't kill me.” Metaphorically, or not. Bee desperately needed a safety guarantee.
Blitzwing made a show of thinking, then beamed. “Okay, I won't.”
“And quit messing with me. It's serious.”
Blitzwing changed to his default persona, looking mildly annoyed, and said flatly, “You have a lot of requests, bug.”
“It's just, you're not helping,” Bee mumbled, squaring up to deliver the news. It was hard not to feel disheartened by Blitzwing's cold attitude. Bumblebee had to remind himself that it was just how Blitz often was, which… considering what Bee was about to tell him, wasn't uplifting at all.
“Remember when we fought and I was… you know?”
“Slammed into the hard concrete? Oooh vividly! ”
“Right. So I was in stasis lock when they took me to the med bay, and Ratchet repaired me and, uh… made some scans…” he paused, futilely hoping Blitzwing would somehow catch on already.
It was unsurprising when he received an unconvinced look.
“And?” Blitz deadpanned. “The scans showed you're fragging a Decepticon?”
“No! I-I mean, they showed something that kinda gave it away…” Bee supplied, his bright blue optics were wide and pleading when he looked at the large mech, praying Blitz would understand.
Blitzwing's optic narrowed and he fell into hesitant silence.
“Your… broken seal?” He made a clueless guess, and Bumblebee groaned in embarrassment and defeat.
“Just spit it out, insect!” Hothead snapped, growing tired of playing charades.
Bumblebee's faceplates hardened as he stifled the disappointment and anguish at Blitzwing's indelicacy. He already felt vulnerable and he hadn't even gotten to the worst part yet, and the lack of consideration or even just simple patience on Blitzwing's part multiplied his distress.
Since he couldn't bring himself to say it, he chose the fastest, most effective way.
The mechanism holding his chest armor clicked and snapped open, the plates retracted, revealing the insides of his spark chamber.
A disoriented look flashed on Blitzwing's face as he knelt in silence, staring at Bumblebee's bared spark. An universal gesture, yet in this context Blitzwing didn't know how to interpret it. It was sudden and dumb on the Autobot's part, and he struggled to process what made the small bot think it was a good place and time for such an intimate act as merging sparks.
“Say something.” Bee's voice was hasty and full of distress.
Blitzwing met his optics, his expression solemn and regretful. “Don't you think bonding right now is a rather stupid idea?”
Bumblebee's face fell, he refused to believe that Blitzwing just said that, even if that wasn't at all what he was trying to do. “No, that's not—” He shook his head, swallowing the sorrow and gritting his dentas. “Blitz, I'm not showing you my spark!” He shouted, letting the frustration take over his voice.
He craned his neck and looked into his chamber, bringing a finger near his spark and pointing at something that Blitzwing hadn't indeed seen, because it was so small and barely-there that there was no chance of spotting it from his position. “There, see?”
With cautious hesitance Blitzwing leaned closer, his monocular rotated with a quiet whirr as he zoomed in on the small ball of light that pulsed fast and shone bright and strong with subtle blue hue. It was so small and mesmerizing, but Bee was pointing at something else. Next to it, a microscopic speck of light nestled close to Bee's spark.
“Is that—” Blitzwing cut himself off, a sudden realization strangling his voice as he stared at the small dot that flickered weakly. To a mech Blitzwing's size it was barely larger than a grain of sand and, to his extremely limited knowledge, he doubted it was supposed to look like that.
Bumblebee looked mortified as their optics met. His chest plates slid back into place, covering his spark along with the new discovery. An eerie silence fell.
“Blitz— say something, please… a-are you mad?”
“I don't think so, no.” Blitzwing answered calmly as the initial shock subsided. He added after a thoughtful pause, “Is it supposed to be that small?”
A sad expression dimmed Bee's features, he looked away, feeling the coolant prickling its way into his optics. “No. It's still traumatized after the impact. Ratchet had to manually stabilize it so it wouldn't snuff out.” He mumbled.
He already felt guilty after Ratched had chewed him out for engaging in a fight sparked.
If only he'd known that beforehand.
His team had taken it with a various degree of enthusiasm, starting off with Ratchet's negative to Sari's happy squeal about being an aunt. Prowl and Bulkhead had been in the middle, trying to show some support, but underneath was lying uncertainty and unease, the same had been with Optimus, though not without a stern lecture and relentless questioning about the sire.
He'd been too scared to tell them the truth, so they'd started guessing.
After naming every Autobot Bee might knew and not getting an answer, outraged and with great disapproval they'd switched to the opposing faction. It'd been an easy guess after figuring that hitch out, so they'd gotten it right the first Con they'd named.
