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Bumblebee had freaked out when Lockpick had literally bolted out of his seat towards the entrance. Sure, sue him, but he had just gotten the ornery seeker back in his life as an actual living breathing bot, instead of a memory that practically haunted him, and now he had literally sprinted out of the base and was nowhere to be found outside the base, evidently having taken to the skies as soon as he was able to.
So again, sue him for being emotionally distraught for a good half an hour.
When he came back from his berthroom feeling no better but at least not crying his optics out, all of Lockpick’s siblings and the Terror Twins were no longer in the base, likely having went out to look for him, and Bee could only hope that they could find him, however unlikely.
He was routinely pinging Lockpick’s comms, and all of them came up unsent, like there was something blocking his comm suite from getting them, and that just made him more worried. What if something had happened again? He didn’t want to be alone like that again, after just getting him back! He had to live with the fact that he was the reason Lockpick was left behind on Cybertron for millenia, and honestly thought the bot was dead, especially after the spacebridge incident, and he finally gets the thief back and spends a month trying to reconnect with the seeker to various results and now he’s gone again?
This is Primus fragging with him. It has to be. Millions of years of silent pining and more of thinking that Lockpick was dead and regretting every single chance he’d missed, and now he loses him again after a human month?! There has to be some kind of intervention here, and he didn’t know what in the Pits of Kaon he did in this life or any lives before to cause this to be the divine retribution he faced. Is his suffering funny? Was it getting Primus and his thirteen Bitches off?!
There was no news. And there was also no Raf to talk to. And he was going to go fragging insane . At least until about a quarter of the day later, most of which he’d spent pacing back and forth around the hallways, always checking in for the half hour debriefs from the search party, which barely included anything in terms of information, and the only gist that he got was: “yeah no sign of him yet.”
As much as the stealth mods Lockpick had helped in their line of work on Cybertron, Bumblebee couldn’t help but curse them now. Ratchet had the medbay set up already, already having a theory about what had happened though he wouldn’t tell anyone anything, stating patient privacy and also the fact that he ‘ didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up for a false alarm. ’ Whatever that meant.
He supposed he’d find out soon, as a ping finally got through the commlink and Lockpick’s line finally lit up on the screen, and was also frustratingly vague with what he was saying and a groundbridge finally opened up to let him back into base from wherever he was.
And-
Oh. Those were sparklings. Three of them. Bumblebee felt a little weak in the knees looking at the two very small frames attached to Lockpick's chest plates with mags, with another clinging onto his shoulders and back, and nearly bluescreened in pure, devastated shock as he registered Miko's voice, which petered off as she stopped chattering and looked around at the gathered bots.
Those were the kids.
He stumbled forwards a bit, but immediately remembered what you absolutely shouldn’t do with a seeker that has sparklings, though it seemed like no one else did as they slowly advanced on him and got rewarded with an animalistic snarl and bristling plating, as well as a Disappointed Ratchet™, who ended up leading Lockpick away from the gawking crowd and the many worried bots, although Arcee and June still followed close behind.
He couldn't see much from where he was, other than a flash of yellowish orange on Lockpick's back and maybe that was a good thing, as he watched Wheeljack walk through a groundbridge hastily set up for his arrival, though he didn't have to try and help look for Miko now. She was here.
Bulkhead and Optimus seemed to be in very deep discussion, and Ratchet immediately gave Wheeljack a death glare when he started towards the med bay to take a look at what the commotion was, so it seemed that the wrecker was content to try and get information out of Bumblebee as best he could.
“So, what's going on over here in Nowhere Important, Nevada? Seems like quite the ruckus.”
‘You would not believe it. Anyways, good news, you don't have to go out looking for Miko and the others. Bad news, they uh… they got turned into sparklings.’
“...Pardon?” Wheeljack seemed completely stumped over what he had just said, despite the fact that only half of his own words made any sense to anyone outside the Wreckers on a good day.
‘You heard me. They got turned into sparklings. Lockpick disappeared for half a day because his sensors got pinged with newsparks and he immediately zeroed in on them and uh… now we're here.’
“Okay. Miko and the other kids are turned into sparklings. And you've got a broody cyberhen for a scouting partner now, don't you.” It wasn't a question. Wheeljack shakes his helm as he chuckles. “I'll grab Miko off of him, and then you can grab yours I suppose. Or maybe on second thought, you can-”
Turns out a punch to the gut can hurt even the toughest of wreckers. Nothing like giving someone a haymaker to shut em’ up.
