Work Text:
Approximately 20 minutes ago, Bumblebee had sat down at a bench in the city after having quote, "The most evil evening shift of his life." After catching his vents and looking down at the ground, he saw a briefcase next to the bench. Black, unassuming, and nothing stamped into the ownership plate.
"Oh, free briefcase." Bumblebee remarked, taking the case and walking off to his apartment. It could have been literally anything. A bomb? Someone's work documents? Nothing?
Instead, he received a Decepticon.
Bumblebee was standing in his small apartment looking up at a [16 foot]-or-so tall bot, standing in his kitchen after having opened the briefcase.
"You need to attempt an assassination on one of the council members"
"I what."
"You don't need to know anything else besides the specific location details and timing, everything's already been planned-"
"No, I DO need to know anything else. ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
If Shockwave had an eyebrow, he would have raised it. A red glare worked good enough towards the yellow bot.
Upon first opening the case, Bumblebee grinned maniacally when he saw a gun. Free gun!! Then his face paled when he remembered only warframes have guns. Aka, Decepticons only. Lo and behold, it had a Decepticon insignia on it. And then it transformed after he picked it up, into a full-on cybertronian.
"I'm not going to assassinate the council?!"
"I said a specific word in there, attempt , the deal with this plan is that you don't actually need to kill anyone."
"And that's supposed to make things BETTER?"
Guns had been banned on cybertron for millennia, it's rumored that not even the elite guard have rifles. It just, wasn't a thing. They were only for warframes, school taught him. But, this is Bumblebee. Avid video game player and a fan of Fringeworlds 2, so he knows a few things about fictional guns at least.
"Would you prefer dying by the hands of Decepticons or by Autobots?"
"You cannot be serious with this."
Shockwave leaned to loom over Bumblebee closer.
"Autobots. At least I'd know what would happen to me."
"Then pull this off and you won't get hunted by Decepticons."
Bumblebee grimaced. "... You cons really are evil."
"Not evil enough to have no escape plan for the original spy that was supposed to do this." Shockwave leaned back and turned to look outside the window of his apartment. "There aren't many of them you know. The building you're going to be shooting from is perfect for a quick escape with how it's structured and what's around it, but you won't have much time to get ready. You'll be out in the open the moment you get to the window."
"You are actually crazy if you think you're convincing me to fake an assassination attempt." Bumblebee flared his arms out for emphasis.
"You will have less than 4 days if you don't do this tomorrow, and getting permission to go to a colony or offplanet takes 7 without a colony ID or space bridge pass."
"Dude."
Shockwave sat down in one of the only 2 chairs in the room. "What will it be, Bumblebee?"
"This is crazy." Bumblebee pulled himself up another rung of the ladder with his free arm. "Like actually crazy. I'm probably the only cybertronian in the city with a gun and I'm aiming it at Highbrow Prime."
"Remember, your job isn't to kill anyone." Bumblebee rolled his optics, hearing the muffled voice through the walls of the case. "In fact, the more ideal outcome for our plans involves no deaths, but we can work with either outcome."
Bee huffs. "I'm already up here, but I can just camp out and refuse to do anything, you know." Bee finishes climbing the ladder. There's an open window on the other end of the floor.
"Tell me what your plan is and I might , keyword, go through with this."
"Bumblebee-"
" Tell me, Shockwave , I could just as easily chuck you out the window!"
A ventless moment, then a sigh from inside the case.
"...If Highbrow gets offlined, Autobot intel will be in disarray for a while. Meaning security will be tighter everywhere, but it will be easier to get more spies into intelligence with there being sudden job openings to handle the empty boss position. If Highbrow almost dies, security will be tightened around the council members directly and inside the city to look for the perpetrator for several days or months. That makes it easier for spies to enter the planet at all because the space bridge network will be less guarded on the exit, rather than the entrance."
"So killing Prime puts more Decepticons in power secretly, or sending a warning shot brings more Decepticons on the planet."
"Precisely. Security has already been lax for a while, since it's been so long since anything like this has been done."
"For a good reason!" Bumblebee set the case down on the ground and opened it to look directly at the gunformer. "We don't want you on our planet!!"
"Watch your tongue, Autobot , one day you'll understand why Decepticons want to come back to Cybertron so badly." Bumblebee put on his most fierce expression while looking at the bot, still in gun form. Bee then stood up and shuffled slowly towards the side of the window to look through it.
"I don't have to kill him, right?"
"No."
Bee looked down at where Highbrow was from the highrise building, there had been a big parade to celebrate Solus day and the council was out in the open.
"How accurate is your scope?"
"Perfectly zeroed. My precision is 99.994%, so at 800 [meters], the resulting impact will land within a 4.8 [centimeter] circle."
Bumblebee calculated a circle with his servos and put it on his chest. "That's a pretty small range."
"My rifle mode is designed to be as precise as possible up to 1 [kilometer]."