Blitzwing?
Bumblebee had cringed and closed his eyes, defeated.
“What are we going to do?” Bumblebee asked, aware that their situation was full of uncertainty and unsolvable issues.
Blitzwing with all his stoicism only shrugged. “Nothing, yet. There's still a lot of time.”
“Yeah, but after, when the sparkling emerges.” Bee urged for an answer. He told himself that it was his and Blitzwing's decision to make, together, but the reality was that, mostly, it were their circumstances and outside factors that dictated their fate. He'd hoped that Blitzwing at least would show more engagement, comfort him, tell him everything was going to be alright…
“You're weirdly calm about it, it's pretty big news and you're taking it like it's nothing…” Bee mumbled, tentatively, admitting Blitzwing's emotionless reaction was only making him more anxious.
There was a ray of fondness in Blitzwing's optics, the same as when Bumblebee said something charmingly stupid or naive. “Because it changes nothing for me, Bumblebee. At least not much. Your team will think up a good plan, they might even have one already and it's doubtful that it includes much of my involvement.”
“But I want you in the picture, if— if you want… Do you even want it? To be a creator with me? It's your sparkling, too.” Bee rumbled desperately, pressing a servo to his chest, as if to remind Blitzwing about the small spark blooming inside.
The desperate hopefulness persistent in the yellow bot's wide blue optics and his wobbly EM field finally stirred a dull instinct to comfort and soothe his little distressed bug.
He raised his large servo and traced where the coolant had left wet tracks on Bee's face. Immediately, Bumblebee clinged to his hand, projecting relief and neediness through his field, pressing his cheek into it as more coolant followed the same tracks Blitzwing just wiped off with his thumb.
“Tell me you want it.” Bee pleaded, tired, seeking reassurance.
Blitzwing exvented, having no mercy, “I wouldn't have fragged you, if I'd known your reproduction protocols were active.” He said honestly, caressing Bee's head, bringing him into a hug as the small bot's optics blurred and he crumbled under the stress and exhaustion.
Blitz let him take his time.
He sat more comfortably on the ground and patiently held his sparked bug close to his chest for as long as it took for the sobbing to quiet down. After a while the minibot stirred in Blitzwing's arms, wiping his face.
“I want it.” He said quietly, with purpose. “I don't care if you don’t.”
Blitzwing respected that, even if it wasn't entirely truthful. He might've not deliberately wanted it, but since it was currently on the way, he found himself neither wanting nor completely rejecting the newspark. It was just still too abstract to make promises.
“Can I have your private comm frequency?”
Bumblebee pulled away a little to look at him with dimmed optics. “You said it was too risky to contact each other.”
“It is. But I was worried and couldn't even check if you're still online. It was driving me crazy.” Blitzwing's subtle expression turned into a jagged smile, “I think my last few good screws have loosened because of you!”
A small smile appeared on Bee's faceplates. Then it grew unstoppably along with a warm, pleasant feeling inside his chest. He pressed his face into the crook of Blitz's neck and nuzzled the warm surface, compartmentalizing Blitzwing's words in the front of his memory bank, so he could easily come back to the memory of Blitzy admitting he cared about him.
Blitz hugged him even tighter, almost crushing him, but Bumblebee didn't mind. He'd take all the affection he could get.
“Next time Lugnut mashes you into scrap metal I want to know if there's anything left for me to get back to!” Random cackled, snuffing the warmth of the moment with his dark humor.
Bee pressed his lips in a tight smile. “There won't be a next time, glitchhead.”
“You never know~” Blitz sing-sung, releasing Bumblebee from his hold and dragging himself into a standing position, with the blue faceplates back in place. Through the proximity link he dropped Bee his own private frequency, receiving the yellow bot's in return.
“See you soon?” Bumblebee asked, never certain when their next meeting would be.
Blitzwing, ready to transform, halted, surprising the yellow bot when he leaned, closing distance between them, and kissed Bee gently on the lips.
“I'll message you when I can.”
With that he transformed and took off, heavy engines rumbling as he disappeared from the view.
Bumblebee wished he'd stayed a bit longer, but he couldn't complain. It had gone better than he'd expected — he felt incredibly down and hollow, but at least Blitzwing didn't hate him or outrightly refuse to have anything to do with him, which, considering the many obstacles standing in their way, should be more than enough.
He had Blitzy's private commlink, which was also a good sign.
He pulled up his HUD and opened the newly acquired channel. He knew Blitzwing wouldn't be happy about him already overusing the connection, but just this once.
It wasn't a long text, just an emoji really.
<3
A reply came a few cycles later. Bee stared at it as his spark sank.
:)