‘Go get Miko.’
“Primus kid, you hit hard , I'm gettin’!” Wheeljack stalked back towards the medbay muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Actin’ like an overstressed sire already’ and Bumblebee, blue in the faceplates as he could be, was tempted to run back and punch him in the face to add to the scars he already has. He deserved it, he totally did, but Bumblebee was a paragon of patience thankfully, and abstained from giving his faceplates a whack to match his abdomen.
Bumblebee watched as Wheeljack walked into the medbay, sort of reluctantly, and walked back out of the medbay with one very talkative barnacle attached to his plating, and a knowing smile on his face.
Bee didn't like that smile, and he also didn't like the comm that suddenly pinged in the corner of his vision. He avoided opening it until he was sure Wheeljack wasn’t looking at him.
:You should see your bitlet. Looks like you and a certain someone back in the medbay. Though, I’d say good luck on actually getting a look at him.:
What in the Pits was he talking about? He assumed Wheeljack meant Raf but what did he mean by any of that?!
But a silver streak that shot up to the rafters not long after and a wordless scream of confusion and aggravation from their medic let him know that he'd likely know sooner than later.
Poking his helm into the medbay, he sees a very frustrated Ratchet grumbling under his breath about something, and- oh that is a mini Cliffjumper what the frag- Arcee and June comforting who he assumed to be Jack on a berth, though with how teary eyed they were themselves it was hard to tell who was comforting who.
‘Hey Ratchet, what just happened- Oh Primus-’ He nearly bolted as the full force of Ratchets glare came down upon him before it softened and Ratchet let out the most long-suffering sigh Bumblebee has ever heard him make, and that was saying something considering that time when Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had done something extraordinarily stupid and forgot to consider the fact that Jazz was easily spooked and full of knives.
“Your partner just hissed at me and flew up into the fragging rafters. I have no idea why, but he did it. Took Raf with him before I could get a proper scan on either of them.” Bumblebee winced, and filed away the mention of the word partner as scouting partner, “If you could find him that'd be great, because the rest of the blockhelms that we have searching for him currently have their comms muted, and I don't think they're coming back any time soon either.”
Thinking about it, Bumblebee didn't know if there was a way into the rafters that didn't involve flying, but he's a little (really) worried about Lockpick being this deep into his own coding, leaving him closer to a broody hen rather than a seeker.
As he walks out of the medbay, Bumblebee looks at his surroundings. The rafters weren’t too far up for any regularly sized bot, looking more like an attic space in a hab rather than the frankly dizzying height it might have been for a human. The only unfortunate thing is that there wasn’t a built in way for them to get up there, not anything that was too precarious, like the large pile of crates that seemed to reach-
He turns to get a better look at the crates that were stacked to look precarious, though judging by what he knew about structural integrity, it looked sound. At least at the bottom. He couldn’t say anything about the top.
Climbing those crates was a bad idea. Logically, he knew that if he climbed and fell from that height, his armor would crack open like a crab shell. It would be a hasta la vista to being online, a one way trip to The Well of Allsparks that everyone would be disappointed in him for getting there that way,
He climbs up the boxes.
Bumblebee hauled himself up to a matching pair of burning blue optics and a visor displaying two dots that widened at him and a few sparklinglike burbles as who he assumed was Raf reached towards him happily. Lockpick seemed tame enough that he hauled himself the rest of the way onto a well hidden platform welded onto the rafters of the missile silo. It was a nice nest, reminded him of one very warm winter that he only slept halfway through, and spent the other with Lockpick in a cold living room sipping warmed energon.
But Raf made the air in his vents still until overheating warnings clicked on in his vision. Wheeljack was not kidding when he said that Raf looked like he could be their creation.
The only thing that seemed out of place was the v-shaped visor that covered most of the chubby sentio metallico that made up Raf's face. The rest seemed as if you had put Lockpick in a rock tumbler and this was what came out. His helm had the distinctive gladiator shape that Lockpick's had, almost making his visor look like a heart, and still had the helm crest, but instead of being spiky it seemed to go all the way back. He had only one set of rounded audial fins, and they twitched as Raf happily cheeped at him.
He was adorable. Simple as that. Bumblebee looked back up at Lockpick, and sent him a comm. It would be easier than forming words right now.
:You hissed at Ratchet. He’s really confused. Is that Raf?: The last question was nearly unnecessary, as he scooted closer to put a gentle servo on Lockpick's shoulder pauldron, barely paying attention to anything but the bitlet and his scouting partner.
