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Chapter Text

Crossing his arms as he leaned back, Swindle let his optics roam over to just behind his latest customer with heightened interest. Every so often the wings of the Autobot lackey scout twitched with clear irritation as he waited for Swindle to respond to his proposal. Taking his time, purely out of spite, he calculated how often they fluttered in quick bursts before settling back into a neutral position. Almost as though Bumblebee were shaking off this latest irksome, and persistent, problem of his just for it to come right back and latch onto him.

"So, let me make sure I got this right," he started, tilting his helm back and forth in faux contemplation. "You want to pay me to pretend by being your happy little fake conjunx becauseee…?"

"Were you not listening the first time?" Bumblebee glared at him, working his jaw—the plates tensing in his desire to avoid repeating himself.

"Not really." In a perfect world, he'd have a cube of high grade to spare so that he could swish it around in his servo—entirely nonchalant at the loathsome look directed his way, hiding his smirk against the rim of the cube all professional-like. As it stood in these resource restricted times, Swindle didn't have any means of doing so and as such openly bore his denta in pure delight at the Autobot's misfortune. "I was too busy thinking about how ironic it was for the Autobots' most loyal pet scout to come to me for help when you've never stuck out your helm for any one of us Cons. So no, I wasn't paying attention the first time. Go on and remind me again why you've desperately sought out my services."

It was rewarding to watch as the scout scowl and open his intake, a rebuttal ready and waiting to fire off—reigniting a common argument amongst the tentative and shaky alliance between the two factions as they worked together to reunite their people on Earth—before his diplomatic subroutines activated to prevent Bumblebee from lashing out and outright calling Swindle a bastard to his face. Heh, the Autobot was ever so easy to tease, the nuts and bolts were wound up real tight on that one.

Bumblebee pulled back and pinched his olfactory bridge. Pressing his lips tightly, he smoothed over his features to respond, "I'd like to pay you to be my fake conjunx so that I can make Breakdown jealous."

"Righhht, right," Swindle nodded, pinching his chin between two digits as he recalled Bumblebee's earlier proposition. "Now, not that I'm opposed to making a little dough—well, little is an exaggeration here since I'm expecting quite the hefty compensation for this ruse of yours—I can't help but ask a few questions."

He leered at Bumblebee, optic ridge quirked as he prompted the other mech to fess up. Bumblebee rolled his optics, but relented. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"Firstly, why come to me for this?" Not the most pressing of questions, and Swindle figured that it likely came down to the matter of his reputation as greedy beyond logic—thus making him ignore the obvious distaste they held for one another in favor of the payout—but it was a good start to the real heavy hitter that he wanted to ask. "We're not exactly on the best of terms you and I."

An embarrassed flush of heat rose to the scout's faceplates and he hiked his pauldrons up in a shrug. Rubbing a servo across the back of his neck, Bumblebee admitted, "I really doubt anyone on my side would approve of the idea plus most of them are just… No. And out of all of the Cons, I felt as though you would be the only one to agree, even if it's just because I'm willing to pay you."

"Fair enough," and precisely what Swindle had already deduced. Now, onto the real gossip he wanted, "Sooo, you and Breakdown, huh?"

Covering his face, the scout asked, "Do we really have to do this?"

"If you want me to play the part of dutiful conjunx then I obviously gotta know what's up with the ex," Swindle leaned in close to Bumblebee's personal space, smirking down at him. Insincerity entered his voice as he pitched it higher, "With the way you drape across him ever since the truce, I never woulda guessed that the two of you wouldn't work out." It had been a long running joke amongst the Decepticon ranks how Prime's lapdog chased after the Stunticon relentlessly through the war, their on and off again relationship a source of constant amusement simply because of how the scout would make a fool out of himself time and again. "I gotta know, was it you or him who ended things?"

Swindle would place all his remaining energon on Breakdown finally cutting loose the irritating pest, discovering that in peace time the sordid, cross-faction affair wasn't nearly as thrilling as when their trysts no longer had a non-zero chance of ending with one of them getting shot. He sincerely doubted that Bumblebee was the one to break things off–

"I did."

Well. Scrap. Swindle was glad he didn't vocalize the bet, after all.

"Oh yeah?" He tracked Bumblebee's movement as the scout walked around him to settle down on a tree stump, slumping with his helm held in his servos. Despondently he stared at the ground, optics dim. Swindle wandered over, not sitting next to the bot but at the very least not looming over him either. "Breakdown must have done something especially stupid to have you turning tail and running."

"That's not– Ugh," Bumblebee shook his head, wings hitching up and rattling before pressing tightly against his back. Swindle watched the movement, remembering vividly how the scout that he had fought against in the Battle of the Bay lacked the extra appendages. It was far from the first time he had seen a mech with wings, formed from their doors or otherwise, but he knew how rare it was for a mech to gain them later in their life cycle. Unheard of, even. Especially without a medic on hand to make sure all the internal workings of the appendages connected to the main frame of the bot correctly.

As he watched them flare out, displaying perhaps the scout's deepest emotions—the kind that got a cavalry unit killed on the field—Swindle wondered how sensitive they were. The sensor nets must have been still new, still raw, and if he reached out to pinch them, he had a feeling that it would leave the Autobot reeling. He couldn't remember if he had a chance to test them when the two tussled in the yard of those brats home.

All of which was far beyond what his processor should have been focusing on, as he listened to Bumblebee's quiet, "He's just so… frustrating. You know? Everything's a race with him, and I'm constantly failing to catch up. I just thought…" he trailed off, looking up at the pretty blue sky peeking out through the leaves of the trees surrounding them.

The scout insisted that they meet far away from the Malto's property, either not wanting little audials to overhear his frankly degrading behavior—Oh the horror! Poor, poor, heartbroken Bumblebee needing to ask a favor of the lowest of mechs around—or not trusting that Swindle would try something again—to which all he had to respond with was, rude! No fake relationship should start with such mistrust.

"With the war over… and the truce established," Bumblebee clenched his servos tightly. "That we could be something more than what we've been reduced to for millions of years now. And it hasn't escaped my notice how far the Terrans have come since first forming here on Earth. They needed a teacher to guide them through what it meant to be an Earth-born Cybertronian, but do they really need one now, almost a year later? Let's face it, my time with them is coming to an end." He shuttered his optics and Swindle shuffled awkwardly. It occurred to him for the first time in this whole interaction that it wasn't jealousy or pettiness that pushed Bumblebee to seek him out but something that cut far deeper to his spark. It almost took the whole fun out of pushing his greebles. "So I brought up the idea of us settling down to live somewhere together, either at the barn or— I don't know, a place we could call our own? But he hesitated, and he never hesitates!"

In a burst of energy, Bumblebee sat up suddenly with Swindle stumbling back to move out of his way as he started to furiously pace. "So then I suggested that I move in with him at the Decepticon's base, to show that I can compromise if the problem was that he wasn't comfortable being so close to the Autobots! But if anything that made him hesitate even more so I blatantly asked him what the problem was. As far as I know he's never had a bad experience with the Maltos, but I get it— It's frustrating to have to keep track of tiny organics that are constantly crawling underpede and he doesn't have the experience being around humans that I do. Fine! I can understand that! But getting our own place? What's the issue there? And do you know what he said to me?"

"No, what?" Swindle held his helm up with the center of his servo, eagerly taking in the details of what was apparently a messy and heated break up.

"That he thought we were moving too fast! Too fast?!" His wings fluttered rapidly, buzzing with anger. He snapped, "Oh, suddenly the relationship is going too fast for him! The mech with a self-described need for speed is talking about things going too fast? A million years later and asking to recharge in the same berth is too fast for him! Can you believe that?"

"I can!" It sounded exactly like Breakdown to trip at the finish line when it came to the scout, only this time it seemed as though he couldn't schmooze his way back into Bumblebee's good graces.

Not picking up that Swindle was clearly enjoying his misery, Bumblebee nodded. Straightening his servos and motioning down, he exclaimed, "Exactly! So I firmly told him that I was serious about this and that if he didn't want to move in with me, well, then maybe it was time that we really look at our relationship and determine whether it's worth continuing. And he laughed at me!"

"No," Swindle covered his mouth, letting out a fake gasp. Oh, Hardtop would not believe any of this when Swindle reported back to him about everything later. Bumblebee should have considered making Swindle sign a non-disclosure agreement before starting his rant. Not that Swindle would have abided by one anyhow, since he was great at finding loopholes in contracts and the scout was inexperienced in the art of making 'em— Swindle was certain he could exploit that fact and get away with quite a bit in this arrangement of theirs.

Had he not already decided to go through with it on the principle of scamming the bot out of as much materials as he could before the Prime caught on and put an end to their 'relationship', then Swindle would have agreed for the simple fact that it meant he could watch this whole drama go down with front row seats.

"Yes! Laughed! And so I told him that that's it, we're through." Bumblebee gesticulated every word with a furious downstroke of his servos, worked up to the point that optic fluid started to bud at the bottom lining of his optics. Having gotten it all off his chest, Bumblebee deflated and grew melancholy as he curled his arms around himself, turning his back on Swindle. "So. Yeah. I'm the one who broke things off with him. And it's my hope that if he sees me with another mech, getting serious with somebody else who isn't him, then he'll realize exactly what an idiot he's being and we can get back together again."

"Huh." Swindle crossed his arms and tapped a digit in thought. He debated keeping quiet about a little piece of information that he was sitting on, but figured it would reignite that fire in the Autobot's optics. It was uncomfortable watching the scout wallow in self-pity— Swindle enjoyed it when he was animated with pure hatred instead. "You know, that's not exactly how Breakdown's been talking about your little spat."

"What?" Bumblebee whirled around, incredulous. "What has he been saying?"

"Just that you two were back on break again," Swindle stirred the pot without remorse and hence why he was taken by surprise earlier. As far as Breakdown was portraying it as to the Decepticon forces, it was the same old, same old between him and Bee. "Nothing about you guys actually being broken up, and certainly nothing about how you grew a back strut and told him off finally."

The Autobot stared at Swindle for just a moment before he scowled and clenched his fists so hard that the metal loudly scraped against one another. His engine revved throughout the quiet of the clearing, optics burning brightly that the white expanded to the edges from how furious he was. Had he any smokestacks, they would have been howling with excess steam as his frame burned with rage.

Bumblebee stalked up to Swindle, and yanked down on his chassis to bring him close to his face. Swindle yelped and held up his hands, shocked at the intensity that was leveled at him by the scout. This close, he could see the discolored metal of the scar carved into his upper left optic. "Listen closely, Swindle: I don't care how much you ask for or what you even want as payment—I will even sneak into the Autobot armory and ferry away whatever it is that your black market spark desires from there just so long as you make Breakdown seethe with jealousy at the mere idea that you and I are together now. Got it?"

"Loud and clear!"

"Good." Bee nodded, letting go of him and stepping back. Shame caught up to his actions and he moved even further away from Swindle, all the while the conmechs spark sped up its rotation in his core. That was… "Uh, I guess I haven't actually gotten your explicit agreement yet though, have I?"

Regaining his composure, Swindle brushed off the little incident—and tried to wipe it from his memory banks, because what —and amped up his salesman charisma. "You haven't, but you were right about one thing— I'd have to be glitched in the processor to pass up the chance of bleeding you dry. Plus, it'll piss off Breakdown and between the two of us, gestalts from different combiner teams don't tend to get along." Getting to the nitty gritty of a deal was in his wheelhouse of control, and seeing that the scout was letting him lead the conversation was a mistake on the Autobots part that he would take advantage of. "As for payment, I'm not one to say no to expanding my arsenal and I'm sure my dedicated clientele would appreciate a weapon or two designed by the Autobot Wheeljack…" The reverse engineering he could up charge for alone was an investment in the making, "But let's save that for the more expensive dates, yeah?"

"Dates?" Bumblebee shuttered his optics rapidly, flummoxed by the turn the conversation took.

"Oh sure," Swindle sauntered over and wrapped an arm across the scout's armor. Bumblebee glanced at him from his peripheries, unsure on if he should allow the closeness or not. Given that he didn't shrug him off, he continued with confidence, "What? Did you expect we'd just agree to refer to other as conjunxs and call it a day? Our 'relationship' is already at a disadvantage given my reputation—don't look so shocked, you came to me for a reason and most mechs won't be afraid to call it out—so if you really want Breakdown to fall for this farce, then we need to go on actual proper dates. Public ones, too. Don't you worry your little helm about it," He poked the middle of the scout's helm crest, causing Bumblebee to go nearly cross-optic following the movement, "I'm already drafting a timeline necessary to pull this off."

"You are, are you?" Bumblebee muttered, suspicion coating his words. "If you're planning something that will result in anyone getting hurt–"

"Wouldn't dream of it! The war is all done and over with, remember? Besides, we've got all those Ember Shards to look out for, who has time for causing a little chaos and commotion?" Swindle laid a servo against his chassis, speaking earnestly. For the moment at least, who was to say what would happen with Starscream at the helm of their side of the alliance. "Back to business— Let's say, for every date we go on, you pay me in enough energon patches to build up a reserve or two for me and my bro, sounds good? And we can return back to discussing those smuggled weapons for the more extravagant moments, like when we confirm to both our sides that we're conjunxed. Deal?"

He released Bumblebee, and held out his servo to the scout. Ultimately, the Autobot could back out now, before they really sealed the deal, but Swindle was certain that he wouldn't. For all that he tried to portray himself as otherwise, Swindle was familiar with the prideful and stubborn nature of the former minibot before him, remembering quite well all the times they clashed on the battlefield. The not-so-little mech just never knew when to give up, and didn't humans have a saying or two about a lover scorned? Breakdown should count his lucky stars that Bumblebee hadn't resorted to kicking his aft, right then and there.

And the offer really didn't get better than this considering that Swindle was making such a noble sacrifice in taking himself off the market for the foreseeable future so that Bumblebee could achieve revenge against his ex.

Bumblebee stared at the offered servo for only a moment before reaching across and latching on, no hesitation coloring his decision. The scout gripped his servo tight, shaking it up and down just the once as determination settled across his frame. "Deal."

Chapter Text

"It's gotta start natural. Mechs ain't gonna believe that the two of us just started palling around outta nowhere, let alone buy into the idea that we started linking up all of a sudden."

Swindle's words practically embedded themselves to the front of his processor, so much so that they were the first thing on his mind the very second that Bumblebee onlined his optics. Gingerly, he rose from his sleeping quarters and kept watch of his gait as he crossed the room. It was important that his pedesteps were steady but not rushed or too hushed, maintaining a balance between the natural clamber of having just woken up and his impatient desire to hurry out of the dugout as soon as feasible.

All so that he wouldn't risk waking the kids up prematurely, a monumental task on a normal day let alone each morning that passed since Swindle hashed out the details of his 'timeline of action' with Bee.

See, the Terrans had this almost second nature to them, wherein if they suspected that Bumblebee was sneaking about then suddenly they were up and at 'em when on any other occasion Bumblebee would need to rouse them from recharge as though he were pulling denta. Their need to stick their faces where they really shouldn't was something that he exasperatedly admired about them… except when their meddling actively impeded his own personal missions— In which case, it went from an endearing and often helpful trait of theirs to unbelievably frustrating.

Twitch especially was oddly attuned to his coming and goings, and if she awoke not even his excuse of just going for a boring ol' drive—where said morning 'stroll' was actually an elaborate ploy to meet up with his co-conspirator and enact the beginning stage of their ruse—could deter her from begging to join him and… Bumblebee simply wouldn't have the spark to deny her that.

Look, Bumblebee was many things: scout, teacher, friend, family…? He didn't dare to hope. But he wasn't a fool. He was well aware that his time with the Terrans was swiftly approaching its end, and every moment he spent living with the kids as their mentor was one that he cherished. It wasn't likely that he'd get many more of those once he was finally reassigned to another mission. And there would eventually be another mission.

As a cavalry scout, Bumblebee wasn't meant for idleness. During the war, he often spent long periods of time out in the field scouting out locations based on mere rumor alone—utilizing his telescopic optics to report back any relevant intel to provide the Autobots with even the slightest edge over the next battle. With an energy-efficient frame, designed for movement, it simply made sense that Bumblebee could never truly believe in the concept of settling down. Even now that GHOST disbanded and the Decepticons swore to maintain their truce, it didn't mean any of them were safe from future threats and Bumblebee knew his purpose.

His Prime didn't seem to comprehend that Bumblebee considered himself an extension of his will and likely would express horror if he ever admitted it to him. Yet, Optimus could point him in any direction and Bumblebee would follow his commands with the utmost amount of conviction. Even if it meant leaving behind his loved ones.

He had done it before, when he faked his death and went into hiding, and Bee would do it again if Prime desired it. It would destroy him inside, and cause immeasurable grief to the Maltos who had treated him so well—almost as though he were one of them—but he would follow through with his orders all the same.

Bumblebee had even held the line in the Cybertron Theater at his Prime's behest, despite the fact that he was hardly qualified for the position. Advisors looked to him for guidance, when Bee looked to them for orders. He nearly sunk to his poleyn in relief when Optimus permitted him to join the Autobot forces on Earth, and grew ever more thankful for the bonds he was able to develop because of that decision.

Always lingering in the back of his processor was the reminder that it could never last, the code rearing its ugly mug whenever Bumblebee grew even the slightest bit complacent. Scouts went where directed, not balking at deployment even if the battleground was an entire galaxy away.

Optimus, ever the optimist, seemed to genuinely believe that now after millions of years they could achieve a long desired peace here on Earth.

Bee… wanted to feel the same way, but simply couldn't. His frame tensed at the inaction, cables primed to spring into action at a moment's notice. In this, the kids reinforced his worldview as they were gifted at stumbling into trouble and Bumblebee could hardly call himself their minder if he let them stumble helm first into dangerous situations without any sort of safety net—keeping his combat protocols active ensured that he could catch them when they fell.

Enviously, Bumblebee watched everyone around him move on from the effects of the war and wondered why it was that he fell behind in this regard. Contrary to what some of the more bitter remaining Cybertronians thought, Bumblebee did not crave a return to the constant looming threat of death, of not knowing if the mech that he greeted in the base halls would survive to make good on their promise to play cards with him later, he truly didn't! But he had spent so many cycles at war that the concept of peace was abstract to him, a distant and unfamiliar feeling that he would always doubt in the back of his processor.

Bumblebee didn't want to live like this, which was why he gathered himself to ask Breakdown if they could move in together.

Because if the two of them could settle down, in a home and not a base or a trench, then they could achieve that dangled dream that kept them– That kept Bee going during the war. Perhaps then it would sink in that he could just exist as Bumblebee and not continue running off of fumes as the last remaining scout on Earth. In the lead up to his asking, he fantasized how it would feel to wake up every morning in Breakdown's arms, living in the moment and not letting his processor fall into a loop of what-ifs. If he could achieve that, then his attachments would feel like proper links that bonded his spark to theirs instead of fragile, little connections that fizzled out due to the smothering distance that drove him apart from them.

And then, well. That dream blew up in his face spectacularly, didn't it?

Whatever, it didn't matter. What did matter, however, was making sure that he passed by the Malto's kitchen table so that Alex could once again notice that Bumblebee was awake before the kids and heading out.