Bee peeked back out of the window, Highbrow was still in the same place. He let out a sharp exhale, then crouched down and grabbed Shockwave, shouldering the stock and holding him down at a low ready. One last corner peek through the window, and Bumblebee was ready.
The rifle sweeped up, Bumblebee turned around and stood straight in the window, scope to his optic and pointing straight at Highbrow's spark chamber. Digit on the trigger, Bumblebee began to pull- Then he jerked his support arm to aim a [meter] to the left, and let the internal mechanisms of the trigger do the rest.
The projectile left the barrel with a supersonic crack echoing off the sides of the buildings, and a piece of the pavement exploded behind Highbrow, dragging his attention away. By the time anyone looked up, Bumblebee was no where to be seen.
"Left."
"Right"
"Right again."
"Vent on the far side, you're already small enough, just kick it in." Bee smashes the grate to a vent at the end of a room and crouches inside, crouch-walking decently fast.
"It'll drop down after the corner, fall." Bee falls through the vent and into a dusty room filled with cubicles, coughing.
"Ack, frag! My aft hurt from that-"
"It'll hurt more if you get caught, keep going."
"I know, I know- Frag why did I do this-"
"Door 7509." Bee busts the door down and closes it behind him.
"There's a vent with a not-up-to-fire-code filing cabinet to the right of the door, remove the grate gently and put it back after yanking the filing cabinet back in place." Bee did so, grunting the whole time, shoving the grate in place and crawling through the short vent that led downwards.
"Where next- I swear I can hear them-" Bee huffs, gasping for cool air in his vents.
"The 74th floor has a short skywalk to the building next over. The end of the vent goes near room 7481. This is an air return vent that was built incorrectly, so you'll be able to shove an access panel out before the drop off and enter the inside of the drop tile ceiling."
"Wow, you guys really planned this out-" Bee wrenched off a panel.
"Did you expect anything less from us?"
"The news and movies usually portray you guys as brutes. Actually- The [Redacted] does too." Bee dropped onto the ground after shifting the ceiling tile back in place while hanging from a bar.
"Gross. Hang a left out that door." Bee pushed the door open, then immediately opened the other door leading to the appropriately named skywalk. It was completely hidden in the shadow of the building, Bee didn't even see it when he first arrived.
"Run straight down. You'll reach an elevator, take it all the way to sub level 2."
"Where then?"
"Home stretch Bumblebee, another vent and you'll escape out of the bathroom from a restaurant."
"Frag- Frag-"
Bee sprinted down the skywalk, jump kicking doors open to save his momentum and get to the elevator. He slammed the button repeatedly with his free hand, and soon enough it opened. He jumped inside and hit -2. The doors closed.
"Please tell me I didn't just walk into an elevator with a camera."
"Ran into, more like. And no, we planned for this. There's no camera in this one."
"Frag- FRAG- I shouldn't have done this."
"You chose the best option possible for 5 different parties, Bumblebee. I have my opinions and ideals as a Decepticon, but you did something good. Bee, trust me , this was worth it."
"Helping the entire Decepticon faction under the threat of being killed was worth it?! Shockwave, I wanted to be part of the Elite Guard, not the enemy of the Elite Guard!"
"And that's up for another day, but today you chose the outcome of a historical event. Honestly there was nothing stopping [Name] from aiming at Highbrow's spark chamber, they definitely would have done it, but you did otherwise."
"I'm never going to get over this, I might as well join the Decepticons right now."
"Well, we're always taking on new recruits... And being the one to almost assassinate a councilmember would definitely get you some bargaining points."
The elevator dinged as it reached the bottom floor. Bee picked up Shockwave's case and pushed an arm against the handlebar of the elevator to shove himself out the moment the doors opened. Before him was a cargo hauler storage depot. Running past the trucks, he spotted the air vent, marked with faded purple spray paint on one corner. This route was planned a long time ago...
Bee wrenched the vent open, threw the case inside and jumped up into the dusty vent. He then grabbed the side again and closed it properly, and it was as if no one was ever there.
Bee crawled through the vent until he heard music echoing softly. And then harder, and then harshly, then was also hit with the smell of engex, vomit, and that one super strong cleaning agent that they used in the newform centers because young bots always made a huge mess in there.
"Primus I feel like I was sent back 10 [years]."
"This is a mech's bar by the way."
"This is a What ."
"You'll be fine, no one will notice you."
"Shock- I'm [20] , I can't drink!"
"Then you're lucky you don't get ID'd on the way out."
Bee approached the vent and looked down into the restroom. Surprisingly, No one was in it. Bee took his chance and immediately popped the vent and dropped onto the floor, using the briefcase to whack the vent shut afterwards. Bumblebee put his servos on his knees and vented repeatedly, until he was finally cooled down enough.
"Congrats Bumblebee, you just got away with attempted assassination."
"Okay… now that my panic subsided while crawling through that vent, that was actually pretty cool, I felt like a video game or tv show protagonist!"