Lockpick responded in a helm-spinning mixture of clicking and chirps (‘tired-caretaker?-affirmative-little-beetle’) that Bumblebee barely kept up with before the jet's engine growled as he cut himself off, frustrated with himself. Bumblebee laughed as he glared down at his palms, though it came out more breathy and relieved.
:You’re really deep into the instinct slump huh? The last time it was this bad was the last winter cycle we hibernated during and you half woke up and hoarded Bluestreak and Springer.: He paused to let them share a chuckle, though Lockpick’s laugh was more of a humorless huff, before continuing. :Do you need anything? Ratchet’s probably going to ask me to bring up a medical scanner to make sure that… both of you are alright once I come down.:
Lockpick paused before starting to chitter again, ‘Energon-food-little beetle’ with subglyphs of concern and hunger. For both him and Raf, then. He'd… need to see if Ratchet had a way to refine sparkling grade out of the rations they had already.
Oh, who is he kidding, Bulkhead would have destroyed it by now if they did.
He climbs down again, and he could see why no one knew where exactly Lockpick was. It was well disguised and well hidden, and he smiled to himself about the cleverness of the seeker. This was par for the course, Lockpick was always the smarter out of the two of them, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t surprised occasionally by his smarts showing in even the smallest of ways. Bumblebee hadn’t even noticed that the boxes had been moved until he was actively looking for a way up. Deception and sleight of servo were always Lockpick’s strong suits.
Ratchet caught him almost as soon as he touched the floor with a sigh of strained relief. “So I’m assuming you caught him? Good. I’m assuming he’s likely dealing with a low energon loadout, but I’m more concerned about the kid than I am with him. He can survive for a little longer without energon than a sparkling can. Anything else?”
‘No. He’s really deep in his coding though. You might have scared him.’
Ratchet sighs again, muttering something about flighty seekers. “Let’s hope he doesn’t stay this broody then. We need all servos on deck to fight MECH, now that they’re high priority since they’ve learned how to create sparklings out of human children . Optimus has been thinking of contacting the Decepticons about this, but I’m trying to talk him out of it. Not to say that we’re completely ready for a conflict like this currently, but none of the Decepticons are exactly… sane. I wouldn’t trust them with the knowledge of sparklings or the fact that they can be made here for my own existence, especially with how unstable the few seekers left are.”
‘Just say Starscream, it’s easier.’ Bumblebee sighs, tinny and high, and sits back down on an empty berth. Stressful day for everyone involved, including himself, though he might have been at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to stress (stress-induced heresy earlier in the day cycle not included).
Bumblebee watched as best he could as Ratchet puttered around the lab, messing with the filters and muttering to himself about energon refining, but he’d never been much of a science mech, especially not on the fuel side of things, but he knew how important something like this was.
Their filters were as best they could be, jury-rigged together as they were, but nothing that they could get out of it was anywhere near sparkling grade, much less sparkling safe. Low-grade wouldn't kill a full grown mech, might upset their tanks if they were really used to midgrade, but it was risky feeding it to sparklings. Their tanks weren't as hardy as an older mech’s, and were more susceptible to contaminants, something that their filters weren’t exactly built for.
Bumblebee was worried about what would happen if they couldn't make sparkling safe fuel. He was pretty sure that if they lost the kids now, it was practically a death sentence for both their morale and their mental health, not to mention their human allies would also likely turn on them for letting them die.
Agent Fowler had already been called to be briefed about the situation, and Bumblebee was worried about that, with it gnawing at the back of his processor like a scraplet. The American government had all legal rights and ground to stand on to demand that they were somehow returned to being human, and all the Autobots had was the kids' opinions on being Cybertronians and whether they wanted to be returned to human.
There was also the problem of whether it would harm Raf, given how early he was in Cybertronian development, to change him back to a human. It was plausible, with how changing between different mental states so quickly might be bad, but no one was entirely sure, given that they'd ever had to check or test that, given that it had never happened before.
There was also the problem of Lockpick being broody about Raf. Lockpick seemed to have no problem with him being around Raf, which had several… implications, multiple of which nearly made his processor stall out, flustered by the logical ends of those implications. All of which included him being considered a parent if not a co-parent.
Bumblebee knew that most of those implications were unlikely to be true at best anyways. It was most likely (about 60%) that it was just the implicit trust that scouting partners needed to function properly as a unit. Sometimes it turned romantic, sure, but Lockpick had never shown any kind of inclinations or interest in him back on Cybertron, and after 4 million years of separation, why would he now?