He felt guilt for involving the man—and the kids, and eventually the other Autobots, and maybe even the Decepticons, but who was counting?—in his petty schemes, but he'd have time to wallow in it later. At the moment, he made sure to slow his steps as he approached, giving enough time for Alex to look up from the morning paper and his decaf.

"Morning, Bee!" Alex greeted cheerfully, raising his mug as Bee knelt down so that they could speak face-to-face. "Going on another drive?"

"Have I really become that predictable?" he asked, knowing full well and good that that was precisely the point of going out for a drive every morning, at approximately the same exact time—before the Terrans roused from rest, just as Robby and Mo started to get ready for school, and catching Alex in the middle of his first cup of coffee without Lt. Malto around to clock his suspicious behavior.

"Just a little bit," Alex grinned, closing the paper so that he could properly engage in conversation with the Autobot. Unrestrained curiosity entered his voice, "Although, I do have to wonder as to what caused this sudden habit of yours."

"Oh you know," Bee waved his servo vaguely, "Just thought that a little early morning meditation could do me some wonders before engaging with the Terrans."

"Sureee, sure," a teasing tone entered Alex's voice, as he folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. "And is that what people call it nowadays? Meditation?"

Perfect. Just as we expected. Bee narrowed his eyes, and questioned, "People? What people? Wait, is this some human double meaning that doesn't translate? Whose 'people' and what are they saying?"

"No, no, it's nothing of the sort." Alex started with a cheeky smile. "Buuut, I'll just say for the record that you don't need to sneak around to see your boyfriend, Bee. With the truce established and all, Breakdown is more than welcomed to visit you here."

Before he could stop himself, his servos clenched tightly from where they rested across his thigh guards and a thunderous expression crossed his face plates. "Me and Breakdown aren't together anymore."

"Oh!" A shameful and pitiful look flooded Alex's expression as he leaned back in his seat at the information. His playful energy crumbled, "I'm sorry, Bee, I didn't know."

"It's fine." Bumblebee was never the best actor when it really mattered, wearing his spark on his gauntlet with an equally expressive face that prevented him from controlling his reactions. One of the many reasons why Jazz and Prowl deemed him unfit for undercover espionage. So he shifted back, lifting his helm above the sight line of the open walls. It hid his strained and cracking facade as he said, "Really! These things happen, and while I'm," energon-boiling furious, "Sad about what could have been, I'm holding myself together well enough." If devising a plan to make the Stunticon jealous enough to come slinking back on his servos and poleyn begging Bee to take him back could be considered that, then sure. The scout was keeping it together.

Alex was quiet for a moment, before going, "It's alright if you aren't ok, Bumblebee, you know that right? Going through a break up is tough enough, but I can't imagine being together for as long as you two were and having it end in heartbreak like that."

"Good thing I'm doing great then!" He laughed, a strained and reedy thing that contradicted his words to anyone with good observation skills, which Alex certainly had. He cleared his intake, unnecessary bio-mechanically and purely for theatrics. "You know, the day isn't growing any younger, so I really should go for my meeting– Meditation! My morning meditation."

He stumbled to his pedes and Alex nearly knocked his chair over as he rushed to the door to call after Bumblebee as he strode toward the pathway that led to the property's approach, transforming and driving off as Alex called out, "It's ok to not be ok, Bee! I'm here if you need to talk to me!"

Hah, while he appreciated the gesture and the offer, Bumblebee would sooner sign up for one of Shockwave's experiments than ever admit or speak aloud the spark crushing disappointment and grief that threatened to pull him over the edge. And if all went as planned—to which, with the amount of energon he was giving up for this, it better —then there would simply be nothing to talk about.

Nerves frazzled, Bumblebee was relieved that the first phase of their plan required him to drive aimlessly for a good fifteen-to-twenty minutes every day before heading toward the predetermined coordinates— Where Swindle would promptly meet up with him and then they would just… drive. Drive and talk, really.

"Consistency is key. We need to be seen, individually, and then together. But it has to be casual, and different for each day until people notice. What's most important is that we can't appear as overly flirty, not right away. Not only does the idea of flirting with you turn my tanks and honestly makes me hurl, but it'll come off as insincere and phoney. Because it is."

Other than keeping to the greater Witwicky outskirts, Bee didn't really have a destination in mind when it came to where they met each day. It didn't really matter, so long as they drew attention to their daily partnering. And with the way that Bee had fumbled this morning's exit, Alex was certainly keyed into the fact that Bumblebee was meeting with someone—even if it wasn't with the mech that he originally assumed.

Which was good! As it meant that everything was going according to Swindle's calculations and truthfully the sooner the better. In his personality dossiers for the Decepticons—comprising the entirety of the heavy hitters of the faction, the front faces, the ones still alive, and the ones who have passed—he had specifically noted that while Swindle had a propensity to develop grand machinations, his greed to get whatever it was that he wanted caused him to lose sight of the importance in remaining calm and focused.

In other words, he grew impatient when his goal was in sight, and if they had to keep up with this morning routine of theirs for much longer, Bumblebee feared that Swindle would switch gears and detrimentally rush the plan.

Before seeking out Swindle, Bumblebee had poured over those assessments obsessively. He weighed the pros and the cons—heh—of each and every Decepticon remaining on Earth. He tallied how many personal grievances each had with him, and he them, and then mentally rejected the ones who he felt would compromise his plan by telling Breakdown right away. He also, for entirely personal preferences, quietly removed the names of mechs he just would not feel comfortable pretending to date.

Which left him with, admittedly, very few choices. Sorry, not sorry, even if Skywarp didn't laugh her aft off at his audacity, he did not trust her to not humiliate him through what was already a mortifying ordeal.

Out of all his remaining options, he wasn't exaggerating when he claimed that Swindle simply worked out best—mostly because of the compensation aspect, yes, but also because they shared a history that wasn't altogether brutal.

And any history was better than no real foundation for a fake relationship— Just picture it, the idea of him and… Bombshell, for example, parading around as a happy couple was simply ridiculous! If anything, everyone would just naturally assume that Bombshell had placed a control shell on Bumblebee so as to puppet him around temporarily. He held nothing against the Insecticon personally, but well. Bee had to admit their abilities never failed to intimidate and unnerve him during the few altercations he got into with them.

All things considered, Bee counted himself lucky that he had any options at all. Bribing Swindle, sneaking around and lying at his say so, was therefore logical and strategic and not at all a last resort.

The road that Bee travelled down was long and lonely. But that changed once his energon proximity sensors alerted him to an approaching vehicle. He watched through his peripherals, as the conmech raced toward him as he caught up and followed steadily behind Bumblebee once close enough to tailgate him.

"Well, well, look who we have here!" Swindle chirped, unctuous as ever. "If it isn't my good friend, Bumblebee. How convenient it is to see you here on this oh so lovely morning!"

"Oh can it," he muttered, increasing his speed ever so slightly to force distance between them. Swindle kept up with him, much to his consternation. They were nearly bumper to bumper for a moment there and it brought a slight heat to his tucked away face. "You don't need to do that every time, it's not like anyone can hear us."

"One can never be too sure," Swindle crossed over the solid yellow line into the left lane of the two-lane road so that he could drive beside Bee. It was a common enough move amongst the stranded Cybertronians on Earth that the scout kept quiet about the disregard to potential other drivers. Additionally, Bee was grateful at the lack of human vehicles since that meant no one was around to witness the way Swindle swayed as close as possible to Bumblebee's side, practically knocking against him. How indecent. "In fact, if I were you, I'd tilt my side view mirrors up just a tad and take note of the unexpected guest who has decided on joining us on our drive today."

Glancing up quickly with his right mirror, and processing the information in nanokliks, Bumblebee hummed at the confirmation that it was Laserbeak who soared above them. He lagged behind, keeping his distance, but the cassettebots were never the greatest at subtlety. Not in the waning years of the war, at least, when their more mischievous side freely showed itself again after their grief subsided.

It was exactly the development they were hoping to garner.

"Dr. Malto also finally pointed out that he noticed me leaving every morning for a drive," Bee commented, "Our conversation was," agonizing, "productive. We can definitely count on the kids to eavesdrop on his conversation with Lt. Malto later today. And what the kids know will make its way through the Autobot ranks."

"Laserbeak is probably live-streaming his vis feed for Frenzy and Ravage as we speak, which means that Soundwave will hear about us being in cahoots." Swindle groaned in relief. "Thank Primus for that! The sooner both our sides start inquiring the better— I was getting sick of being stuck in this phase of the scheme."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure your gears are just ticking in anticipation about the grand dates you have planned that would necessitate me smuggling contraband for you," irritation had him tweaking his rear view mirror slightly with a huff. "Unfortunately for you, that won't be for a long while yet so keep on track, ok? You can scam unsuspecting mechs to your sparks content on your own time but not mine."

"Yeesh, you sell a mech a defunct napalm grenade or a counterfeit rifle once and he never lets you live it down…"

"It was more than once you two-timing turbo fox–!"

"I'll take that as a compliment!"

"Ugh, you're impossible." Bumblebee hissed. Briefly, he wondered if revenge was really worth consorting with the mech who had honestly crossed paths with him the most in the war.

But then he remembered the press of Breakdown's lips as they held back the rejection he didn't want to voice and the loose digits that refused to curl around Bee's own. How he slowly broke away from Bee and told him to his face that moving in was moving too fast for him.

At that painful reminder, his engine revved and his frame crackled with the desire to use his boosters and find Breakdown right then and there to drag his sorry aft in front of the entirety of the remaining Cybertronians on Earth and tear him a new socket for leading Bumblebee along for millennia–!

"So what happened next?"

"Huh?" Dragged out of his, frankly, morbid thoughts, Bumblebee picked up on the expectant tilt to Swindle's mirrors. "I don't follow."

"Your story from yesterday?" Swindle clarified, voice dripping with judgment that Bumblebee would dare to drift off in the middle of a conversation with him. "You never finished your tale about that one brat who was starving with a full tank of energon while the other had none. I wanna know how it ends, because by all means you left the impression on me that those newsparks are total walking disasters." He started to mutter, envy coloring his vocal tones, "Full tank and still starving. The ungratefulness of it all, really…"

"Oh! Right." To pass the time on these outings, and to avoid their conversations from nearing sore topics from the war, Bumblebee had taken to catching Swindle up to speed on everything that the Terrans did that first year of teaching them.

They had gotten to the part in the middle of his retelling where Twitch and Thrash were, in a drone-like stupor, searching for cave water by which to replenish and hydrate their systems. Admittedly, a good chunk of their time had been wasted when Bee went on a long, stringent tangent about how in those early days the kids never listened to him.

Ironically, Bumblebee had assumed that all of the 'uh-huh's and throaty hums that Swindle gave to each story was his way to pretend as though he were paying attention whilst his processor focused elsewhere. But to hear that he genuinely was holding onto Bee's words enough to want to know more when presented with an unfinished story…

It felt… Actually, Bumblebee wasn't sure how it felt to learn this, so he simply chose to ignore the perplexing feelings by compartmentalizing them and continued where he left off, "First off, don't call them brats–"

"You referred to them as, and I quote, 'impudent sparklings' for calling you a jerk."

"Which was a misunderstanding!" Even if in the moment Bumblebee felt the rage of a thousand stars flooding through his lines at the audacity of a bunch of newsparks to insult him so blatantly. "And second, I guess I can complete the story. Let's see, where was I…"

"The ground collapsed underneath you and those Earthlings."

"Right. Well, after we fell into the underground cavern the Terrans were both listless. Robbie and Mo were cradled to my chassis since I made sure to cushion their fall, but when they saw the state that Twitch and Thrash were in they rushed to their side. I…" thought their nanites would soon fade, losing all color as their sparks diminished before my eyes, "Decided it would be best that I attempt to find a way out, as the entrance was too unstable for me to comfortably lift the kids up through it."

"That Mo kid could have taken it," Swindle said. "She managed to keep up with me and the bike back when I tricked those two into being Decepticons."

"Still mad at you about that, by the way," Bee interjected. "And while she is tough, she's still a child under my protection and I would rather be safe than sorry. It turned out for the better, since the kids figured out that the water in the cave rejuvenated them. Which makes sense—it's a source of life for humans, and since the Terrans were sparked here on Earth, they require it as opposed to energon like we do. I've never seen a recovery like the way they sprung back up and started bouncing off the walls. And that's on top of me being bewildered to have found ancient Cybertronian glyphs etched into the walls of the back of the cave!"

"Hold on, let me get this straight," Swindle lagged behind as he turned over the influx of information Bee was dumping on him and if they were in root form he would surely hold his servos up in pause. "Trash–"

"Thrash."

"And Twitch rely on water to survive? Eugh," Swindle gagged. "My lines feel bloated at the thought of it. Not only that, but you're telling me this oh so convenient cave that they found somehow contained our dead language embedded in it? How is that even possible? What did it even say?"

"Beats me. I was never the most educated bot before the war," and a majority of the finer details pertaining to Quintus Prime's involvement in the Terrans' creation still eluded him. He almost divulged all that he did know but hesitated. Old habits strangled his voice box, preventing him from just handing vital intel over to the enemy.

Instead, Bumblebee's voice grew distant as his processor headed down a different logic tree, "I couldn't help but wish that Beachcomber was with me at that moment. I'm sure that even if he couldn't determine the origins of the stone the glyphs were carved onto, he would have loved seeing that natural spring."

He slowed down progressively as his thoughts turned heavy, weighing him down and once again causing him to line up side-by-side to Swindle. His desire to hold his next words back was stifling, and he loathed to admit weakness in front of a former rival, but the sincerity of his, "I miss him," outweighed his need to remain stoic.

Bumblebee took no shame in grieving over his deceased peers. He also didn't expect Swindle to say anything on the matter— He wouldn't blame the mech if he awkwardly let the downswing of their conversation linger in the air until it was time for them to part. But to his great surprise, Swindle agreed with his sentiments, "Me too."

"You do?" He scanned through the surviving logs Spec Ops retrieved and downloaded from Beachcomber's body, trying to find if there were any memorable encounters that the naturalist mech had with the Decepticon beside him.

"Course I do! He was my best buyer in refined en-smokes," affronted, Swindle scoffed. Typical. Just as Bee was about to retort snidely, Swindle continued, "I'll tell ya what about that Beachcomber: Never have I met a bot with a determination to process and refine slag I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot extension pole. Once, he came to me and asked if I could roll him a cut of red weed."

"What? No way!" Bee gasped. "Is he crazy? I get it, his specialty is in geology but he should have had at least a little common sense to not dip his pedes into terra-material!"

"That's what I said!" Swindle laughed, swerving to the side and back again. "That mech was out of this world— Literally. His processor was shot straight into orbit with the amount of laced energon he was ingesting."

An abrupt burst of laughter slipped out of Bumblebee. And, with the levity brewing between the two, it surfaced one of the scout's oldest memories from his youth. With a hint of his own roguery, and praying to Solus that what he was about to admit would never get back to the Terrans lest they all get a lecture, Bee started to recount, "So, funny story, you see there was this one time where Beachcomber and I–"

.://Incoming transmission: PRIME, OPTIMUS

"One moment," Bee trailed off, redirecting his focus to the request flitting across his comms. channel. He slowed down so that he could run off the road and park off to the side, knowing that while he was excellent at double-tasking whilst driving, if Bee wanted Swindle to overhear then he needed to pull over.

Sure enough, Swindle picked up on his cue and trailed behind him, idling as quietly as his engine would allow. Above them, Laserbeak noticed that they had pulled over and dove down so that he could hide amongst the trees—not successfully all things considered. Loud rustling sounded out as leaves dislodged from their branches, revealing his perch two trees away from where Bee parked in the dirt. The cassette could now eavesdrop with a greater clarity than before, but that wasn't a concern to either of them.

After all, it wasn't their intent to have the Prime involved at this level of their fake-relationship, not so soon at least. This could either spell disaster for all of Bee's plans—which now more than ever hung on the precarious cusp of imminent failure—or it was entirely unrelated to his current actions. Which was worse, as conversations with Optimus were never just casual small talk. They usually concerned themselves with one or two things lately: the Maltobots or new mission parameters.

The transmission was a gentle but persistent knock against his interior audials and Bumblebee gathered himself before opening the connection between him and his Prime. "Optimus! I wasn't expecting a call from you! Is everything alright? Did something happen with the Terrans?"

.://Bumblebee! It is good to hear from you, and do not fret. The Terrans are quite alright. The mirth in Optimus' voice resonated through the call and soothed the worry that laced Bee's lines at the call. Confusion soon followed, as well as apprehension. If he bore no news about the Terrans then… . ://I merely meant to inquire about something peculiar that one of Wheeljack's drones picked up on their recent patrol. Are you aware that you and Swindle are roughly in the same area?

"Am I aware that me and Swindle are in the same area?" Bee repeated, turning his mirrors to stare at Swindle, who likewise also turned his mirrors to stare incredulously at the scout. "Um, yes? We were driving together just now."

.://Ah! I see. Am I meant to presume that you two have located another Emberstone fragment then?

In all honesty, Bumblebee had sorta, kinda, maybe entirely forgotten the primary reason for the truce between the Decepticons and Autobots. He genuinely hadn't thought about the shards of the Emberstone scattered across Witwicky in a long while, far too wrapped up in his own woes and spinning out of control post-break up.

.://If you need further assistance with the retrieval, both Elita-1 and I are nearby to provide support.

"Oh that is really not necessary, Optimus! Please don't come here," Bumblebee blurted out before the Prime could convince himself to follow his positioning beacon anyway. Swindle stiffened next to him, hazard lights flickering on and off. Yeah, no slag. "We–"

.://Nonsense! While I will make sure to convey to Starscream later that we are grateful Swindle loaned his support in our endeavor to restore the Emberstone, I would feel much more comfortable if you had another Autobot there to assist you during this spontaneous excursion–

"That won't be necessary because we're not looking for a shard!" Mortified, both at the direction they were careening down and because he interrupted his superior officer, Bee wished he were anyone else in that moment. "We're just driving! Together!"

Silence greeted him from the other end of the transmission. In that silence, neither he nor Swindle spoke, but Laserbeak couldn't help from letting out a, "Ooooo," at the drama unfolding before his beady optics.

.://You're just… driving? The scout could perfectly imagine the Prime leaning back, perplexed at his outburst. .://With Swindle?

"Yes, with Swindle."

.://Just you two?

And Laserbeak, but, "Yes, just us two. We…" He flickered his left mirror at Swindle, wondering what he should say. Swindle turned his front tires slightly, letting Bee take the lead. "We started to meet up a few days ago regularly after bumping into each other on the road. Turns out we both needed to clear our minds in the morning after everything we went through these last few years. It's been nice to drive with a partner again…"

With a flap of his wings, Laserbeak suddenly darted off, a cackle emitting from his vocoder. Bumblebee wasn't sure what specifically it was that caused the cassette to dart off, processor already straining to stay on top of this transmission.

A touch of bittersweet fondness carried across the connection, coloring Optimus' words as he said, .://Oh. Of course, Bumblebee. Please, carry on. I didn't mean to interrupt you two.

"Ah! You weren't interrupting anything important–" Swindle let out a tsk of dissent, and Bee restrained himself from slamming his door into his side. "I swear. Just a totally normal drive, nothing of note," for now. If this didn't backfire in their face plates spectacularly.

