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“Bumblebee, wha–?” Optimus blinked down at the sparkling, who had climbed into his berth and curled in against his side and was staring back at him with huge, overbright optics.
“Had a bad dream,” the sparkling said, lip trembling.
”Oh,” Ratchet had warned him that this might be an issue, though he had hoped they would have one restful recharge before it happened. “All right. We’ll recharge together, then.”
Bumblebee nodded and tucked his head down, making himself small and barely touching Optimus while he tried to self-soothe. It broke his spark a little to see. Whatever had happened in his life before they found him in the ruins of Stanix, had left a mark that would take a long time to heal.
“You are allowed to touch me, Bumblebee.” Optimus reached down and, rather than simply put a comforting hand on the sparkling, he carefully scooped him up. Then he placed him on his chest, so that Bumblebee could feel his spark resonance and hopefully be soothed by his sparkbeat. “Isn’t that better?”
Bumblebee looked at him, optics still wide with fear, and nodded.
“All right, then. Now let's try to recharge. Unless you want to tell me about your nightmare?”
The sparkling shook his head.
“Recharge then.” This time, Optimus did put a soothing hand on Bumblebee’s back, though it resulted in covering most of him like a blanket. “Would you like a lullabye?”
Optimus wasn’t sure Bumblebee even knew what a lullabye was, but the sparkling nodded anyway. He counted it as a success, that it wasn’t another thing that had frightened him.
They had frightened each other far too much, during the two days Bumblebee spent in medbay under Ratchet’s care.
“Sing, please,” Bumblebee said softly after a few kliks didn’t bring the promised lullabye.
Optimus’ spark soared at the request. They would still have missteps, but Bumblebee was learning he was safe and that was more progress than even Ratchet expected at this point.
He smiled, and began to sing an old, old lullabye that the priests in the temple had sung to him when Optimus was a sparkling himself.