He was fine with that.
He was fine with that! Even if his servos still shook from the memories of blaster fire from their last moments together. Even if he still had recharge fluxes about the unspoken apology in Lockpick’s optics as he hugged him one last time and then shoved him onto the ship as the doors started closing and made no effort to get in with Bumblebee. Even if he had spent years aching for just one more touch, his spark aching like it was starving for something more than energon to soothe the emotional wound it left.
He was fine with just the trust and implicit sense of belonging they shared.
For sure. No other underlying feelings involved here, no sir.
Bumblebee came back to the forefront of his processor as Ratchet finally made a few positive grumbles, instead of the negative frustration that he had been humming out before. A positive development in the sparkling grade, then, and he watched a bit longer as Ratchet started switching parts out like he had found the secret of eternal life.
Bumblebee started to retreat back inwards into his processor to stew, until a dark blue servo on his shoulder pauldron moored him. Ah. Arcee. He turned and slipped off the berth as she motioned for him to follow her.
He almost wondered if they hadn't really gotten rid of Makeshift as she led him to a secluded corner, until she slumped to the floor and motioned for him to sit down next to her.
The last time they had done this was when Cliffjumper was killed. It was a tradition that had first started when they first got on the ship off of a dead Cybertron, just after he'd stormed out, nearly burning what little of his vocoder was left out of his own throat screaming at Optimus about how his best friend was more than just a sacrifice for the greater good, doing it both for Prowl who was absently standing at his Prime’s left, still staring at the missing members of the crew, most of which were his unit, his family , and for himself, left with a burning in his spark and on his plating where he was shoved into the ship by one of the last bots he had ever wanted to leave on that stupid planet.
Arcee had found him then and sat next to him in solidarity and comfort. Just sitting near him until Ratchet and First Aid had caught up with them and dragged Bumblebee to the medbay to try and save him from being fully mute since his half broken vocoder was still steaming from overuse as they sat in silence. He only got out garbled half words throughout the speech, but he never truly spoke since then.
Arcee sighed. Opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it for a few minutes, simply sitting until she could get her thoughts together. “Do you feel like we've failed them?”
‘What?’
“The kids. Do you think we failed them? Do you think if we had tried harder they would still be human?” Arcee's voice wavered as she spoke, and Bumblebee scooted closer in response.
‘...Maybe. It's not very productive though, is it? Thinking about our failures. You said that to me after we left and I couldn't get myself out of a processor loop about him.’ Bumblebee remembers the weightlessness of his own frame as he stumbled through his day to day tasks as people were being taken in by Teletraan-1 to be put into stasis. He remembers the whirring codes as he set his own body on autopilot, retreating into his own processor. Could I have saved him? Delete. Could I have saved him? Delete. Could I have saved him? Delete. ‘What matters more now is that we support them in whatever way they decide to go now. I'm pretty sure Miko would balk at being turned back into a human.’
“You got that much right!” Finally, a laugh! “She's with June and Jack right now, talking their audials off about how great she feels. Well. Audials and ears.”
She sobers again, and Bumblebee inclines his helm. “June's gonna be left in the dust. If we could ever go back to Cybertron, we'd have to take the kids with us. I'd feel… horrible about leaving her here. Alone.”
Bumblebee nods as she talks and bumps her with his shoulder plating. ‘I don't think it’s going to happen for a while yet.’
‘I don't know whether I want to go back to a place full of that many bad memories,’ remains unsaid, as it has all of these years.
Bumblebee was practically born into the war. It started when he was in his first upgrades. It hadn't ended yet. He didn't think it would ever end, not for him. He didn't think he could go back to that place. He'd never known it without the war raging around him. He feels like he'd bring the war back with him.
Arcee laughed, though it was more of a sharp sob. “I suppose that might be true.” Silence for a little while longer, then: “He looks like Cliff. I don't think anything could have prepared me for anything like this.”
Bumblebee could empathize with that, at least.
Like the first time they did this, Ratchet hunts them down about an hour later with fuel for their newly gained sparklings and a strict order: “Stop moping around, you have kids to take care of!”
Bumblebee tromps off towards the stack of crates with his subspace full of energon cubes and a portable medical scanner, and waves as Arcee carries cubes for herself and Jack and a sandwich and a water bottle for June.