.://Yes, yes, if you say so. Have a pleasant drive, Bumblebee. And like that, Optimus disconnected from the transmission and Bee transformed back into root mode so that he could hide behind his servos, groaning. He dug the heel into the sockets of his optics, clinking against the glass.

"Just to set the record straight, he was absolutely interrupting!" Swindle ranted, having joined Bee in shaking off his alt form. "Which— Can I just point out how rude of him that was! I tell you what, that Prime of yours has a massive entitlement problem, eating up your personal time just to harass you about consorting with an ally—yeah, that's right, I'm using the big bad scary A-word—as though I'm gonna lure you off into the woods to do crime. What does he care what you do on your own time?"

"If there's one thing you need to know about Optimus, it's that he cares a lot," Bee dragged his digits down his plates, unintentionally tracing the segmented lines decorating them. "He just shows it in the most peculiar of ways."

"Ugh, don't give me that scrap, I'll have to purge my tanks," Swindle scoffed. His lips pulled up, a satisfied twist to his plates as he said, "General Autobozo-branded irritation aside, that might just have been our lucky ticket."

"How so?" the scout turned to the Decepticon, wary that his impatience was crowding his higher processors as predicted.

"You were banking on those kids eventually blabbing to the big bosses about our meet-ups right? Well, now there's no need," Swindle spread out his arms, palms facing out. "The big man himself got to hear it straight from the mech it concerns. That's even better than Prime learning second hand and approaching you directly."

"Really? That's what you got out of that mess of a call?" Bee quirked his optical ridge, crossing his arms. For a mech that had panicked for just the briefest of moments at the thought of two Autobot Commanders converging on his location, Swindle had a remarkable ability to turn any situation back around in his favor. Always a selling-point opportunity with this one…

"Sure, sureee. Bit sooner than we devised, but," Swindle strutted over to Bee, wrapping an arm across his pauldrons. "This can only work out in our favor. Mine especially! Hardtop has put up with enough of my griping about these stupid drives–"

"What?!" Bee spun out from under his grasp and whirled around to point a finger at him. "You've been openly complaining about these drives?"

"Duh," he sneered. "You had me waking up at the aft-crack of dawn to make sure I show up on time, which is more effort than I have put into any business dealing ever mind you! What did you expect me to do? Suck it up? As if!"

"I expected you to follow through with the plan I'm paying you for!" He clenched his fists, plates rattling from barely constrained rage. "How is anyone going to believe that these drives are what led to us exploring a 'relationship' if you're just whining and moaning to anyone at your base who will listen?!"

Swindle stared perplexed at him, as though he couldn't comprehend what had Bee in such a tizzy. Then he said, "Have you really never done something you hated just cause it was for someone you cared about?"

"I– Huh?" Bee sputtered. He wanted to retort with a snippy, Obviously. Half of almost all of his orders during the dwindling battles were exactly that. But Swindle wasn't talking about the matters of war, but the trivial pursuits of romance.

If he and Breakdown had ever done something like that, then one of them would have worn the branding of a different faction entirely millennia ago. And considering that Bumblebee was still an Autobot, and Breakdown a Decepticon then no.

He didn't know what that was like in a relationship.

"Forget about it, just know that was how I was gonna swing it," Swindle brushed off the empty, lost look on Bee's face with a push of his servo against his helm. "Look on the bright side, we can finally get to the fun stuff now!"

"Which would be?" he muttered, holding softly onto Swindle's hand so that he could lower it from his face.

"You'll see.” Swindle smirked before scowling, "And I want to hear what illegal business you and Beachcomber were getting up to, by the way! Don't think I forgot about that."

Dropping Swindle's hand and storming off, Bee grumbled, "Can't I pay you to forget I even brought it up?"

"Not a chance!"

Chapter Text

Swindle flipped a patch of energon up into the air and caught it with deft digits, pinching the thin, shapeless, pink-tinged coagulated life source of all living metal between his pointer and thumb before he threw it up again to watch it go up and down. Up and down, he toyed with the patch that not too long ago would have had him and his brother offlining another mech over just a quarter of it.

With each toss, he mulled over the contradiction in his perfectly functioning gyroscope leaving him unbalanced with every step he took. The paradoxical feeling didn't strike him down his struts but settled in his tanks instead, weighing heavy as he admitted reluctantly that this ruse wasn't going at all how he presumed it would.

Initially, the baseline for his expectations of 'dating' Bumblebee rounded out to a flat, clean zero. It should have been an overall easy job on Swindle's end— Hovering around the scout for a prolonged period of time and acting like obnoxious, static-charged lovers for an orbital cycle or two. A little public display of affection here, a carefully constructed rumor or two there and then he could wipe his servos clean of the whole mess with his subspace compartments full.

Nothing more than that, after all, it wasn't as though the two were actually together.

And on that point, the nonsense that babbled out of the scout while they passed the time was never supposed to follow him back to base or sit in the back of his processor, keeping him from recharging as he contemplated the interrupted conclusions to the stories that defined their outings.

Bumblebee wasn't even an inspired storyteller—interspersing tangents at random, recounting useless details that fluffed up each tale and dragged the story out, ultimately wasting time—yet Swindle found himself wanting to hear the end of each account that the Autobot welded together.

In the beginning, he listened with an audial half-tuned in just to see if he could catch any relevant intel that he could trade or sell later but that lasted only so long before Swindle found himself invested against his will. The mirth that Bumblebee laced with each word was infectious and the shenanigans that those kids of his got up to reminded him heavily of Hardtop and him in their younger years before they got their pedes on the ground.

He picked up quickly that the scout either had no brothers of his own or wasn't close to them if he did, as otherwise his befuddlement over the actions of the Terrans would have cleared itself right up with a simple sigh of, 'Siblings.' Like when the cavalry unit displayed shock and slight horror at describing how the two oldest bots tackled one another in a game of capture the flag—biting and scratching at one another would have been the least of Bumblebee's concerns were that a younger Swindle and Hardtop in their place.

In that regard, it made listening intently worth it and in a way, his desire to hear the conclusion to each recounting the day prior to their parting had Swindle genuinely looking forward to their morning engagements. Were they held at any other time during the pitifully short Earth-day, he might not have even complained to Hardtop about the interrupted recharge he traded for fulfilling his end of the deal.

And despite himself, Swindle almost didn't want their drive to stop today. Bumblebee avoided with finesse finishing his little tidbit about what him and Beachcomber got up to back in the day—and had he an inkling that Bee was a former carc-head Swindle would have sooo pedaled him a shoddy circuit booster or two back in the day, maybe even shared an en-smoke with him.

Just when he thought that he had needled the scout into fessing up—leaning in close enough that he could almost pick up on the energon pumping through his lines, stuttering out a vent at the proximity—Bee had sternly reminded Swindle that it was time for them to return back to their respective homes and took off.

He snatched the patch out of the air and frowned. It shouldn't bother him—like, really shouldn't—but Swindle hadn't noticed time passing them by at all. Here he thought that he should have been counting down each and every klik until he was free to get back to his own dealings, but instead he felt the urge to hold Bee back just for a cycle or two so that they could hang out a little longer.

Weird, extremely weird. Swindle chose to chalk it up to the traditional Autobots clinginess rubbing off onto him, confident that these desires would go away once everything was said and done. And really, it's been a while since Swindle got to have a decent conversation with another mech, regardless of faction, so it wasn't peculiar at all that he indulged himself for the time being.

Eventually, when all was said and done, he'd step back and let Breakdown deal with the brunt of Bee's non-stop chattering once those two hooked up again. Undoubtedly Bee would mention every detail both relevant and extraneous from their vindictive collaboration— And Swindle didn't care in the slightest that he'd never get to find out in retrospect how the cavalry unit felt about the whole thing, he didn't!

Well, maybe he cared but only a little and only because it was a story that involved him intensively. Naturally, Swindle would want to ensure that his generosity and dedication was properly lauded by the scout— Any mech off the streets would want the same!

Whatever, none of that mattered at the moment. That was further down the timeline of their plan, and as such, a problem that the Swindle of the future would have to deal with. Currently, he had another altogether bothersome bunch of nuisances to deal with, Swindle grumbled as he pocketed the energon patch once he arrived at the base of the mountain where the Decepticons claimed their base.

Stalling at the bottom, Swindle glared up at the landing pad built into the cliff side, denta clenched tight as he worked his jaw. From the ground up, he could see the fuchsia visor of Frenzy peeking out from over the side, Ravage beside her and Laserbeak circling above the two. Seeing that Swindle had noticed her, whilst visibly peeved, she threw her helm back in a laugh and scampered away out of view.

The so-called 'freedom' of the cassettes lasted barely a few months before they had shown up at the Decepticon encampment, scuffing a pede against the dirt and demanding that Soundwave house them until they could figure out a permanent gig. They still touted their independence from the cassette carrier in the form of rebelling against any chores the remaining Decepticon leaders assigned them.

"Better get this over with then," he grumbled. From the moment that Swindle reluctantly parted ways with the scout, the ambush from those irritating pests upon his return was inevitable—his fate was sealed from the moment that Laserbeak snuck out to follow after him.

With little choice, Swindle stomped his way over to the scaffolding that outlined the mountain. The planks groaned under his weight as he hauled himself up but held steady as they had since they started to establish their base. Ever the magnanimous leader, Starscream had prioritized his trine's ability to land comfortably which was fine and dandy for the Cons with aerial alt-modes but meant slag all to the rest of them.

The construction to allow them ground-level access to their own base could not occur fast enough and every day that Swindle had to scrabble his way up to the entrance was a day filled with him cursing out the Constructicons for fragging off before they all got stranded on Earth. Lazy glitches, leaving them behind with all the heavy-lifting necessary to keep the Autobots out of their wires.

At least all those energon patches sitting in his subspace compartment were a nice consolation treat for this workout he was forced to endure— Which, could he just state how good it felt to wipe off the dust in there and restart his stockpile? Hardtop and him could swim in energon by the time that Autofool either gave up with this pitiful endeavor or succeeded in wrapping Breakdown around his digit.

Were he a little less careful, and far more spiteful, Swindle would flaunt one or two of the patches in front of the other Decepticons' faces—but the greedy bastards would probably try and pry him open in the night while he was recharging to steal his hard-earned energon if they learned he had any.

Later, in the seclusion of their quarters, Swindle would sneak Hardtop his share for the week whilst the majority of their surplus would remain in his subspace. Keeping it out of sight of the other Decepticons took priority over indulging in a public display of gluttony by filling their tanks to the brim after decades of conserving what little energon they could scrounge up.

Cautiously, Swindle crossed the runway and squinted his optics to spy on the small shapes watching his every move before darting away. Attempting to avoid the cassettes was evidently pointless as he could hear their tiny pedesteps pound across the halls ahead of him, cackling all the while as though dragging out his humiliation were the greatest game invented since the war ended.

Bracing himself, Swindle avoided heading down the corridor that led to the sleeping quarters and redirected his way to the main hub. If he had any luck at all, then Hardtop could help act as a buffer between him and the relentless teasing of the cassettes. If not, then he'd let them get their laughs out now, as their pitiful attention spans would switch focus onto something else after a while. But that didn't mean that he had to like or even tolerate what awaited him the second he walked into the communication room.

So long as Swindle kept his wits about him and didn't let more fuel for them to add to the forge slip from his glossa then he could endure getting made fun of by bots half his size. To an extent. He wasn't afraid to bully the minis if they started getting a little too comfortable with their confidence against larger mechs.

And honestly, he couldn't fault them for it too much as Swindle would have certainly joined them in cackling at the dumpster fire that was the relationship between the scout and the Stunticon if he weren't now a major player. With Bumblebee hitting an all time low with his embarrassment, Swindle would have laughed it all over a few cups of high grade with the rest of the Decepticons—and still might! Once he got his energon distillation set-up coordinated and running, of course.

As he entered the hub, he found Frenzy and her siblings lounging against the main communication console. Frenzy flexed and stared at her digits as if to assess the state of the extraneous paint on them while Laserbeak preened metallic feathers. They were fooling absolutely no-one, considering the snickers they shared between themselves and the fact that Swindle watched them dart into the room kliks before.

And just his luck, Hardtop was nowhere in sight. Drats. Looks like he was doing this solo…

Frenzy whistled a tune, visor glinting with glee at Swindle's entrance and took no time at all before she immediately abandoned her phoney nonchalance to go, "Well, well, look who it is! Hey, Swindle, where's your 'partner'?"

"Yeah, and how was your 'drive' together?" Laserbeak cackled and jumped up and down on the console, flapping his wings as he literally hopped with joy. Ravage flicked her cabled tail back and forth, content with curling up and watching for the moment. Swindle liked her best out of all of them, because she wasn't a smart-aft punk like her siblings.

"Alright, get it out of your systems, brats," Swindle crossed his arms and regretted that they couldn't visibly see the way that he rolled his optics. "Word of advice, by the way, your sneaking skills? Rusty. You weren't slick nor clever with your snooping about."

"Know what else is rusty? Your flirting skills," Frenzy launched herself away from the console and darted in between his legs, pulling out her electric guitar to generate frequency chords that punctuated her sing-song of, "Swindle and Bumble, parked by a tree— L-I-N-K-I-N-G! Bwa-hah, first comes love then comes…" She started to trail off, confusion and uncertainty entering her voice as she stumbled over adjusting the lyrics to what Swindle could only assume was a nonsensical human song, "Mmarriage? That's– Hm, ritus…? Yeah, ritus! And then comes ba–" Frenzy paused in a full-stop, lowering her guitar as she turned back toward her siblings. "What's a baby?"

"Newspark, I reckon," Laserbeak cocked his head, looking at Ravage for confirmation. The cassette nodded, before getting up to stretch and promptly darting out of the room. Undisturbed by her departure, he crowed, "I'll take that as a yes!"

"Got it! Argh, wait, I totally ruined the flow," Frenzy groaned, shaking her helm and tugging on her fringe. "Lemme start over."

"Yeah, I don't think so, pipsqueak," Swindle pushed her back, toppling the cassette over and resulting in an enraged, ' Watch it!' that he promptly ignored. "You had your chance and blew it. Now listen up, I get it—this is all very entertaining to you three, but if you know what's good for you then you'll–"

"Then they'll what?"

Stiffening, Swindle slowly turned and took in Soundwave looming behind him. The Communications Officer snuck up on the arms dealer, his thudding steps falling into the background and providing little warning prior to the ominous crackle of words. Swindle almost emptied his tanks right then and there, sending a prayer to Primus that Soundwave wouldn't offline him right then and there for boldly pushing one of his cassettes in front of him.

"Hmph, killjoy," Frenzy muttered with a pout at seeing the cassette carrier. "We were just having fun."

"Soundwave! Good to see you!" Swindle edged away from Frenzy who stretched out her legs in an attempt to trip him back. He danced around her, and Ravage who reappeared—the snitch —to wind around his legs. "Hey, did you polish your armor recently? 'Cause can I just say that you look like you're glowing," with disdain, "today."

Slowly, Soundwave circled around Swindle silently. He followed his movements, wanting to at least face his aft-kicking head on instead of running with his tow-hook between his legs and getting whooped anyway. He was a coward, and disreputable as they come, but he knew when to fold.

Excessive flattery and pleading could only go so far in lessening his punishment, and as Soundwave looked down at him, Swindle sensed that he couldn't bluff his way out of this one either.

When the officer finally spoke, disgust laced every single word that the mech delivered, "You three: have made Soundwave: a fourth wheel."

Huh?

"Not cool," Soundwave shook his head, settling against the console and allowing Ravage to climb up his arm. She nuzzled against his bevor, lounging across his armor as the mech languidly regarded Swindle.

What? Wait. Was– Oh, oh Primus. Swindle misread his body language entirely. Soundwave wasn't angry for his roughhousing with Frenzy, he was something much worse:

He was disappointed.

At what, specifically? Did the cassette carrier think that just because they—Breakdown, Swindle, and Bumblebee—were all cell neighbors in the GHOST holding bay once, that it therefore entitled him to join in on the drama? Or did he want nothing to do with the whole matter entirely after his cassettes blabbed to him about what they spied in on? Did Soundwave watch the live-stream too, right beside his minis?

Didn't know, didn't care— This was a hell of his own making, Unicron take him now. How did a simple scheme to cash in on another bot's misery result in his own? Swindle knew it, he was far too altruistic of a mech and his actions were blowing up in his face spectacularly. Never would he lend a helping servo to another pitiful Autobot again! Never!

And just when he thought these developments couldn't grow worse, the sudden tell-tale scuttling he heard signaled that the Insecticons were crawling out of the crevice they usually holed themselves up in. Turning, he watched as they dropped from the ceiling and crawled down the wall, clicking with malicious glee. It took one look at the gleam in their optics, and the look they threw Laserbeak to know that they had watched his 'date' as well.

"Oh sure, let's just invite the entire base for this," Swindle threw up his servos. "In fact, why don't we bring Breakdown in here and see what his thoughts are while we're at it! Don't any of you respect the privacy of another mech?"

Transforming to shed his shell and return to root mode, Shrapnel crawled close to Swindle. Putting his disgusting claws against his tire, he chittered, "Why would we? We? Nothing better to do around here, here."

"Eugh," he jerked away from the Insecticon, shivering and turning his wheel so that he could wipe away the rubber that he touched. "As a little advance, exactly how many mechs watched Laserbeak's live-stream? Everyone?" Certainly not Breakdown? And end the fun too soon before his big payout?

"Live-stream? Oh, no, we simply followed the sounds of desperation and found it led right back to you," Bombshell twitched his appendages that got dangerously close to Swindle and if the pest knew what was good for him then he would keep those to himself. Clearly lying about his prior statement, Bombshell shook his head in dismay, "Ironic, isn't it, brother? That a mech known for openly criticizing our choice in food would go ahead and take the leftovers of another."

"Oh yes, very ironic. Ironic."

"Unappetizing leftovers too."

"Hey!" he snapped, ire growing which each creepy little utterance they gave off. He growled, "The two of you better hold your glossa if you want it to keep 'em—and leave Bumblebee's designation outta your intakes while you're at it!" He was all for insulting the pet scout, but those repulsive remarks were too far even for Swindle.

"Touchy, touchy…"

Bombshell shuffled back with a huff, regrouping with Shrapnel as Swindle's trigger digit curled. He never should've gotten rid of his gatling gun, if he still had it just the threat of waving the rotating barrels in their faces would have gotten the two to shut up permanently. The defensiveness dwelling within him had nothing to do with defending Bumblebee's honor or anything ridiculous like that—this kind of raunchy lip from Skullcruncher, now that Swindle would have begrudgingly allowed.

Simply, he held firm that the Insecticons simply had no right to judge anybody when they were the freakiest Cons around.

Despite that Swindle was going to leave well enough alone, opening his intake to return back to pressing for an answer about who in all spied on his 'date', when he heard Bombshell mutter to Shrapnel, "Think he wants me to lend him a cerebro-shell? Probably the only way he'll be able to keep the false-bug under his charms is if he uses one."

Absolutely not. In no world would Swindle let Bombshell have the last word.

