Work Text:
Title: Bug On a Mission
Rating: T for Mild Language
Characters/Pairings: Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Bob
Genre: Humor/Fluff/Crack
Verse: IDW
Bob wasn't used to being around all these different smells. In fact he found them extremely confusing. They smelled nothing like Cybertron, and sometimes when he caught a whiff of something interesting he'd snort dirt, or something equally irritating into his olfactory sensors and sneeze.
That's how he found himself in his current predicament. After Sunstreaker had been released from Ratchet's care, he had been moving around quite a bit, walking from here to there, transforming and driving off in a cloud of dust, sometimes alone, and sometimes with Sideswipe. The two of them laughing and making a racket- and leaving poor Bob behind in the confusion.
The twins' rambunctious and often violent play had lasted quite a bit longer than usual, and Bob was getting lonely. Sure he was surrounded by mechs of various sizes and shapes, but Ironhide was the only other mech, besides Sideswipe, who really paid him any mind. Most avoided him, some were even openly hostile and chased him off or made threats. Bob didn't know exactly how to react to this. Sure some of his old swarm mates were a bit unpredictable and extra aggressive, but most didn't attack their own.
So, bored and tired of waiting, he'd gone searching for Sunstreaker, following the faint scent of tire treads, mechanical lubricants and that scented wax Sideswipe had given to Sunstreaker just a couple of days ago. He knew what he was looking for, and the general direction he needed to go, and galloped his way out of Autobot base in search of his master.
It wasn't long before he had to stop, having lost the scent of his prey for a moment. His nose pressed to the ground as he took several loud huffs through his olfactory sensors, blowing up a cloud of dust to try and capture any faint scent particles.
There!
With his face pressed to the ground he followed the trail and bumbled face first into a hive of bees hanging low to the ground. The loud buzzing cloud of flying insects swarmed around his head, making him jerk back and rear in surprise, crab-like forelimbs flailing in an attempt to fend off his attackers as they tried to sting him.
While the bees were harmless, their singers unable to puncture his heavily armored plating, the sudden loud noise had spooked him. He fled, as fast as his thick, low-slung, heavy frame would allow, diving behind a large group of boulders some distance away. When nothing followed he peeked out from his hiding place, optics flickering, shutters blinking in confusion.
He decided he didn't particularly like that swarm... whatever they were, and concluded he needed to be a bit more careful where he was walking from now on. Flattening his belly to the ground, Bob carefully crawled out from behind his shelter of boulders, slinking back towards where he'd last tracked Sunstreaker's scent.
He wasn't going to let some noisy flying things stop him from completing his mission!
It wasn't long before he located the scent again, after skirting carefully around those noisy flying things first of course. He was quite proud of this accomplishment, and trotted down the dusty desert path as if he hadn't a care in the world. That is until he stepped into a gopher hole and tripped, landing on his face in the dirt.
He yelped as his chin struck the ground, nearly tumbling ass over tea kettle, his rear legs whirling in the air for a moment before he managed to get them back on the ground. Grunting and growling in frustration, he had to struggle to pull himself out of the shallow sink hole his heavy frame had created when it landed.
He sat on his haunches and glared at the hole in front of him. That wasn't there a second ago and now it was in his way. How many surprises was he going to trip over before he found his quarry? This was starting to get annoying.
And just as he was debating whether he was going to keep blundering into things or not, he heard the roar of high-performance engines. His head snapping up, swiveling from side to side before he spotted the source of the noise. A cloud of dust billowed just over the horizon, the sun glinting off the metal plating of two Lamborghinis as the two spun donuts around each other.
His decision made for him, he stood and jumped over the sink hole, lumbering at top speed towards the cloud of dust and the noise. He could smell them, the dust coating their frames, the hot metal, their exuberance, the faint scent of ozone- He chuffed, emitting a series of loud chirps and clicks as he neared them and they came screeching to a halt, transforming before the dust settled.
"Bob?" Sunstreaker asked as he charged and sprang into the air.
"Holy slag!" Sideswipe shouted, trying to dive out of the way as the insecticon came crashing down on top of the both of them with a loud clang. The red frontliner grunted as Bob's head smacked into his, the insecticon purring loudly. "Hi Bob."
Sunstreaker laughed, "I guess there's no hope of escaping you, is there?" Bob just chuffed again, turning his attention to Sunstreaker next and smacking his head into the golden mech's palm as he tried to protect his helm from Bob's rather enthusiastic love. "I'll take that as a no."