The pile of crates loomed above him. Time to climb again. The boxes were surprisingly stable with how haphazardly they seemed to be placed. It was deceptively easy to climb, that he barely remembered to turn on his balance stabilizers.
Turning them on ended up saving his life as a sudden hiss and the clank of armor plates locking into place nearly startled him off the edge as he placed the cubes on the platform. The hiss died out like the sputter of an old engine, and he locked eyes with a suddenly sheepish Lockpick, curled protectively over a half asleep Raf, who was peeping at him like a baby bird.
Bumblebee watched carefully as Lockpick backed off from the protective stance to an embarrassed and awkward slump in the nest, though the seeker still snatched a cube and sat up to start drinking it when Bumblebee offered it once he was settled, and watched as it was sipped carefully.
It was a quiet moment, Raf cooing and burbling as he reached towards Bumblebee from the confines of Lockpick’s lap. Bumblebee could visually see when Raf started to feel hungry, and looked towards Lockpick, who unceremoniously upended the entire cube of energon into his mouth, and picks up the small cube of sparkling grade
Despite the fact that Raf was being extremely calm about being picked up to be fed, Lockpick was still losing the battle between his claws and the cube, with how small both of them were in his servos. Bumblebee watches as he struggles with the small sparkling and even smaller cube for a while, internally grimacing.
He sighs, and wordlessly sends Lockpick a glyph of support and picks up the sparkling who squeals in happiness upon being picked up by him, and the small cube as Lockpick processes the comm, and starts coaxing him to start drinking from the small cube, sending an apology thats responded to a bit flippantly but accepted, only looking back at his scouting partner as he curled around where Bumblebee is seated in the nest, and he has to look away as his cladding shifts in embarrassment from the expression of tired adoration on the seekers face, half pressed into his thigh plating.
This was entirely more domestic than Bumblebee was used to or had ever really experienced, and it felt like he had died and no one could decide what afterlife to send him to. A tap to his thigh plating stops him in his tracks, lifting the cube from Raf's intake, who squeaks satedly and squirms to get comfortable as Bumblebee puts him back down on the blanketed floor against his legs.
He reaches for the medical scanner and is setting it up to Ratchet's exacting standards when he feels a slight warble of anxiety brushing against his own field, and the creaky whine of Lockpick's engine. He turns towards Lockpick sending a concerned comm and was answered by an overwhelming anxiety and worry from the seekers field being let out of its constraints for a few nanokliks, and then covertly pulled back to simmering in his core before he disturbed Raf from his post feeding stupor.
It seems Lockpick doesn't like his answer, suggesting that he could stay home until the codes simmered down on their own, giving out a stab of annoyance that buzzed across his plating like a scraplet before dissipating, and was immediately followed by an apology like a salve.
Bumblebee can hear the entrance open and close and the immediate chatter as the most talkative of the full team come back in, finally having gotten the comm to come back and get debriefed by Optimus.
He can't hear the specifics as well as Lockpick probably could, probably just what Bumblebee told Wheeljack when he asked, though probably more clinically, knowing his adoptive creator, and undercut by a single scathing warning from Ratchet to not stress Lockpick out any further than he already was. Ha. Like they’d actually follow that.
Bumblebee fiddles with the medical scanner some more with one servo, using the other to absently play with Raph, letting the little flier grab onto one of his digits and pulling away occasionally, and then waving it back in front of the seekerling's face enticingly so that he’d grab it again.
Eventually, he got the finicky thing to work, and scanned Raf without much trouble, thank Primus for that. He had to help wrangle sparklings, and he knew as a sparkling, from the scant amount of stories he got from his biological carrier, he had hated getting medical scans done. Most sparklings did. It was a wonder that he was this calm in general, to be completely honest, though that might have just been Raf’s nature showing through.
Then he shifted a little to scan Lockpick, who sat up a little, but otherwise didn’t even twitch at the buzz, looking like he was almost in recharge, which Bumblebee couldn’t fault him for. Long day, especially for him, getting hit in the mental faceplates with coding that he wasn’t used to and didn’t have homebrew patches on servo, and being so invested in caring about Raf now.
Bumblebee almost didn’t have the heart to leave him there after the whine Lockpick’s engines let out as he shifted a little farther to get up. It seemed instinctual, with no indication that Lockpick even knew he made it. As he placed a sleepy Raf next to his caretaker, he scooted completely out of range from grabby servos, to the more mournful sound of two whines.
These seekers were going to be the death of him.