"Oh hey, how's Kickback doing?" Cruelly, Swindle tilted his head back in challenge at the surviving Insecticons, jabbing them where he knew it would hurt most. "Last I heard, he was kicking back just fine in the Well of the Allspark right about now, right?"

"You—!"

"Settle down," Soundwave chastised, yet not moving a single cable to physically intervene as the Insecticons rattled their plates with a hiss. Swindle bristled at them back, daring them to give him a reason to nail them against the walls like humans did to their Earth counterparts. One stray move from either and he'd do it, he swore on his gestalts graves that he would.

"Ugh, enough of this posturing," Frenzy hopped onto the console and swung her body so that she could hang upside down. "It's boringgg. What I wanna know more about is how you and Bumble got together."

"If they're actually together," Soundwave uttered, visor glinting as he stared down Swindle. "Swindle: seemed quite vindictive when the scout joined us in the holding cells. His sudden turnaround: suspicious."

"That must've been when it happened, right? You falling for him?" Frenzy asked him, half-genuinely curious and half-teasing. She snickered, "And here I thought that what happens in the GHOST cell block, stays in the GHOST cell block. Hey, is Bumblebozo gonna move in with you?"

"Look, everyone here is overreacting," Swindle held up his servos, gesturing at the cassettes. The narrative needed to return back into his control, "Bumblebee and I aren't in a relationship–"

"Yet."

"–and, is it a crime to fraternize with the no-longer enemy?" Swindle continued, not paying attention to the interjection unhelpfully provided by Laserbeak. "Not only that, but may I remind you all, him and Breakdown broke up so it's not as though we're having a hypothetical affair even if we were linking cables as the minis say these days. So all this gawking is really… inappropriate…" he trailed off.

For a moment, none of the mechs surrounding him spoke a word—you could hear a bolt drop at how stifling the resulting silence was. Swindle looked at them, optical ridges furrowing as he wondered what exactly he said that twisted their wires. Then just when his confusion peaked, his processor helpfully played back his words and highlighted his error for him.

Without delay, he slapped a servo against his face plates, groaning, "Slag."

"They broke up?" Frenzy's jaw dropped, sitting up abruptly. She almost slipped off the console as she leaned forward in shock, "Like, actually broke up?"

"Didn't Breakdown say they were on break?" Laserbeak turned to his sister, optics wide. "Again? Like always?"

"He did! He totally did! What a loser!" Frenzy clapped her servos together. "That means Bumble totally broke up with him!" She pointed a digit at Swindle, "And decided that Swindle was his next best option to not being alone forever! That's hilarious!"

"Ah." Soundwave nodded his head, as though the secrets of the Matrix just revealed themselves to him. "Soundwave: understands now. Bumblebee: is attempting to make Breakdown jealous using: Swindle."

"No he's not!" Swindle said, lying through his denta. "That's absurd! Honestly, Soundwave, you get stranger every Earth day you spend on this mud rock. I should be offended, actually, at the accusations you're leveling against me, but I'm an understanding mech so I won't."

"Hm." Ravage leaned her head down so that Soundwave could pet her. "Sounds fake."

"I can assure you that I have never once been false in my entire life cycle," he splayed a servo against his chassis, thinking desperately about how none of this could ever get back to Bumblebee. Swindle was almost positive that the scout had enough hatred in his spark to start gunning for both Breakdown and Swindle if he found out how horribly the Con bungled his grand revenge scheme.

His hand inched toward his subspace compartment as his processor rapidly calculated the risk involved with buying the silence of everyone in the room. Surely, he could up-charge his prices to Bumblebee to recuperate from the loss of his precious energon? How desperate was the cavalry unit to make this work, hmm…

"As if, if." Shrapnel hid behind Bombshell, snapping Swindle out of his contemplative gambit as he smirked. "Poor bug. Bug. Doesn't realize he's getting played, played. Swindle could never actually love him like he needs, needs."

"Oh no, no, brother. He probably realizes exactly what's happening and chooses to allow it anyway for the illusion of companionship. How sad."

"Sad! Sad!"

Whirling around, Swindle brought out his blaster and started the charge, aiming at the Insecticons as he snapped, "Alright, I've just about had enough of you two–"

Whoosh. His retort died on his glossa and he lowered his gun as the door to the hub slid open.

Starscream entered, flanked by Skywarp and Nova Storm, with a contemplative twist to his face plates at the sight presented to him. The air commander glanced around at the assembled Decepticons, hushing his trinemates from their idle musings. Blue optics dissected the loathing emanating from Swindle, the blaster in his hand, and the predatory rustling from the Insecticons who were on the other end of the barrels before roving over to the communications officer and his ilk.

Folding his arms behind his back, Starscream straightened his posture. "Now, tell me— What could possibly justify this level of unrest and violence amongst ourselves?"

Neither Swindle nor the Insecticons answered, although the desire to shout the childish retort of, 'They started it!' nagged at his processor.

"Pettiness," Soundwave spoke up with a shrug. Well, he wasn't wrong technically… Although Swindle felt that in this instance he was entirely in the right for gearing up to squash those two pests under his pede, since they had it coming.

Whether or not Bumblebee was justified in his own pettiness—the reason that ultimately caused this gathering of numbnuts—was up for debate and Swindle was a biased judge because he directly benefited from it, so don't ask him.

Starscream threw Soundwave an inquisitive look at the clipped response, before glaring at Swindle and the Insecticons both. "Yes, well, cease this nonsense. We have more important matters to attend to," he stalked close to Swindle and stared him down. "Such as why precisely Prime found it pertinent to contact me regarding you and his scout this morning."

"Oh, he did, did he?" A bead of condensation dripped down his helm, as his frame burned with how slagged he was. He watched as Frenzy covered her mouth and exchanged a look with Laserbeak, pleased with the turn of events. "What did he say, by any chance?"

"Understand that he seemed quite distracted while relaying this information to me, but he asked if I had authorized you to assist Bumblebee in recovering an Emberstone shard. I informed him that I had not, but I don't think he believed me," Starscream rolled his optics. "Typical Autobot. Harping on and on about trust, but so quick to turn around and display wariness at the first opportunity." The Decepticons not under scrutiny started to visibly tune out the seeker, growing disinterested and glancing at the exit. They had all heard this rant time and time again—the quality of it rusted over time. "But tell me, Swindle, were you two looking for a fragment without my command? If so, where is it?"

Ah— Prime must have turned around and contacted the cavalry scout after finding Starscream's answer unsatisfactory. That did explain his insistence to accompany the two of them despite Swindle and Bumblebee both being accomplished soldiers, he must have thought Swindle was acting independently. A classic sign that he was up to no good, in the Prime's optics.

But since his prized scout himself reconfirmed that no, they were not taking an initiative in their free time to search for those blasted shards, Prime backed off.

Leaving Swindle to deal with an irate Starscream in the aftermath. Thanks a lot, Optimus. Couldn't spare a klik to clear up the misunderstanding with his ever-paranoid commander? Some leader he was.

"About that, Prime overreacted," he chuckled and imagined that he was throttling the giant mech. "You see, we weren't looking for a shard or anything like that, we–"

"And why not?" Starscream questioned. Swindle half-shuttered his optics, pinching his lips tightly. Oh great, a lecture. "It's in all of our vested interests if we restore the Emberstone to its former glory. In fact," he cast a glance at all the Decepticons gathered. "If you have time to engage in pettiness," Starscream mocked. "Then you have time to go out fragment hunting."

"Can't," Frenzy snickered, hiding her grin behind a servo. "I don't have the right partner for it. You know who does thou–"

"No, I don't. And find one then if you must have one." Starscream interrupted, shaking his head and moved back from Swindle. "Now shoo," he waved his servo dismissively indicating that he wanted Frenzy to slide off the console. As her and Laserbeak scampered away, he perched his digits over the keypad. Pulling up a marked map of Witwicky, carefully sectioned off into different sectors to better optimize their search efforts, Starscream crossed out a quarry with dismay.

Slowly, the Insecticons edged out of the room, and the cassettes followed suit with a grumble. Soundwave stayed back, and not wanting to awkwardly linger, Swindle went to exit. He froze when Starscream went, "Oh, and Swindle?"

"Yeah?" he threw over his pauldron, nervously.

"Endeavor to not do anything that would incur another call from Optimus to my private line going forward." The blue light of the holoscreen illuminated the simmering upset on the commander's face plates. "It was most unpleasant to have my morning disrupted by that Prime and his fellow commanders."

Swindle picked up on what Starscream implied, slumping his pauldrons. The seekers' attitude and moodiness suddenly seemed a lot more reasonable. "Got it," he nodded with a mutter, opening the door to leave.

And just to salt his wounded pride, on the other side of the door Breakdown's clueless, smug face revealed itself.

Of all mechs, the Stunticon was the last person Swindle wanted to see— Literally all of his current suffering was his fault. Roughly, he shoved Breakdown aside with a spaulder check and clenched his servos. "Move outta the way."

As he made his way to his quarters, where he would unload all of his frustrations in a long winded vent to Hardtop—who had slept through all this anguish!—Swindle heard Breakdown's perplexed, "What crawled up his tailpipe and died?"

How could a perfect date that started off so well spiral into this nonsense? Well. He had to admit that while the slow reveal of his involvement with Bumblebee could have gone better, it also could have gone a lot worse. Whether or not he had convinced the others that the relationship between him and Bumblebee was legitimate rested entirely on if they chose to take his words at face value.

Which, considering that they've all been his peers for millions of years now, meant that it wasn't likely at all. Great, just fantastic! Swindle and the scout barely even started laying down the groundwork to make this sham plausible and now they would have to work even harder at making it convincing. Or, at least, tricking Breakdown into believing the credibility of it all.

Altogether, Swindle stewed with envy over the heartwarming homecoming the scout undoubtedly got greeted with. He should have just followed the Autobot back to the farmhouse and pestered him for more stories about him and the kids. At least then Swindle would have enjoyed the rest of his day.

Chapter Text

Carefully, Bumblebee pressed against the palm of his servo, flexing his digits as his tactile sensors tingled with phantom sensations of Swindle's curled against his own. In all his years as a scout, his servos must have logged the scuff marks, dents, and scratched touch of enough metal—living, sometimes not—to fade into the back of his processor.

Rarely did his sensors take the time to memorize the feel of another. Breakdown had been an exception, an outlier in the grand scheme of things. His servos bore deep grooves in the metal from debris wedging between his plates and grinding against his frame, a mark of the many impromptu demolition derbies the Stunticons enacted during the war. They were rough, uneven, with a loose digit here and there from Hook reconnecting it without much care, but they used to hold Bee's own scarred servos softly in stolen moments during the war.

And he intimately knew what it had felt like for those servos to scrape against his own as they pulled back with a devastating hesitation.

Swindle's servos were battered and strained with plasma blast residue—in various spots the metal no longer shone with a pristine gleam, dulled from firm batterings. Thumb bumping against his trigger digit, Bee's sensors noted the curled dent from the repetitive firing of the many armaments he hoarded, whereas a stiffness afflicted the rest due to a lack of upkeep. The lenses in his optics honed in on the grain of each digit, cataloging the lines and where the finish differed with stains against the light of the sun.

Bee's sensors picked up on all of that in the brief moment that he had held onto his servo and he had yet to cast it out from his processor. He contemplated deleting the information, but reluctantly stored it away instead. His sensors would just re-record the same sensations, after all, the more they held hands to convince everyone on how enamored they were for one another. Erasing it each time would become an effort in futility, as much as retaining the information haunted him in return.

How strange. The scout didn't anticipate the end of their meet-up following him home, at least not in such a peculiar manner. But ultimately, it was a much needed distraction from his impending doom once Alex and Dot returned home from work.

"Ummm, Earth to Bee? Are you even paying attention to us?"

A nervous thrum of energy pumped through his lines, as Bumblebee lowered his servo and calmed himself. Looking out at the assembled Maltobots, and particularly at Thrash who looked irritated at his momentary lack of focus, Bee restated, "The key lies in a constant repositioning of your frame to find the perfect balance."

He had returned as unobtrusively as possible to the Malto's residence after parting ways with Swindle. And promptly roused the Terrans for an immediate lesson even as dread churned in his tanks. The kids groused at him for the unexpected wrangling, but in all honesty Bee hardly processed their complaints over the programs running in the back of his processor that told him to prepare his frame for an interrogation once he crossed onto the property.

Realistically, Bee understood that he had nothing to fear from Alex or Dot. The Maltos only cared about his general well being, he knew this, but that didn't stop Bee's logic chips from determinedly reminding him with a persistent ping that he was en route to an inevitable intervention and that he really should at least set up some firewalls while he still could.

Twitching in remembrance at the warmth of Swindle's metal, Bee mourned that he couldn't have dragged Swindle with him back to the barn. Their plan seemed to hold up much better under scrutiny when Swindle was taking the reign and directing Bee on how to proceed. But then again, Bumblebee felt that way about most things in his life.

In any case it was far too early for them to make things 'official' in that capacity.

He would simply have to face the Maltos on his own, putting his entire spark into convincing them that whatever they thought was going on—and with a hasty prayer sent out to Solus that Dot specifically wouldn't catch onto him before his plan could fully take off—simply wasn't. All the years of honing his saboteur abilities led up to this one moment.

Stilling his wings from revealing his anxious thoughts to the kids, Bee walked down the line and continued with the lesson, "It's important to keep up core maintenance. You never know when you'll find yourself suddenly unbalanced," Like he did currently. Although, that was less literal and more due to the jumbled mess of wires that was the current state of his emotions as of late. The humor was ultimately not lost on him, and so he redirected the punchline away from himself by remarking, "You wouldn't want to find yourself with a destabilized equilibrium out in the field, I mean— Just ask Megatron if you don't believe me."

While the kids chittered excitedly amongst themselves about what Bumblebee meant by that—and he let out a soft 'heh' at hearing that they would, in fact, grill the former Warlord about it as soon as they could—he carefully observed each of the kids as they held their frames parallel to the ground.

Hashtag's arms shook as she maintained the position, but she was doing remarkably better than Jawbreaker who seemed to find difficulty in keeping his legs straight or in the air at all. His knee guards frequently graced the dirt to brace himself before lifting up again. Nightshade on the other hand had their arms bent incorrectly with their chest nearly touching the grass, and so the scout gently nudged them in correction.

Thrash, despite his current annoyance at Bee and the exercise, was doing the best out of all of his siblings. Not surprising considering out of all the kids, he utilized his flexible frame the most—to dance, to fight, to act like a punk, etc. etc. If anything needed critiquing, it was his clear desire to abandon the lesson and run off to cause mischief, of which Bee could ascertain by the not-so-sneaky glances he sent to the barn.

Expectantly, he turned to Twitch—her natural competitiveness against her brother combined with a genuine desire to exceed expectations meant that if Thrash was taking the lead then she wasn't far behind—and promptly frowned. "No rotary fans, Twitch. I disabled your gyros for this lesson for a reason. I want you guys to develop the skills for manually adjusting your balance all on your own."

"Aw man," she pouted. Insistently, she said, "But they're not part of my gyroscopic functions, technically, so I should be allowed to use them! It doesn't go against what you're teaching us!"

"And if the blades get damaged in battle? What will you do then?" Bumblebee shook his helm and moved on. "Plus, it isn't fair to your siblings. Power them down, whirlybird."

With a groan, Twitch complied and started to wiggle mid-air as she tried to find her balance—arms locked perfectly but legs struggling to stay straight.

Thrash, smug at watching her struggle, felt the need to comment, "You know, this really isn't all that difficult of a challenge. Certainly beats running those same old drills over and over again."

"Ugh, says you," Hashtag bemoaned, giving up and collapsing against the ground. With a grumble she added, "You have way less body mass to hold up anyway."

"And shorter arms," Jawbreaker huffed with strain, lowering his knees tentatively as he followed Hashtag. He unlocked his arms when Bee didn't chastise him into returning back to form and folded them in his lap.

"You're all just jealous," Thrash sung, "Because I'm the best at this scout exercise for once."

With his eyes closed as he gloated, Thrash didn't notice at all how Bumblebee awkwardly shuffled in place at the description. Certainly, if he found out that the planche—while a show of significant strength in its own right— didn't originate in the trenches of the Cybertron Theater, he'd kick up a fuss about Bee tricking him into doing pointless exercises. And human strength training like this was useless to them—they didn't exactly have muscles, now did they?

Admittedly, the reason why Bee enjoyed practicing calisthenics and yoga originated from a brief stint spent in his holomatter disguise. Ten years he spent in hiding, maintaining no contact with the other Autobots, before he finally caved. He craved any form of interaction with other people regardless of who or from where.

As such, he snuck out of the decrepit warehouse that served as his temporary hideout and joined a class for fitness. He did it purely for the brief interactions he got with the actual humans, dutifully attending the class three times a week—sticking to the back and keeping his hard light head down—and listening in on the conversations around him.

It fascinated him to no end how humans went about their day-to-day lives. Cybertron, before the war, didn't operate on an individual level the way that it did for his 'peers'—frivolous debates on what to get for 'lunch' or what they should make for dinner, their thoughts on a new book they picked up, whether they should go shopping or to the cinema later in the Earth week, and so on and so forth. If fueling was nearly as interesting as it appeared to Earthlings, Bee might have regretted having an efficient engine that required far less Energon than other Cybertronians.

Consequently, some of the women attempted to mingle with him, the shy middle-aged femme he designed his disguise as. Bee was ashamed to admit that it was one of the few highlights during those lonely years. All of them were so concerned about how he was doing, leaving him with Tupperware of homemade food he couldn't eat, and inviting him to join them for a night out—he declined, stating that he was studying to go back to 'school' and that his shifts to pay 'rent' had him out at odd hours.

Everything that spewed out of his intake was a stuttered lie, of course, but it felt nice to contribute with his meager responses. Half the time, he much preferred to just sit back and listen—letting the small talk wash over him without contributing. Bumblebee could almost pretend he was at the Cybertron racetracks again, surrounded by other mechs instead of wallowing in the shadows.

Having something to occupy his time spent waiting for new orders was a nice bonus. After he relocated to his next safe house, and the ones that followed in those last five years, he found himself continuing to practice the sets despite how ineffectual they were for his frame.

After he was officially pulled from hiding, Bee secretly wondered if he could get away with reusing that holomatter form. No one would notice, especially as his presence in the Terrans' life dwindled and was eventually snuffed. If he couldn't spend his days before the next call to arms in the presence of Breakdown—assuming this entire operation fell through and they stayed broken up—then maybe he could immerse himself in the lives of humans instead…

Hah, knowing his luck, Optimus would stumble across him exiting a class and immediately clock that it was Bumblebee behind the hard light projection and the indignity of it alone might threaten to offline him.

Speaking of his Prime, the scout seriously debated blocking his superior officer for a cycle or two as yet another text popped up on his HUD. He dismissed it absently, optics flickering as it closed out. Optimus probably felt he was doing a spectacular job with the 'clever' and 'encouraging' emoji combos he was sending to Bee, but all he managed to do was aggravate the strain his processor was undergoing in his helm.

In any case, not to dash Thrash's boasting across the rocks or anything but the planche exercise was not a scouting skill. While refining their sense of balance, and the importance of it mid-combat, did make for a good lecture it was almost as pointless as their teacher this far into their mentoring.

Bumblebee was running out of things to impart upon them, and even as he scrambled to string together lesson plans to buy himself more time, the truth of the matter was that he had already trained them in all of the essential drills months ago.

Once the threat of GHOST and Mandroid both were dealt with permanently, the scout had dusted off the priority order of drills that were a remnant of the tried and true data packet from the war. With how close they all came to losing, and the fear that gripped his spark at hearing the damage Twitch and Thrash endured, it was clear that Bumblebee needed to overhaul his teaching methods and defer to the rigorous training formulated by his superiors.

Jazz spent painstaking cycles developing the packet just for Prowl to peer review and mass overhaul it. The strategist would succinctly point out all of the flaws for long-term efficiency whereas the head of intelligence would state his case for each drill with amusement seeping from his voice. Bumblebee fondly held onto all of the footage from that vorn, watching the two debate back and forth academically about the best way to train the newer, younger recruits who never had nearly enough time for the extensive training that Bee received when he first enlisted.

Jazz wanted to prioritize survival, claiming that extraction was more important than risking Autobot secrets falling into the hands of the Cons whereas Prowl championed retrieving intel above all else as they never knew what could tip the scales into their favor. Bumblebee always admired that neither of the two officers fell into hopelessness as they reworked the data packet, especially Prowl. Decepticons overwhelmed their forces and dragged Autobots kicking and screaming to the Well with the war seemingly no closer to ending—he couldn't imagine directly handling all of the numbers and watching them dwindle with every passing cycle.

And yet, their faith in Optimus never wavered and together they landed on a series of drills that satisfied all of the demands the current campaign necessitated of their troops.

If the stakes weren't so high, Bumblebee was certain they could have spent a millennia seeking each other out— Seizing the chance for a solitary moment to bask in each other's presence before the war ripped them apart again. The short time the two officers spent on Earth must have been the break they longed for, but even that didn't last. It never did.

Bitter, the scout could relate… albeit his situation was a tarnish on his reputation as a trusted cavalry unit if it was ever discovered that he sought out Breakdown whilst engaged in tracking the movements of the ground forces of the Decepticons. How nobody ever discovered their secret hook ups was a mystery Bumblebee had no desire to unzip.

Although, in retrospect, using drills designed for halving the time required before shipping recruits out onto the field wasn't precisely the wisest way to linger around the Maltos for as long as he possibly could. Now Bee had little left to teach them and so much longing in his spark to stick close to them all.

Glancing at Hashtag and Jawbreaker, Thrash too gave up on the exercise. He shuffled his legs down and under his chassis so that he could settle back against the grass with the limbs outstretched before him. His pedes swung back and forth, knocking lightly against one another. "And since I'm clearly a master of this drill, why don't we all bask in my awesomeness and just take a break? I'm pretty sure we're all bored of training at this point, anyway."

His chassis tightened, but Bee pushed through the crushing weight against his plates to acknowledge that the kids did seem tired. Before he could announce that they were done for the day, one of the Terrans beat him to it.

"Not at all!" Nightshade commented, blinking at their brother. Besides Twitch, they were the only one still practicing the pose. "In fact, I'm enjoying this exercise as I find it quite meditative. Although… I would prefer we didn't have to maintain the same position for the entire duration of it. Bumblebee, will you run us through the other sets that I've seen you practice in the mornings?"

Bee turned to them in surprise, as he hadn't realized that any of the kids had paid attention to his own daily routine. He assumed they would have dismissed it as boring adult stuff. "Well–"

Brightening, Twitch scrambled to flip her legs over her so that she could propel up into the air with an excited kick, "Speaking of meditation— Bumblebee! Is it true that you're dating someone?"

"That's right!" Hashtag perked up, energy returning to her at the reminder. "I overheard Mom and Dad talking about you going on a date–"

"I'm pretty sure they said he was just going out for a drive," Jawbreaker supplied, oh so helpfully while Bumblebee felt his processor fritz out in his helm.

"Which is slang for going on a date!" Hashtag claimed. "I see it used as a trope all the time in romantic dramas. The girl sneaks out of her room to meet up with her boyfriend and go for a joyride at night, just to come home to her parents waiting for her in the living room! And then when they try to take the punitive route, she rebels and runs off with him!"

"Bumblebee would never run off with somebody else or abandon us," Twitch insisted, affronted at the mere thought. She darted close to Bumblebee, wrapping her tiny arms around the thin rerebrace plating between his pauldrons and gauntlet, looking up at him. "Right Bee?"

"Excuse me?" Baffled, Bumblebee scrambled to take control of the narrative as he watched in horror as the kids gossiped about his horrendous love life right in front of him. He attempted to shake off Twitch in a panic, while also relishing the almost hug, "That is not at all what is happening!"

His words fell on muted audials as Thrash raised an optic ridge and went, "Yeah, I still don't think you guys overheard Dad correctly. And even if you did, who would Bumblebee even date? There's like, no options available that aren't objectively awful or the Autobots."

"That's not true, there're tons of Decepticons still on Earth that he could date," Twitch twirled in the air with excitement, letting go of Bee. "Like some sort of post-war romance to establish a proper truce! Which would require them to stay here with us! Gah! Can you imagine just how much better things will be if love is what finally unites all of us? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?"

"That does sound nice," Nightshade softly admitted, a small smile on their face. "It's not that far out of the realm of possibility, especially since most of us are friends with the Decepticons. Like myself and Tarantulas." They paused. "Is it Tarantulas that you're dating, Bumblebee?"

"Oh! But what if it's Starscream?" Hashtag gasped, an excited gleam in her optics as she clasped her hands together. "Then he can finally be a part of our family too!"

"Just one problem with that, Hashtag," Thrash said, giving her an odd look. "He'd actually need to like anything first before being capable of liking someone."

"Starscream likes things! Look," she pulled out her tablet and swiped across the screen before turning it around to face her siblings. "He enjoys the funny videos that I send him!" Hashtag pulled down on the screen, her message log with the seeker on full display as she continued, "Whenever he approves of one of them, he sends me a thumbs up emoji! And if he doesn't like them, a thumbs down!"

"You text Starscream?"

"You don't?" she challenged.

Conceding defeat, Thrash lifted his servos to placate her. "Ok, ok, you got me there. But I still don't think he'd date Starscream of all people. Maybe it's Breakdown since they're both racers," he nodded, placing a servo on his hip as he gestured with the other while Bee tried not to scream. "But I mean, so long as it isn't like Swindle of all Cons," Oh Primus, what did Bee do to deserve this, "What does it matter what he gets up to when not teaching us?"

"It's important because Bumblebee is family, duh," Twitch rolled her optics. "Which means that anyone he dates or gets married to will eventually be family too!"

"Alright, alright that's enough!" Bee interjected loudly, getting all of the kids to look over at him. His face plates were practically melting off of his framework from pure embarrassment. "First things first, I am not dating anyone–"

"So you guys are just in the talking stage then?" Hashtag asked.

"I thought they were driving," confused, Jawbreaker looked between his sister and the scout utterly lost in the conversation.

"You can drive and talk at the same time–"

"–I am not dating anyone yet," Bumblebee repeated, interrupting her. "And even if I were, hypothetically, seeing somebody it would be nobody's business except my business. Well, mine and his business I suppose."

Twitch pointed at him, "You said 'his'— That means you totally are dating someone!"

Groaning into his servos, Bee hit his helm crest with his fists. The sly looks that the kids gave to one another in his anguish meant that he couldn't convince them otherwise. Why was it that all of their planning failed under the slightest bit of needling from Bee's family? Was he really that rusty when it came to manipulation and subterfuge? Or did he secretly not have the drive to follow through with this half-cocked plan of his?

Before he could spiral and wonder if he truly was sabotaging his own attempts at revenge, the sound of rubber on gravel gradually approaching forced him to straighten and stare off in the distance. His lines ran cold as Dot's truck pulled up in the driveway, in the middle of the day when she should have been hard at work down at the ranger station. The kids all perked up, exclaiming: "Mom's back!" and rushing over to greet her as she turned off the ignition and got out of the car.

Walking over to her car, instead of darting off into the woods as his programming insisted he escape, Bumblebee locked in on the look she threw over her shoulder in his direction even as she dotted on her kids—all of whom were exclaiming that they were surprised to see her home so early.

"Don't get too excited, I'm just here for a quick lunch break," she warned, an amused smile crossing her lips. Looking over at Bumblebee, she added, "Now, why don't you guys go hang out in the dugout for a bit, I wanna talk to Bumblebee for a moment."

If nothing else, that certainly got all of the kids' attention as they whipped their helms back and forth between Dot and Bee. "Someone's in troubleee," Thrash snickered, before Twitch shoved his shoulder to silence him. "Hey!"

"No one's in trouble," Dot said, despite the fact that Bumblebee knew this was fundamentally untrue. He should have had at least a few more Earthen hours before the human Maltos started to return to the house, and the fact that Dot would take a detour from her ranger duties to talk to Bumblebee on her meal break? His processor was making its peace with a swift, if painful, return to the Well. "Now, go on. Give us some privacy."

Reluctantly the kids dispersed as Dot opened the screen door and juggled with her keys to get inside the house. Hashtag looked back at them multiple times as they made their way to the barn doors as a group. Knowing her, she probably figured that drama was brewing and wanted to get 'all the deets' the nanoklik they occurred and not a moment sooner. Alternatively, Twitch threw a curious look over her shoulder pads as well, slight concern displayed across her face plates as she lingered behind her siblings.

In all the time that he had known her, Twitch developed an uncanny ability to sense his unease with precision despite his active efforts to conceal any and all self-doubts from the kids. As a result, she grew to have more than a few clingy habits, often not wanting to leave his side whenever she picked up on his distress. Encouraging her to leave him behind in the aftermath of their confrontation with Mandroid in the Bot Brawl Arena and then promptly passing out on her likely did little to curb this.

To reassure her, Bee sent her a little wave, gesturing for her to join her siblings. Her little face disappeared behind the barn doors and yet the scout didn't believe for one moment that the kids wouldn't figure out a way to eavesdrop. Knowing how meticulous Nightshade was, the scout was certain that the kids had cameras all across the property to watch any proceedings the adults attempted to leave them out of.

Tense, he settled down against the outdoor seating by the kitchen and watched as Dot settled her hip against the table. He'd just have to watch his words extra carefully, in a two-fold effort to not expose himself to the kids or the Lt. with her keen observation skills curated from parenting seven rambunctious children.

With a glance at her wristwatch to check the time, Dot softly said, "I want to apologize for Alex's behavior from earlier. He told me about what happened and how he reacted. We both agreed that he was just a step out of line, first with his teasing and then prying in an effort to get you to open up about it. You deserve to come to terms with your break up on your own time, the same as is afforded to anyone else."

"Oh." He shuttered his optics at her. Even his logic chips seemed perplexed with how Dot chose to handle this. "You really don't need to apologize for that—either of you. I know that he meant well, I just…" Couldn't handle the sympathy or platitudes when Bee resolved himself to follow through with his current course of action.

Moving over to the widow, Dot reached over to rest a hand on his gauntlet. "I know. Heartbreak can be tough. Just know that when you're ready, we're here for you." Suddenly she frowned and leaned back. "But I want to ask, just to make sure I heard correctly. Alex said that you've been meeting with someone on these drives of yours— I'm sorry for pressing, but I have my concerns. Rebounding like this so soon isn't good for you, especially if you were with Breakdown for as long as I suspect."

Ah, there it was—that was more in line with what Bumblebee expected. And his processor whirled as it considered all possible paths he could take. The constant denial about seeing someone wore him down, even if it was necessary at this stage, but if the kids didn't believe him then Dot certainly wouldn't.

Perhaps he could take inspiration from Hashtag's earlier rambling and claim that he was just talking to someone else. Or that he was seeing someone but it wasn't serious, at least not in that way? And when he finally presented Swindle as his newest conjunx, he wouldn't make himself out as the scheming liar that he resorted himself to?

The longer that he didn't react, the more Dot's face grew worried. "You… Do you know what a rebound is, Bee?"

"Yes I know what a rebound is, you've seen me play basketball," he scowled.

"Not that kind of rebound," she said, tone dry in response to his tone. "I'm talking about a relationship rebound. It's when you get together with someone else before you've had time to fully process or heal from breaking up with your previous partner."

"You guys have a term for that?" Bumblebee reared back, perplexed. "How common is it for humans?"

"Very. It happens more often than you'd think," she chuckled. Dot sobered up before she continued, "And rarely is it healthy, for either of the parties involved. Jumping into a new relationship before you're ready is something I wouldn't advise. It's not fair for your new partner or yourself."

"Well, you definitely don't have to worry about me 'rebounding' with anyone," if the relationship was fake, and one was getting paid, then it definitely didn't count as that, right? Secondly, if he broke up with Breakdown, faked a relationship with Swindle, and then got back together with Breakdown, did that make Breakdown a rebound? Could you rebound with the same person? Ugh, human phrases on a good day puzzled him let alone when his processor was thrown to the compactor like it was today.

"Oh yeah? So then, who were you going out to meet today?" she questioned, cocking her hip and narrowing her eyes at him.

Despite the many years spent on Earth, their human companions still found difficulty in comprehending just how fast the average Cybertronian could process, contemplate, and decide on what to say when prepared. And with every subroutine and chip crammed in his helm working on the double to salvage all of his floundering, Bee easily claimed with a jerk of his head, angling his agitated wings out of sight, "For your information, I was meeting up with Jon these last couple of days."

The scout would need to send the former-agent a few texts, or perhaps actually spend some time with him to ensure that his alibi held up. Considering that the man was equally as lost as Bee at times since the fall of GHOST, he'd probably appreciate his hero keeping him company for a cycle or two. Using him as an escaped goat also wouldn't sting nearly as badly if Bee had chosen anyone else for this lie.

"Really?" Dot questioned. "You and Schloder are friends?"

"Yep, real close friends even!" And that blissfully wasn't entirely a lie. The two had formed a camaraderie in the wake of their team up to stop Mandroid from ending all Cybertronian life on Earth. Jon nearly beat out Alex with how much of a fanboy he was over Bee and Bee found he could tolerate it now that they weren't on opposing sides. If he got those two together in the same place with no high stakes to distract them, the scout feared his ego would never come back down from all the praise.

And as good as that sounded, there were more pressing matters looming over Bee. Another time, when his life wasn't in shambles maybe.

"Well, I'm glad you're getting to hang out with someone your own ag– rank then," she settled on, likely, what Dot felt was the best equivalent to age. In fairness to her, a short-lived species such as her own tended to use age as a quantifier for most everything—but Cybertronians? Often they assumed that their conversationalist partner was as old as them, until proven or pointed out otherwise. Dot smiled at him, "Honest! I always thought you could use more friends that you can see often, and no, debriefing with Optimus or the other Autobots doesn't count."

Ouch. Did Bumblebee read as lonely to everybody? Count on Dot to keep him humble, he supposed…

Dot checked her watch again and sighed. "I'm almost out of time, so I better head out. I know I'm my own boss for the most part, with GHOST gone and all, but I want to make sure the kids learn proper time management."

"But you didn't get a chance to eat yet," he brought his face close to the window, shuffling back to track her when he saw Dot walk out of the house.

"Mom hack: I ate on the way here," she smirked at him. "You really think Alex would let me go hungry? He packed me lunch earlier." Dot crossed over to her truck and slid into the driver's seat. Starting the car, she took a moment to roll down the window. "Tell the kids I love them and will see them at dinner? I'd say it myself if I didn't think they'd try to get me to stay longer and play hooky with them."

"Of course." Bee stood to his full height. Neck cables tightening, he almost kept silent as she started to pull out of the driveway, but, "Uh, before you go. You wouldn't be… mad if I was rebounding with someone, right? How long is acceptable before I can start dating somebody else?"

Brows furrowing and idling the truck, Dot stared at Bee. He timed each Earth second that passed before she said, "For starters, I wouldn't get mad at you. Disappointed that you lied to me? Maybe a little, but I'd be more upset with myself that you felt as though you had to lie. But mad?" Dot shook her head. "No. If anything, I'd remind you that you don't need to be with someone and that it's perfectly acceptable to dedicate time to being alone. Discover yourself, even find out if you're interested in relationships at all. As for how long," she trailed off. "Ultimately, that's up to you. You could find someone to date right now, and there's little I could do to stop you. You're grown, I trust you to do what's best for yourself."

If Lt. Malto knew the depths of fabrication and the lengths he was going to deceive everyone, but especially Breakdown, Bumblebee was certain she would cross the threshold of disappointment straight into scolding him furiously. And that was precisely why she could never find out.

"I see," he stated, looking away. "That's good to know."

"See you later, Bumblebee," Dot pressed her fingers to her lips in an air kiss before she curled her fingers in a wave goodbye. "Make good decisions."

"I'll try!" He called after her, as she drove off. Hidden under a vent, he muttered, "Or get as close to it as possible."

Now that the dreaded interrogation was done and over with, Bumblebee felt a wave of calm wash over him. His wings lowered, twitching as they smoothed out from the strained position they were forced into. Triumphant, he almost wanted to tell his processor, 'See? Dramatic much?' since he came out unscathed. Plus, Dot was on the path to accepting his eventual presentation of Swindle as a 'rebound' and didn't suspect him as an accomplice to a scheme.

Distantly, he noted that the kids hadn't come rushing out of the dugout yet, indicating that they were on their best behavior and chose not to go snooping where their olfactory sensors didn't belong for once.

Which meant that he was alone for a little while longer before they grew bored and sought out to pester him.

"I better tell Swindle about this development," he said to himself, absolutely giddy. And while he might have to sacrifice a day or two to spend in the company of Jon, he was sure that Swindle certainly wouldn't mind a break from seeing his wonderful visage after the repetitive week spent together.

However, just when he summoned the holographic screen he used to send off typed information, as opposed to calling the Combaticon directly—promptly taking advantage of the opportunity the kids' absence granted him while he still could—the energon in Bee's lines froze upon seeing a message pop up.

.://Up for a drive?

Unbidden, a laugh escaped his voice box. It was a hysterical, terse, tinny crackle of sound but he couldn't help it. Succinct as always, and with a knack for perfect timing, Bee reread the text that Breakdown had sent him.

Up for a drive? He couldn't stop staring at the glyphs scripted out on his communication holo. They taunted him and Bumblebee nearly warped the metal from how tightly he clenched the mechanism built into his gauntlet.

After radio silence on both their ends, here Breakdown reached out to the scout without mentioning their argument. Not a word uttered about making amends or even acknowledging the rumors Bee set into motion about moving on from him. Just, Up for a drive?

It proved, without a shadow of doubt, that Swindle had told the truth to Bee— Breakdown actually thought they were just on 'break' and that with some time for Bee to cool off, they could continue where they left off, pretending as though the scout's silly little request had never been uttered.

Now, a reasonable mech would respond in quite a number of assuredly reasonable ways. Firstly—they wouldn't. In fact, one may argue that ignoring the message was the correct course of action. Bumblebee didn't owe his ex anything and most certainly not a response to what essentially was a request to meet up that outright ignored the fact that their relationship ended.

Alternatively, a reasonable mech might make it a point to remind their ex of exactly that—Bumblebee and Breakdown weren't together anymore, contrary to what the Stunticon might think, so no. Bee would not join him on a drive.

Unfortunately for Breakdown, Bumblebee was no longer a reasonable mech and so he opted to respond with a simple:

.://No thanks, my urge to drive has been satisfied already.

Dot told Bee not even a cycle prior to make good decisions. Bumblebee felt as though his text back was the best he could have done as the follow-up that Breakdown sent in return was glorious and made him tilt his head back to maniacally laugh.

Fun little tidbit about Cybertronian glyphs—unlike most Earthen languages, they didn't have a glyph equivalent to a question mark nor did they have exclamation points. To indicate a question in text, one would need to start the sentence with [QUERY]. Therefore, Breakdown's text actually came in as .://[QUERY]: Up for a drive.

Now, having spent a considerable amount of time on Earth and amongst the humans, the stranded Cybertronians—to the consternation of a select few—picked up on a couple of their texting habits and slang. Optimus' excessive use of emojis was a perfect example, and apparently Starscream followed close behind in his usage of them, but lesser known was their adoption of a question mark.

Through trial and error, eventually the consensus landed on transforming the traditional [QUERY] into the first part of the glyph and then promptly spamming it. An English-translator might process the message as just, 'qqq', lacking the nuance to understand that more appropriately it should come out as '???'–

Such as now, when Breakdown sent him exactly five in quick succession, each line of text perfectly capturing his bewilderment at Bee's petty, blatant dismissal.

Before the Stunticon could try and demand what the scout meant by his response, Bee closed out of the chat log and decided that he would actually much rather call Swindle to inform him of the good news. In fact, they should start planning out their next date!

With any luck, Breakdown would overhear every single part of it.

Chapter Text

He listened as Bumblebee hummed idly, watching his pede tap along to a made-up tune as they stretched their legs out in front of them. Nervously tapping his digits together, Swindle glanced at the scout's wings that so blatantly fluttered with glee. Riding the high from that text conversation with Breakdown a few days ago—of which, Swindle heard all about it—Bumblebee periodically kept returning to the chat every so often to give an ugly sounding chuckle at the messages while they waited.

Despite the infectious giddiness that emanated from Bumblebee, Swindle found he couldn't focus on the continued success of their ruse. Not with the scout so close to him as he currently was. And worst of all, his traitorous spark flared in his chassis as it picked up on the heat leaking from the Autobot's frame into his own. Combined with the near teasing nature of Bee's wings just barely gracing his right pauldron, it was a wonder that he didn't combust.

Huddled as close as their frames would allow without any awkward or uncomfortable overlap, the scout had absolutely zero clue how badly he was affecting Swindle. Off in his own little world as he snubbed Breakdown by pointedly declining his transmission calls, a firefight could break out in front of Bumblebee and the Autobot would hardly notice.

Oh, but in return Swindle could focus on nothing else but the scout. His optics narrowed in and paid close attention to how the scout looked radiant in the dying light of the sunset—filtering out the internal purple tint of his optics so he could see exactly how the orange light wrapped itself across Bumblebee's features. It lightened his paint job until he was nearly a bright white at the edges of his frame, commanding the attention of his partner in crime.

Bumblebee, simply put, was glowing and Swindle felt sick with the need to run away.

The energon in his lines ran hot and cold all at once, without his diagnostics knowing why. Each time he swayed a little closer to Bee, electricity danced down his spinal strut. But as a consequence, each time he got close enough to look over the Autobot's shoulder, he'd see a notification from Breakdown sending yet another message—causing Swindle to grit his denta and jerk away.

This date of theirs had hardly begun, but it might as well not have happened at all with all the neglect he was facing. Early that morning, Bumblebee pitched an idea for how to escalate the rumors circulating around and Swindle agreed easily. Now he was trapped and couldn't bail out. At least, not prematurely and certainly not when they were finally seeing some progress on the 'making the ex jealous' front.

He couldn't even inch away from Bumblebee without drawing attention to his own fluster-bitterness combination. The last thing that he wanted was for the cavalry unit to turn and ask him, "What's wrong?"

The munitioner would sooner forfeit all the contraband in his subspace compartment than admit that he had absolutely zero clue as to why his processor started categorizing Bumblebee as an extension of all things Swindle. Nor did he want to spit at the scout that if he had to hear another word in what was becoming a multi-day string of babbling about the Stunticon, he'd tear his own auditory receptors out.

They were on a date, so naturally the date should revolve around them. Not Bumblebee and Breakdown, but Bee and Swindle.

And yet he said nothing, keeping his intake welded shut. The plan was working and he hated every bit of it.

Which left Swindle to stew in relative silence, biding the passing time until that pink Autobot finally came swinging by. According to Bumblebee, Arcee never failed to find the time to go out for a joyride every now and again as a personal way to relieve stress. Even when partnered with GHOST, she'd just up and vanish from the Autobot command on a whim only to return back at unexpected hours weeks later. If they timed everything just right, she would stumble upon them 'cuddling' on her return ride back to the reformatted base after her most recent period of absence.

Allegedly, this habit of hers never failed to drive Director Croft mad. Having an unaccounted for Cybertronian running loose? Oh the horrors. Heh, with the director dead and gone now, Croft was of no concern to the Autobot wildcard— Good riddance too. The sadistic hag allowed that pet doctor of hers to run loose, cut up his brother, and then parade around with his stolen arm. She should have counted herself lucky that Swindle hadn't gotten the opportunity to deal punitive justice on either of them for that.

Personal grievances aside, that wasn't even accounting for everything Croft had personally done to Swindle and the rest of the Decepticons in those damned cells of hers. Why the Autobots—with their strict codes against torture—had aligned themselves with that duplicitous glitch, he could spend the rest of his run cycle failing to get a straightforward answer.

And he didn't care what the Autobots preached. Some deaths were deserved, and Croft got what was coming to her.

As he glanced at Bumblebee, he wondered if the scout would agree with him. If his programmed morals even could take a step back to agree for no other reason than the fact that he too experienced imprisonment, albeit briefly, with the rest of them.

Although, perhaps not. It was clearly a rushed incarceration—seriously, those GHOST droids came rushing in to evict Breakdown into the secondary cell block using stun prods before throwing the scout and that human male into the same cell. Given the Cybertronian sized human playing deck he scrounged up from his restricted subspace, and the small holo-disguise device he had loaned the annoying male, he didn't need an advanced processor to know Bumblebee hadn't endured the same prison intake that the Decepticons had.

How would Bumblebee have reacted to it? The invasive procedure of small, wriggling, mechanical hands digging around their personal compartments without permission? Ripping away and stealing keepsakes from the swath of cycles at war, dingy scrap that served as reminders of home… Anything and everything that they could call their own was taken from them by mindless drones at the whim of a woman who hated their right to exist.

Croft might not have been able to permanently disable or remove their weapons systems without incurring the attention of that empty-helmed Prime, but she didn't need to. Not when she could spray them with solvent and slap them into cells at her leisure, testing her little control devices on the lower ranked Cons without care about how she was literally frying their processors with each test. Skullcruncher could barely string a sentence together to this day, and if Bumblebee had stuck around long enough in those cells, he too would have been gutted.

Fitting that their life fuel led to her death. Swindle only wished he had been there to see it himself. Hopefully, Bumblebee would recount it in full, agonizing detail to him eventually.

A soft touch on his pauldron snapped his attention back to the present, as Bumblebee looked at him with concerned optics. "Are you ok?"

Swindle slapped his hand off of him, peeved that the scout had caught him off guard. Although, admittedly, a small part of his processor dedicated itself to preening that Bumblebee closed his chat log with Breakdown to dedicate his attention to him. Mostly, he wanted to knock the Autobot over the side of the bridge and make his escape.

Trying to play it off, Swindle announced, "Not sure if you're aware, but due to recent events—of which nobody is at fault and that of which I will not be elaborating on—we need to tighten this sham of ours up."

He even went as far as to cock his head to bolster the lie, portraying a level of control that he did not have in stock. Plus, anything that ended the agonizing silence between them as they waited was worth the price of deception, "You see, mechs are starting to ask questions about our 'relationship', and while my ability to lie on the fly is not in question, you couldn't lie to save your spark. I barely managed to play it off, you know, convincing them about how we're just manufactured for one another—and I didn't empty the contents of my tanks after doing so, in case you're considering adding on a bonus or two."

Brow ridge pulling down, Bumblebee's lips parted slightly as he stared at Swindle with befuddlement. Not leaving him an entry point into the conversation, he continued, "Which leads me to my most recent proposal—we need to get to know one another better. To pretend as if we actually have had deep, meaningful conversations or whatever it is that soppy romantics like you are into. That way nobody can doubt the authenticity of our fake relationship."

Bee scowled, optics narrowed. "Roll that back for me. What exactly do you mean by 'recent events'? Did something happen with the Decepticons?"

Other than the lot of them acting like their usual nuisance selves? "The details aren't important," because they didn't exist. "You're missing the key point here: If we can't at least answer basic personal questions about the other, then this little ploy of ours will fall apart faster than you broke it off with Breakdown."

"That's ridiculous," Bumblebee stated plainly. "We've been fighting one another for millions of years at this point. I'd like to think after the hundredth battle we'd know each other pretty well by now. And if our shared history wasn't enough, I've been talking your audials off for the last couple of weeks now about my life. Bring up any one of those stories if you need material for your lies."

"Yeah, but that's all recent stuff. Barely even worth talking about to other Transformers, especially considering everyone who is left has played a part in one such event or another," Swindle said, computer whirling as it processed the point he had unintentionally made. "The same goes for our encounters during the war. Me knowing you're a cavalry unit says nothing about how deep our bond goes—hell, I could barely sell that type of information to a broker. It's so basic. 'Oh did you know that Bumblebee was at the Battle of the Bay?' Yeah no duh he was at the Battle of the Bay. Everyone was at that battle and they all saw you there."

As he articulated his argument, a queue started to generate at the front of his HUD. Forming a list of questions he simply needed to ask, Swindle could wring his hands together with greedy glee at the realization that he was leading the scout into an ambush only a mech such as himself could benefit from:

Exclusive information about a high profile figure of the enemy faction.

Even though they weren't at war currently, his memory banks could store this information for generations to come. Anything he learned now, he could use at an undisclosed point in the future—for money, for extortion, the need didn't matter so long as he could provide. And a good salesman always provided quality service.

He leaned in close, not backing down when Bumblebee instinctively tilted back from the proximity of his helm near his. He asked with fake genuineness, "Aren't you curious, Bumblebee? To learn a lil something about ol' Swindle here? I know I'm just dying to hear about your first thousand years as a newspark."

"You…" Bumblebee trailed off, flustered. "You actually make a great point." He sighed. "Alright fine, it's not like this information can hurt anyone."

Shows what he knew. All information, in the right servos, could distort and twist around enough to form a weapon that will do a lot more than hurt someone.

"How do you want to do this?" Bee asked, frame turning inward toward Swindle. "Are we going to play 20 Questions?"

"The human game? Sure, let's play 20 Questions," a devious quirk to his lips flittered onto Swindle's face. "I'll start."

There were so many things that Swindle could press him about with full impunity. Unfettered access to Prime's very own scout. Bumblebee didn't have to answer honestly, but he couldn't waste an opportunity like this to make even more money down the line.

Except, he totally could it turned out. For some inexplicable reason that had his processor writhing in agony, he got as close to Bumblebee's intake as he could, and asked immediately, "How good of a kisser are ya?"

The reaction was instantaneous, with the scout leaning so far back that he almost tumbled off the side of the bridge they were sitting on, "Excuse me?!"

"Can't blame a mech for asking! It's gonna happen between the two of us eventually, if we wanna sell this joint product of ours," he smirked. Internally, he screamed at the idiocy of his spark in conflict with his rationality. Seriously, what was up with it today? He should have been asking about leftover Autobot strongholds to scavenge through or how many Ember shards they had collected so far! "You can't really expect for people on either of our sides to not raise a ridge at our lack of physical affection, especially with your record…"

Face plates smoothing out, Bumblebee looked away. Stoic, he said, "Record? You don't know what you're talking about."

"Pretty sure I do, sweetspark, considering that Breakdown could never shut up about how clingy you were." He sung, eager to relay this bit of tantalizing gossip and pushing against the repeated directives to switch topics. "He talked about how he had to kiss you at the end of each meet up or you'd get pissed enough to ignore him for a handful of stellar cycles. Amongst other complaints, as you can imagine."

"I–" Bumblebee started, voice module stuttering at the shock. "But he's the one who started that tradition. And I wasn't ignoring him on purpose, I barely even noticed when he didn't kiss me back! Honest! I was too busy scouting out whatever location the next anticipated battle would take place at. He… Breakdown thought I was ignoring him? Why didn't he say anything to me instead of talking about me behind my back to you all!"

"Testy, testy! No need to get defensive, I'm just telling you what I heard." Swindle took notice of the pinch of hurt on Bumblebee's face. He regretted the turn his teasing took, and the conflict it instigated within, and yet somehow endeavored to worsen it, "Next question: you're not still sealed, are you?"

The slap Swindle received was not unexpected. In fact, it momentarily stunned him enough to shut up all internal proceedings. Rebooting, he wrangled himself together as fast as possible. The sting of it still smarted against the soft metal of his face, however. He held up his servos, to fend off the next swing the scout was winding up and also to admit that, "I deserved that."

"If you're not going to take this seriously then I'm just going to leave," Bee hissed. "I'm serious, Swindle. No amount of revenge is worth harassment."

"You're right, I'm sorry," he shuffled away from the scout to give him space. A lifetime ago, he wouldn't have been apologetic at all. And yet… "I'll ask a different question."

Bumblebee analyzed him, trying to see if Swindle was sincere or just leading him into the next set up of a bad joke. Coming away satisfied, and not bothered by his raunchy behavior enough to leave, he shook his helm.

"No, you used up two already." With a nasty glare at Swindle, he added, "And for your information, my seal snapped before the war even began. I accidentally crushed it in a transformation mishap as I was shifting between different modes. An entirely normal occurrence for most mechs, actually. If you paid attention to any health module that I'm sure Hook, or whatever excuse for a medic you guys have within the Decepticon ranks, forced you guys to download, you'd know this."

The scout's confidence grew with each sharp jab, and he ended the beatdown with a particularly harsh, "In fact, more often than not a seal breaks without the need for another Cybertronian at all. As I'm sure you're familiar with."

Ouch. Ok. Swindle would own the dig. He'd keep his trap shut to defend his substantially small dignity, just this once. Unnecessarily clearing imaginary gunk in his neck cables, mimicking the human sound commonly attributed to awkward, uncomfortable topics, he went, "Your question?"

"Lemme think," Bee shuttered his optics. A beat, then, "What's your favorite color?"

With a dry tone, and with no concept of self-preservation, Swindle said, "Really? That's the best you could come up with?"

"No, but that's the point of 20 Questions." Bumblebee snapped. "I'm not going to ask you about your thoughts on the answer to life, the universe, and everything that comes with it—knowing you, you'd probably say 'money' or something equally as shallow."

"It's just a ridiculous question, is all," he huffed out air between his plates. There goes his grand plan for useful, valuable information gathering. "Not a single person is gonna test to see if we know each other's favorite color—do you even know Breakdown's favorite color? I bet it's something ridiculous like 'the golden color of your helm'," his spark spun in rotation twice as fast, to which he promptly pretended he didn't have one at all. "Or 'blue like your optics', ugh. Schmoopy scrap like that."

"His favorite color was red." Bee responded, entirely serious. "And we're not talking about Breakdown right now. I'm asking you for your favorite color."

His frame flushed hot once more, as a perverse sense of satisfaction coursed through his lines. "Fine, fineee. If I had to choose, I guess I would say— Fuchsia, maybe."

"Like energon?"

Hardtop flashed to the forefront of his processor, his brighter purple accents matching with Swindle's. "Sure. Like energon."

"Typical," Bumblebee scoffed, before offering up a tentative smile. "Not that you care, but my favorite color is actually purple too."

Swindle wondered, however briefly, what shade of purple and if it was a shade similar to his own. He deleted those thoughts promptly. "And I'm sure Bombshell will be delighted to know this when he asks—oh wait, that's right! He won't. Alright, my turn–"

"Not so fast," the scout interrupted. "I still have one more question before you go next, remember? And I've already thought of what to ask." Bumblebee hummed, "What's one thing about Earth that surprised you the most?"

"In what way? Are we talking about the good kind of surprise or the bad kind? If the latter, then I was surprised if not downright appalled at how disgusting humans are," he shivered, ranting, "I'm not even talking about all the fluids and squishy bits that encompass their organic bodies. No, I'm talking about how they chew up those thin strips of gum. They cover it with their grimy mouth slime, then reach into their mouths to pull it out—just to hide it on the underside of objects! Do you know how many times I've reached underneath something and gotten that sticky slag caught in between the segments of my digits? They're repulsive for that alone!"

Swindle gagged in memory, shaking his digits to rid himself from the phantom sensation. He felt slightly vindicated that Bumblebee also cringed at his description. "I was thinking more along the lines of something positive but… that counts too."

"Moving on," Swindle swung out his legs, pedes scraping against the concrete road. Another crude ask was at the top of his glossa but he held himself back. With a surprising amount of willpower he also didn't ask for the key code to the Autobot arsenal. Instead, he posed an incredibly boring question, "What's your favorite Earth animal?"

And reaped the rewards of playing along with the Autobot's sensibilities as Bumblebee smiled brightly at him, the grudge about his prior questions thrown to the side. "Sugar gliders!"

Silence. Then, "I could have sworn you'd have said humans. Or bees. But sugar gliders?"

The shutters on the scout's optic ridge twitched, "Humans don't actually like it when you call them animals, makes them think they're pets–"

"They're mammals, aren't they? Organics are organics."

"Anyway, bees are nice and all but I'm not that egotistical. Ok I'm full of myself, sure, but there are so many other great options here on Earth to choose from." Bumblebee lectured. Then he started to gush, "And haven't you seen one up close? Their eyes are so big for their tiny little heads, plus," his smile turned bittersweet. "They kinda remind me of Tracks, what with how they glide around."

"That walking Greasehead?" Swindle gagged at the sudden reminder of the pompous Autobot.

"Don't let him hear you call him that, he'll–!" Bee scolded before quickly remembering himself. Stuttering, he corrected his tenses, "I– I mean, he— If he was still around… He wouldn't have appreciated you calling him that. He spent far too much time polishing himself for you to accuse him of being greasy."

"He over-polished himself in my opinion," Swindle huffed. Oh, but what he wouldn't do for some Cybertronian polish himself. The human kind just didn't sit right on the frame. How Tracks could excuse expending that much per coat, and even sharing it with that big-finned Sunstreaker, he'd never know. Swindle could have stretched half a tub for at least a vorn and then some.

"Shove it." Bumblebee slumped, exhausted. "It's not right to speak on the dead like that."

Swindle waited to see if he would ask another question, but Bumblebee just stared down at his digits, unseeing. Attempting to prompt a response, he added, "Out of all the annoying creatures on Earth, ravens aren't half bad. I can appreciate another being that has an eye for treasure. I even respect raccoons slightly, from one pickpocket to another. I remember that you made buddy-buddy with one of those, maybe you could introduce us."

When Bumblebee didn't respond to his generous concession and attempt at humor, Swindle nudged him. The cavalry unit would have sat in silence without continuing the game had he not done that. Shuttering his optics in quick succession to refocus, Bumblebee's wings stayed pinned down as he asked, "Um, do you have a favorite movie genre?"

He didn't have to clarify if the question applied to Earth or Cybertron. Neither of them existed in a time where entertainment like that had any bearing on their life spent on Cybertron. "Heist movies ain't terrible. A little over exaggerated, but humans like their excitement and dramatics so I don't expect them to set it aside for one of their pointless picture shows." He waited for Bee to give his own answer to the question. "What about you?"

"Horror movies are fun. I like the paranormal ones." Bumblebee chuckled, with the question ironically raising his spirits a little bit. "But slashers are ok too."

"Do you know how much money I could make with that little tidbit?" Swindle joked, sharply grinning at the cavalry unit. "Not a single Decepticon would be able to guess that the friendly Autobot, who pals around with nearly every human that crosses his path, would spend his free time watching flicks where Earthlings—dead and alive—off each other in incredibly violent and gruesome ways."

"It's not like any of it is real!" Life swiftly returned to Bumblebee as he defended his guiltiest pleasure. "Honestly, it's pretty impressive how convincing they can make the viscera—I usually watch the behind-the-scenes footage to see how they put it all together. Plus, it's a little exciting seeing their depictions of ghosts and spirits since we don't have a proper equivalent. Oh! And I like vampires too, which is technically supernatural horror, but have you ever watched–"

"Alright, alright that's enough! No need to nerd out, it was just a question," Swindle interrupted. Privately, he was pleased that he managed to drag Bumblebee out of his funk. "My turn." Enthused to keep the energy up, he playfully wasted yet another question for the better, "Pick a favorite ice cream flavor."

"Swindle, we can't process ice cream," Bee pointed out, raising an optical ridge. "How could I have a favorite for something I've never had before?"

"But imagine if we could," he scooted close. "All of the choices, all of the flavors humans invented— Which do you think you would like most?"

"Hmm," Bumblebee pursed his lips, struggling to contain his amusement. "Ok, ok so have you ever seen those ice cream trucks that ride around Witwicky? Well, not just Witwicky, obviously, but you get what I'm talking about."

"Yeah, I'm familiar," he said. With the tension vanishing between them, he started to lean toward Bee's frame, greedily savoring the connection they were forming. Swindle knew of the vehicles only vaguely, not paying attention to the loud, obnoxious attraction but, "What of 'em?"

"Alright, hear me out—have you ever seen those character popsicles on the side of them? With the gumballs?" Giving a cheeky, mischievous grin Bumblebee went nose-to-nose with Swindle, "Still with me? Alright, now guess who has his own design?"

"What was that about not being an egomaniac earlier?" Swindle egged on, processor conjuring up an approximation of one of those monstrosities in cavalry unit form. The two of them were close enough that their facial plate sensors could pick up on each and every vent and Swindle did his best to act normal about it.

Scooting back to his spot, Bumblebee leaned back with a loud laugh. "It's orange cream flavored! I've been told it's very popular with the kids. You can't blame me for being beloved and adored even in dessert form."

"So childish. I don't want to even know what your opinions on Engex flavors are," Swindle groaned. "Unlike you, my refined palette would settle for nothing less than rum raisin."

The scout stared at him with a pout. "That sounds gross."

"And eating a recreation of your face isn't?!"

Bumblebee upturned his olfactory sensor, looking away, "Of course not!" He peaked back at Swindle, mirth coloring his voice as he said, "Alright, copying your question a bit: if you could like any kind of candy, which do you think you'd like?"

Resisting the urge to shiver, returning back to his unpleasant experiences with chewed up gum, Swindle honestly didn't think that he would enjoy candy even if his tanks could process it. Chocolate didn't appeal to him and most other types of candy were sticky, but… "Can't lie like I haven't been interested in those little round dextrose sugar balls." That answer was safest plus…

"Jawbreakers you mean?" Bumblebee teased, a brilliant smile on his face. "Looks like you and J.B have something in common then. He's been dying to try one but Dot won't let him, just in case it doesn't settle with his systems well."

Huffing, he responded, "Just don't tell the kid that, I don't need him clinging onto me like he does you and that Dino King."

"It'll be our secret," the scout swore and Swindle didn't believe him at all. He added, "Not to assume, but I kind of figured you'd have said chocolate coins."

"As if! Fake currency grinds my gears like nothing else," Swindle retorted. "One minute you think you've hit the jackpot the next you've got melted slag in your subspace compartment! Absolutely not!"

"That's your fault for putting perishables in your subspace department," Bumblebee told him. "It would have happened if you put jellied energon in there too. Oh! You know what I've always wanted to try though? One of those pucker powder machines. It reminds me a little bit of crushed magnesium or iron. It probably even tastes the same."

"It definitely wouldn't taste the same." Finding the opportune moment to break the light back-and-forth flow that they established, Swindle figured the time was right to ask questions that mattered most for their ruse. "What made you join the Autobots?"

Wings straightening, Bumblebee clearly noticed the change of pace in the game. He worried his bottom lip with his denta as he contemplated how to answer. Honestly, Swindle hadn't expected the question to stump the scout. With how self-righteous each and every Autobot was, he figured that Bumblebee would have started spouting out the propaganda that he watched as a newbuild and how he courageously signed up the moment that he was eligible.

"When I was forged," Bumblebee started, words slowly following one after the other. "It was during the truce between the Decepticons and the Autobots. Towards the latter end of it, though. The hot spot that I came out of— A recruiter for the Independent Courier Guild was there looking for suitable protoforms with engine types befitting of a courier class. My engine has always been energy efficient, even before getting my first alt mode. It didn't take them long before they approached me and encouraged me to join."

Swindle straightened in his seat. Every background function within him stalled as he hung onto each word that the scout spoke.

Bumblebee sighed. "Sometimes I wish that I had waited and thought the offer through. But a good first impression is everything, right? How else could anyone sell what they're shelling out… The recruiter made it out as though I was forged solely for this and it felt good to hear that I would have a purpose right out of the gate. I said yes."

He looked toward Swindle, searching for some unknowable reassurance. As if he truly believed that Swindle of all mechs would comfort him and lie about how he wasn't a fool for falling for the classic salesman talk around. When he didn't get it, his optics dimmed.

"It wasn't so bad, those first couple of stellar cycles. With the Decepticons and Autobots working together, we got a lot of important shipments to ferry around. I never delivered to, you know, any of the big league players, but sometimes I would stop and talk shop for just a little bit with both factions. I made friends with practically everyone around me." He gained a complicated twist to his face plates at that statement before forcing them to settle. "The ICG provided us with housing and paid us in ration marks. The commissary on base always treated us well, and us couriers frequently shared meals together. I liked being a courier," Bee swallowed thickly, neck cables tensing. "I did."

"What changed?" Swindle asked, paying close attention. Bumblebee—attack dog to the Autobot's Prime, a neutral in the beginning? It was near unthinkable, and yet he couldn't begin to fathom the opportunities this intel created. Blackmail, extortion, and yet…

All Swindle could focus on right now was lending a listening audial. He'd have time to plan what to do with all of it later.

Bumblebee stared off across the bridge. "Megatron broke his alliance with Optimus. The Decepticons and the Autobots were returning to war."

"That's when you joined the Autobots?" The scout shook his head and he suspected as much. Far too many details were missing, and from the sounds of it the relationship between the present day scout and his former employers seemed tainted by lost love. The flexing of his neck cables whenever he mentioned them told all.

Swindle didn't need to wait long for confirmation on his suspicions, as Bumblebee revealed, "There was no place for independent contractors in this new war. The Decepticons didn't trust that we weren't spies for the Autobots, and the Autobots couldn't hedge their bets that our cargo hadn't been swapped with bombs or intentionally sabotaged by technological warfare components. We saw less and less work, and… We were paid in ration marks," Bumblebee repeated. "When resources started to thin, it was conveyed to us couriers that going forward we would be paid in accordance to our engine types as was fair."

He stilled. It didn't take a genius to understand the direction that Bumblebee was careening down.

"You've always needed less energon than the rest of us," he stated plainly, a weight settling in his tanks. "But needing less energon to do the same amount of work doesn't mean anything when you're running half-empty to start with."

"Yeah," Bee let out a shaky vent. "Yeah, I know."

Bumblebee looked away from him. Swindle frowned, a servo inching toward his midsection that protected his fuel tanks. Every Cybertronian left alive on this Primus forsaken planet has known the drain of an engine running on empty. That truth didn't make it any easier to confront the strain of systems conserving power by cutting off functions deemed non-essential.

Decepticons went hungry just as much as the Autobots did. That's why they had to leave their dying planet. But at least they never pretended that starving out their troops was in the name of fairness.

"What a load of scrap," Swindle hissed, fist clenching. "They should've had the ball bearings to own up to the fact that they couldn't feed all of you. There's no sweetening up hunger." He threw a look at Bumblebee. "Tell me you left those bastards and joined the Autobots immediately, or otherwise I'll have to call it like I see it."

Shamefully, Bumblebee admitted, "I stayed with them for another thousand cycles."

"You're an idiot." Swindle switched tactics, "So you stayed with them. Big whoop. We all have our moments of misplaced loyalty. But you eventually gave them a smack down, with a good ol' 'go frag yourself' severance notice attached, right? There's no way that a renowned scout, pain in the aft of all Decepticon grunts, loyal mutt to Optimus Prime took that slag lying down, right?"

Hunching in on himself, Bumblebee worried his digits.

"A pile of melted trash has more self-respect than you."

"I don't know what to tell you, Swindle," he threw his hands up, frustrated. He didn't seem to understand that Swindle, shockingly, was infuriated on his behalf and not at him. "I was young, I was stupid! You're acting like it's just easy to leave the only people you have ever known for something better, well it's not. If it was, me and Breakdown would have run off to the farthest reaches of this galaxy by now! I get it, I know I should have left sooner, but I didn't. Not even when they halved the ration marks for mini frames—claiming that because we couldn't lift or carry heavier cargo, we didn't expend as much energy as the larger mechs. Our endurance was our greatest asset and yet also our greatest detriment."

Swindle launched himself from his seat, jostling Bumblebee, "All I'm hearing is that you're remarkably easy to scam! Clearly I'm not getting all that I can out of this deal of ours!" He snarked, "Is it too late to renegotiate? Instead of the meager amount of energon patches I'm getting now I should ask for everything you have to give."

Bumblebee reached up and snagged Swindle's tail hook to yank him down. He let go to give his frame a little shake, "Do you think I wasn't angry or upset or frightened?" Optics wide, the past vivid and haunting, Bee exclaimed, "I kept thinking that one day they'd announce that all hybrid engines would have to rely on electricity only even as all the power grids across Cybertron started to go down one by one."

"Answer the initial question, Bumblebee," Swindle snarled, snatching Bumblebee's hand. In response, Bumblebee latched onto his bar, "If none of this was enough to make you join the Autobots then what did."

What did it take for the scout to break?

Bumblebee vented, servos slightly jittery as they loosened their grip on him. Swindle tried to calm down in response, releasing the scout as his processor poorly rationalized that there really wasn't a real reason for him to get so upset. The issue shouldn't have bothered him, and it largely didn't for all of those other mail drones. Swindle didn't care one bit for those other fools, even going so far as to deduce that a lot of them offlined early-on if they couldn't gather together to raise hell about unfair wages.

The Decepticons had held Bumblebee on his annoying, but well-deserved pedestal, for stellar cycles. Hearing all this—it cracked the very foundation of the mouthy brat who wouldn't stay down no matter how many times they struck him.

So when. When did Bumblebee learn to push himself back up onto his pedes and fight until pulverized and then continue on for sake of the ones he cared about? What caused his transformation into that scout who couldn't take no for an answer? Swindle needed to know.

"The recruitment rallies." Bumblebee flexed his digits, in remembrance. "The ones that Optimus and Megatron held after the truce broke. They went on for so long, trying to convince all remaining neutral parties remaining on Cybertron to get over themselves and pick a side. Not that they would ever refer to them that way now."

"I remember those," Swindle quietly admitted, anger waning. Starting to enter familiar territory, he tempered himself. Thinking more on it, Hardtop and him had gone to one of those once because one was all they needed to declare a faction. The Autobots would never accept a mercenary duo into their ranks, and certainly not when one half was a renowned and infamous war profiteer like himself. Their skills and their reputation suited the Decepticon cause better. A deal was struck, and him and his bro were stuck ever since. "Only heard stories about Optimus' speeches second hand though."

"Any time a delivery overlapped with a rally, I would always stop to listen." Drained, Bumblebee hesitantly leaned against Swindle's side. When he didn't face rejection, he rested his head down against his pauldron. "They stopped penalizing us for late deliveries after a while. Everyone was slowing down… besides, it wasn't like they were ever gonna know I was shirking my duties on purpose."

"Serves them right. If they wanted faster deliveries, they should have given you more energon." They could have even aligned themselves with the Decepticons, who hoarded energon better than any group on Cybertron at the time.

"Hmm," Bumblebee agreed without words. "When I went to Optimus' rallies, it always felt like he was talking to us as a friend," He smiled off into the distance. As the light in his optics grew misty, so too did his lips downturn, "When I went to Megatron's, it felt like he was talking directly to all of my insecurities and fears—all the parts of me that I tried to push deep down…" He trailed off, before admitting, "And sort of still do."

It was strange to think that there was a high possibility that Swindle and Bumblebee had met long before they first ever clashed on the battlefield. Did he recall a flash of bright yellow in a crowd of nameless faces? No, he probably wouldn't have seen him back then if they had crossed paths unknowingly. Not with the short stature of his original frame. The Swindle of the past never would have paid him any notice.

"For some reason, that only pulled me in more. It's strange, and I still don't understand why. The pair of them, Prime and Megatron, they're talented speakers. Optimus used to have this boyish charm, you know— Uh, don't tell him I said that. Or that I think he tries too hard to pretend like he still does." Neither of them laughed. "He always spoke on how with perseverance we would make it through this return to dark times. Eventually, that kind of talk was why I stopped going to the Autobot rallies. The bubbling resentment lingering underneath threatened to overwhelm my spark and no amount of optimistic platitudes about joining the fight to end the war lessened the sting of starvation…"

Bumblebee lifted his lead up to stare at Swindle. "The Decepticon rallies were a whole different scene. Megatron, with words alone, never failed to light the fuse in each of us."

Swindle knew precisely what he meant. The sole time he attended, he watched intrigued as what started out as a calm affair gradually developed into a swift fervor of bitterness and hostility. Hardtop and him seated themselves far away, looking down from the rafters of a crumbling building as aggression spread like a virus amongst the gathered mechs. Recruitment was a swift affair after a rally, as the need to expel the pent up energy redirected toward the enemy—the Autobots.

But fights often broke out amongst the crowd and were even encouraged. A chaotic frenzy of fists swinging, claws digging into mesh with the soldiers observing and waiting for just enough energon to shed before stepping in. That too was blamed on the Autobots, for causing the division between all Cybertronians.

A mech like Bumblebee never should've been mixed up in that slag. It felt wrong to even suggest it.

"Inevitably, my anger finally made me crash and burn." Sheepish, Bumblebee started to nervously bounce his leg. "I, um, gosh it never fails to embarrass me to tell somebody about this."

"About what?" Curiosity piqued, Swindle grimaced at the entirely human motion of Bumblebee's poleyn going up and down, up and down.

"Not too soon after the last rally I would ever attend, I continued on to finish my delivery and…" Bumblebee buried his face plates into his servos. He mumbled his next sentence, and Swindle had to prod him before he lifted his face and blurted out, "I punched him."

Swindle choked, blatting out a string of static. "You punched someone?" Giddy, the context and severity of the conversation got pushed out of the way in favor of finding out more. "Why? Who?"

"Look, I'm not proud of my actions back then! I don't even have a clear reason why I did it," Bumblebee placed a servo on his helm crest, stricken. "Well, no, I know why my circuits corroded in the moment enough to attack a client unprovoked but—he was just giving his thanks for delivering the package of power rods! Plenty of people have called me their 'little buddy' in the past, it wasn't an insult or a jab but that day my processor went on the fritz and the next thing I knew Prowl was wrenching me off Hound with stasis cuffs at the ready–"

"Prowl arrested you?" Swindle threw his helm back and cackled. His vents practically started to choke on themselves from how hard he was laughing. "Because–hah!–because you punched Hound?"

"They placed me in a holding cell for questioning!" the scout whined. "They thought that I was an espionage agent for the Decepticons! It took forever for the guild to send a representative to get me back!" Voice box straining, he went, "I think they only let me go because they rationalized that no minicon would be so shortsighted as to attack an Autobot scout out in the open like that. Without a proper plan… or weapons… or at bare minimum some basic training…"

"How–" Swindle cut himself off as his laughter finally started to die down, wheezing. "How did Hound react to this tiny, little thing just wailing on him? I need to know. Did he scream like a protoform for help from your pitiful hits? What did Prowl think? Hey," Swindle poked him repeatedly. "Hey, you're telling me we could've been cellmates much sooner than that time in our dinky GHOST cells? What I'm hearing is that if the stiff data pusher were still around, he'd help us sell the act? Going on about how, 'only a former criminal could love a career criminal'?"

"You're having way too much fun about this." Shaking his head, Bumblebee hid a small, shameful smile. Swindle was glad to lighten the load that burdened the scout, and that levity was returning to the pair of them. "It definitely was the mainframe reset I needed though—that was my first time ever intentionally hurting someone. I hated every bit of it. Hated myself too, for letting my anger control me."

Staring up at Swindle with a resolve formed millions of years ago, Bumblebee finally answered his question, "That's when I decided to join the Autobots. Sure, it took a while for some of the higher-ups to trust me, especially Prowl, but I proved myself as a useful scout time and again. The rest is history, one that you've played a key part in."

"Some history," Swindle said. "It checks out though. Megatron," he spat, "Used to go on and on about how we had to stand up and seize the opportunity for change wherever it arose. Look where that got us. Locked in GHOST cells for years after the war ended, betrayed by the same leader who used to beat it into our code that we'd never get anything in life by taking injustice lying down. Well, I don't know about you but I did a lot of lying down in prison after you lot ruined our lives."

Working his jaw, Bumblebee glanced away. "If it counts for anything, Megatron frequently clashed with Optimus about the hypocrisy of keeping you guys trapped in GHOST headquarters, championing for your eventual release."

"It doesn't. He should be telling us that himself." Gritting his denta, he continued, "Or proving it for once. For as physical of a mech as that tyrant is, sometimes he can be all talk."

"That's fair. Not like I did much better fighting for you guys either," A look of guilt crossed the scout's face and disappeared in a nanoklik. Then, Bumblebee surprised Swindle as he returned back to an earlier question, "I just realized that I never told you the part of what surprised me the most about Earth."

Huh, he hadn't? Swindle missed that little detail. Shame on him. "And that would be?"

Bumblebee placed a servo softly against Swindle's gauntlet. "That it's never too late to change. Not here. I mean just look at me," he rose his wings to drag the Cons attention to them. "I've changed forms so many times that the ICG wouldn't know what to do with me if they were still around!"

"They'd probably still try to argue that you're a mini at spark to try and deny you more energon," Swindle mocked. Not that he'd give them the opportunity—that was his fake conjunx they were talking about.

"If they only knew, they wouldn't have to!" Voice tight for an unfathomable reason, Bumblebee laughed.

"Who needs 'em!" Then, an idea presented itself. "If you're ever up for getting back into the courier trade, Hardtop and me could have use for a gobot." The more he thought on it, the more that Swindle fixated on the concept of going into business together with Bumblebee even after this whole business with Breakdown settled down. "And unlike those aftholes, we'd pay you squarely. Of course, we'd have to discuss percentages in the job offer—similar enough to our contract for this plot of yours except a little more long-term. What d'ya say? You in?"

"Thanks, but no thanks," Bumblebee rejected good-naturedly unaware that he crumbled up Swindle's impromptu dream and littered his precious dirt planet with it. "I mean, I appreciate the offer—and that you're being genuine with it—but if everything goes to plan, then I'd be spending the rest of my life with Breakdown. And I won't be an accomplice to crime, that too."

Grumbling, Swindle abandoned the idea. Whatever. It wasn't very thought out to begin with anyway. The simmering envy he felt had nothing to do with the confirmation that Bumblebee intended to wipe his servos clean of Swindle after everything was said and done. Whatever.

Expectantly, now it was Bumblebee's turn to ask a question. And considering the pattern of their previous ones, Swindle prepared himself to divulge his own totally tragic backstory—garnering pity from the cavalry unit about the hardships he and Hardtop labored through just to find a sense of community, a home only to settle amongst the Decepticons ranks as outcasts. He geared up to make the retelling a performance grand enough to bring a few tears, but the scout quickly grew distracted as his frame leaned away. His optics spiraled off into the distance, one focusing faster than the other.

Put out, and irritated to have lost Bumblebee's attention again, he snidely asked, "Speaking of—where does Breakdown fit into all this? You two used to race together on Cybertron before the truce broke, he's said as much. Did you really try to keep up with him while running on fumes? Impressive if so."

Instead of answering, as was polite, Bumblebee held up a hand. "Stop talking now. Arcee's en route to our location, we need to get ready for our act."

Peeved that the scout outright ignored his question, but simultaneously pretending as though he wasn't asking out of turn, Swindle groaned, "About time! FYI in the future you should consider improving your timing because I thought that we would be stuck waiting around twiddling our digits while she– Eh?!"

He yelped loudly, jerking back as Bumblebee started to crawl into his lap.

"What do you think you're doing?!" he cried out, face plates heating up as he pushed against the scout. His weak attempts to knock him off were foiled by the determined look on the scout's face. Bumblebee yanked on his bar for stability, nearly knocking the two of them off the side of the bridge.

"Won't you quit it!" Bee berated him, yelling right into his audial. "You said it yourself—people are doubting if we're really together and it's precisely because they haven't seen us do any real couple stuff. Like cuddling! This is exactly what you wanted or were you harassing me just to be a nuisance? So if you would just hold still–"

"Ow, ow, OW! You're crushing me with your weight–"

"Oh please, don't be a wimp. We're roughly in the same weight range–"

"Like hell we are!"

"Stop yelling! The closer in range she gets the more likely she'll hear your whining–!"

"Don't tell me not to yell when you're the loudest, most obnoxious bot to ever have been forged–!"

The cavalry unit's hearing far surpassed that of Swindle's naturally—or perhaps unnaturally since it was undoubtedly the work of an enhancement mod at play—but by the time that Bumblebee swung an arm around the back of Swindle's frame and placed the flat palm of his free servo against his chassis, the arms dealer finally heard the roar of a vehicle swiftly approaching. He grit his denta together, trying to keep his composure as the Autobot squirmed against his thighs trying to get as comfortable as their armored, bulky frames would allow.

On instinct, he had already gripped the scout around the waist to keep him seated in his lap and not cause them to topple off the side of the bridge. But his attitude turned on its helm when Bumblebee leaned close and whispered, "Play along and I'll give you a surprise bonus with today's payment."

His spark jumped. It pulsed. And damn near broke it's revolution in its chamber as his processor whirled in excitement.

Swindle didn't even know what the surprise was, but he knew that he wanted it that much was certain.

"Yeah?" he whispered back. With an unctuous grin, he said, "Well, if you insist Bumblebee," and curled a servo against one of Bee's thighs in a provocative display that had the scout scowling.

With the nanokliks ticking away as their target rapidly approached, Bumblebee shifted some more with his wings up high and struck dumb with clearly practiced fake-enamored fluttering. He brought his other servo up to grab the one hanging loosely by Swindle's helm, locking his digits together. The servo slipped through the bars across his back and rooted him firmly in place, as his legs spilled off the side of Swindle's thighs and his pedes hung in the air.

Not a moment later the pink muscle car sped down the road, bright color breaking through the monotonous greenery. As she started to cross the bridge, Bumblebee threw his head back and gave off the fakest, phoniest laugh that Swindle has ever heard in his life. He gave Swindle a quick peck on the side of his mouth, which was not quite a kiss but considering that it was the most physical attention he had granted the Con since their farce first began his processor sputtered.

"Sorry Swindle," he said rather loudly and entirely performative. Swindle should invest in some acting classes for the scout at some point… "I don't care if you think it'd be nice for us to match, I'm not changing my paint scheme for you."

He looked up in consideration, hmmm, nah. Bumblebee would look horrid in purple.

Arcee's forward sensors recognized Bumblebee and she accelerated just a tad so that she could launch herself up into the air to transform. Her features came shifted in an expert somersault display of moving parts and she landed with a sharp, "Woo-hoo! Hiya Bee! And… Swindle," her face full of excitement waned just slightly at the sight of the conmech beneath Bumblebee. Shaking off her confusion, she jogged over to them, "Long time no see!"

"Oh! Hi Arcee," Bumblebee winced sheepishly at the crack in his voice box, but Swindle could feel his frame vibrating with anticipation. A slight tremor laced his words as he resisted the urge to give himself away. "What a surprise! I didn't think we'd cross paths like this again so soon."

She laughed, "At least this time you aren't pawning me off onto a bunch of newbuilds! So, how've you been? Busy clearly," she gestured at Swindle, with an inquisitive look in her optics. "Anything important you wanna tell me about?"

"Haha, ahem. Well, this is Swindle," Bumblebee lamely introduced, which was entirely redundant considering that Arcee once kicked Swindle's lower jaw off.

"We've met," she pursed her lips, words wry as she stared him down. Swindle nodded in agreement, not saying a word. Instead, he started rubbing his servo across Bee's thigh knowing that she would follow the movement. He smirked, thumbing the seams of Bumblebee's thigh crease where armor met sensitive mesh. His goal was to provoke and instigate Arcee, but Bumblebee's shiver in response to his ministrations elated him just the same.

"And he's kind of, sort of, well we're," Bumblebee turned his face away, biting his lower lip. Primus, he was an even worse liar than Swindle thought. How they would ever survive announcing it to Megatron of all people, Swindle hadn't the faintest clue. "You know!"

Arcee stood still observing the two of them, hip cocked and arms akimbo, before a devious glint appeared in her optics. "Oh, I know what's going on here all right." She walked right up to Bee and slapped him on the back, right below his wing fixture. Then she knocked her fist against his helm crest, "You rascal! I didn't think you had it in you!"

"Huh?" Bumblebee and Swindle looked at each other, blatantly puzzled. This was not the reaction that either of them had expected—Bumblebee stated earlier that she'd probably pull him aside to ask if he was serious about this to which he would make a sparkfelt declaration of Swindle's charm and skill as a lover.

Thrown off course, Swindle even stopped teasing the scout with his servo and rose an optical ridge at Arcee. Was she cracked in the CPU?

Or did she…? No, Swindle refused to believe that she already suspected the falsehood of their display. Were they both truly so awful at pretending to love one another that a disgusting public display of affection didn't even faze one of the scout's friends? He could have sworn that the Autobots were more gullible than this.

"What are you getting on about?" Swindle glared, pulling Bee closer to his frame. He jutted out his chin, and knocked into the scout's hood. Seated chest-to-chest like this, the pair of them were a strange interlocking mechanism of mismatched parts.

With a bell-like laugh, Arcee skipped away from them. Throwing a sly look over her shoulder, she said, "Wish I could stay and chat, but I best be on my way. I promised Grimsy that I would go through some practice drills with him before I'm off again on a super secret mission. You two love birds be safe out there."

With a running start she transformed back into her alt mode, hollering as she sped off, "And make sure to put up some protective firewalls! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Both of them stiffened, not pulling away in embarrassment only because it would have broken the illusion of their relationship. Holding on still, they waited until she was far away enough before venting out in relief.

Vibrating with excitement, Bumblebee shook Swindle slightly as he said, "Did you hear that? It's working!"

"That's your take away?" Swindle asked, the absurdity of the scout's elation not transferring over. "I think you're celebrating far too soon. I've had hallway conversations longer than that in Astrotrain's shuttle."

"Trust me, if Arcee caught on to us she totally would have pointed it out and knocked me over the head for my foolishness," the dense scout said. Swindle refrained from stating that she technically did do both. Just because she didn't condemn his actions—strangely encouraging his self-destructive scheming—didn't mean that Arcee couldn't pick up on Bumblebee's awful acting.

The Autobot's wings positively danced with glee, "Anddd Arcee loves to spread gossip. She's going to tell Grimlock who won't be able to stop himself from telling Wheeljack. And once Wheeljack knows, then Elita will definitely hear about it which makes us one step closer to making this official!"

"Sham-official."

"Same thing!" Bumblebee kicked his pedes, jostling Swindle slightly. Letting go of his servo, he inched towards his subspace carriage. "You were great too! Arcee totally noticed how close and comfortable we were with each other, and as thanks," his hand disappeared briefly beneath his hood. "Here's your reward."

Leaning close, Swindle's own brand of excitement coursed through his lines. Considering all the energon patches that Bumblebee had handed over thus far, he was fully expecting to receive another payment along those lines. Swindle would kill for a spiked cube of energon or even enough energon treats to share with Hardtop when he returned to base.

What he received instead was the cold muzzle of a gun shoved underneath his chin, tilting his helm up and away from the scout's chest. Optics honing in on Bumblebee, shouts of betrayal formed at the tip of his glossa but were cut off when the golden cone of the gun warmed up.

Voice low and husky, Bumblebee said, "I promised you that I'd sneak into the armory for our more elaborate dates, didn't I? Considering I put you on the spot there with cuddling you and all, I figured this would more than cover my debt." His digits adjusted around the grip. "If you remember from my story about how Nightshade got their alt mode, GHOST developed a memory erasing gun. What I hadn't mentioned at the time was that it was Wheeljack who designed the weapon. This," he pulled the gun back slightly, "is the beta model."

"Memory erasing you say?" Cautiously, Swindle tried to swallow tightly. White fuzz started to develop in the back of his processor. He… "I don't believe it for a minute, there's no way you Autobozos have had this in your arsenal and haven't used it on us Cons yet."

"Hmm, that's what you said a minute ago too. Predictable, but consistent. That's why I'm glad I went to you for this ruse."

"Wh-" Lightheaded, Swindle clenched tighter onto Bumblebee's thigh and hip. "You… used it on me already?"

His spark…

Bumblebee tilted his head to the side, face blank before his façade cracked. "Kidding!" He laughed, pulling the device away and shaking it. "Who do you take me for? It barely works," the scout looked at the gun. "As a prototype, it doesn't actually erase anything. At most it causes a brief moment of dizziness or fatigue since it shorts out the processor for the smallest of seconds. I figured you could probably scam somebody into thinking it's the real deal since it's pretty close to the final design GHOST commissioned or as a getaway device, but that's more your area of expertise than mine."

Disappointment flooded through his lines, his computer drifting off into a faraway land where Bumblebee had ruthlessly used the gun on him. Seated in his lap, faces close together and maintaining optical focus right before shooting him point blank–

"Um, Swindle?" His grip on the Autobot tightened before going lax as he started to tilt back. "Swindle?!"

Shorting out, it was no wonder that Swindle fell off the side of the bridge. Witnessing the signs of an approaching stasis Bumblebee had frantically tried to pull his arm out from behind the Con, but his bracer caught against the bars and trapped him with the downed mech.

Distantly, over the infatuated buzz of his crashed CPU, Swindle could hear the scout shouting, "SWINDLE," as he accidentally dragged Bumblebee down with him.

Chapter Text

To fully dismantle an opponent, you needed to know them more intimately than you have ever known any other mechanism. The process that caused their gears to tick, every line of code embedded into their system programming, and even the direction that their spark spun. If you did not know them better than you knew yourself, then all hope of manually prying their armored panels off piece by piece until they were an endoskeleton to further tear apart was simply lost. Once their core was all that remained, only then could you wrench victory from the cold grip of their faulty components. How else could you ensure the evisceration of a self if you could not define what in all composed it?

Sometimes the dismantling was literal, but more often than not it merely referred to striking with psychological precision instead of brute force. Hit a mech where it truly hurt, as it were.

Currently, Bumblebee plotted to burn all of Swindle's money stashes. The secret ones that the Con spent countless cycles scouting out different locations to place them before digging, burying, and erasing all evidence. Apparently, he called it his emergency funds for the inevitable scenario where he and Hardtop needed to make a quick getaway from the Decepticons. Betrayal, selling them out, calculating the odds and finding better ones, whichever the reason—if things went south, the two would have a cushion to fall back upon.

He hadn't touched any of them since long before the war ended and had been unable to make more while on the run. Thus, they sat undisturbed and safe…

Until Bumblebee unearthed each and every one of them for the sole purpose of burning Swindle's world down.

The bastard thought himself sooo clever, but little did he know that Bumblebee diligently followed after him for that entire year to determine whether or not they were weapon caches as per Prime's orders. Once he confirmed that they held no munitions—all of them merely a stockpile of various hard Earth currency and spread out defunct credits from Cybertron—the Autobots concluded that they would leave them alone.

While Swindle did have connections with a few particularly unsavory humans by which the money could fund these individuals, it really did seem as though the caches were a safety net for him and his brother. Quietly, Bee thought it was a rather unwise decision as this was Swindle that they were talking about. All the mech needed was one singular credit to set in motion any concocted schemes, resulting in cycles of repairing the subsequent harm he caused. Dare he give the mech any praise, Swindle was the expert in gaining and spreading money to all the wrong servos.

In fairness to his commanders, his concerns were placated somewhat when Wheeljack set up a few surveillance cameras to monitor the caches in case Swindle eventually returned to store weapons within them. Other than that singular concession, no further action regarding the hoarded wealth was deemed necessary by the Autobots.

Oh, Bumblebee was positive that Optimus, Elita, and perhaps Megatron too didn't even remember that they had an active feed going for those fifteen different sites. Perhaps GHOST considered it a waste of money and convinced them there was a better allocation of resources for those cameras than monitoring piles of coins and paper bills, even.

But Bee didn't forget. Nor did he delete the information about the coordinates from his data banks. Even while in hiding, Bumblebee kept allllll relevant information from the war active in his memory to keep his logic centers busy mulling over the little details—he had the storage space for it and he was more than glad for that now, because it provided him with an easy punishment for the purple bane of his existence.

And the very second that he was physically able to, Bumblebee was going to take a small sabbatical. Yeah, that's exactly how he'd phrase it to the Maltos and Optimus. He just wanted to take a moment to center himself, he'd say, take a moment to relax away from the pestering of the kids. Who could begrudge him that? Optimus would encourage him to relax and grant him leave.

Meanwhile, he'd actually set his entire computer onto the task of racing to each cache and tearing them up. All for the purpose that when he returned, he could present the giant pile of hoarded wealth in front of that moronic munitioner. It would stun Swindle in the moment, blinded by initial greed, but then he'd start to recognize the count.

And, after leaving a not so subtle hint of the origins to the pile, Bumblebee would promptly douse the entire thing with gasoline and set the whole thing ablaze with his–!

"Hng!" A sharp hiss emanated from Bumblebee as he failed to follow through on slamming his fist down against the medical slab. With a barely restrained groan, he pressed his faceplates down against the cold metal—attempting to alleviate the hot, searing pain spreading across his circuits. Were it not for the partial paralysis keeping him still, Bee would have jolted and squirmed at the popping sensation of his wing joint reconnecting into its socket.

Broken out of his revenge fantasy, and in lieu of writhing in agony, he merely whimpered. Followed by a useless attempt to bury his face into the slab further as Wheeljack went with a sigh, "Sorry, Bee. I'm almost done, I promise." A beat passed, then an apologetic, "Perhaps I should have disabled your pain receptors after all instead of just your movement matrix…"

Turning his helm—which was currently the only part of his frame that he had control over—Bee made optic contact with Wheeljack. "It's fine, 'Jack. I told you to leave them on. Besides, I've dealt with worse. This is practically nothing!"

Frowning, Wheeljack redirected his gaze back toward the formerly dislocated limb. "I know you have, but that doesn't mean I have to like the idea of causing you any amount of pain—especially when it's entirely unnecessary." He vented for a moment, before collecting himself to continue his work. With a whistle, he shook his helm, "You've really gotten yourself brined this time, Bee. I haven't a clue on how you managed to disconnect your door hinges so spectacularly!"

Commenting idly, and ignoring the latter half, Bumblebee said, "Pretty sure that's not the phrase." Trying to glance over his pauldrons, he asked, "How's it looking?"

"Much better now! Both wings have been reconnected with only slight denting along the bottom, but it's nothing that can't be popped out here and now. Unless you want to wait on those?"

He nodded. "I've left the kids alone for too long today already," what with not having planned to fall off a bridge, "So if you don't mind I'll come back later after checking in on them and stay the night in the med bay."

"That's more than alright with me, they're barely noticeable anyhow. With how rambunctious those kids are, I don't blame you for not wanting to leave them without a bot supervisor for all that long." Contemplatively, Wheeljack regarded his frame and all of the new injuries he sported. "But don't think I didn't notice you avoiding telling me how this happened, Bumblebee. I'd rather you be honest with me and fess up, otherwise it'll be like pulling screws. And I don't think either of us want that."

"Ughhh," he groaned, helm thunking against the slab. His face plates heated up, in embarrassment. One mech knowing the truth about this—because he was the culprit of the incident —was bad enough as it was. But to tell Wheeljack about it? Bumblebee briefly considered trying to fix his wings himself for that reason alone before rationality screamed some sense back into him. "Do I have to?"

"If you got into a fight with someone…" With a Decepticon, went unspoken. But Bee heard it all the same.

Figuring that it was easier to tell the truth, or at least a version of it, Bumblebee said, "Look I didn't get into a fight or anything like that. I just…" Hmm, saying that he got pulled down by an unconscious Decepticon didn't sound all that much better than if he were to insinuate that he actually did get into a physical altercation with one of their tentative allies. He finished lamely with, "Fell."

"You fell." Wheeljack deadpanned, face plates still as he gestured at his banged up back. "From where? Because this isn't the kind of damage that you sustain from a simple tumble. So what was it? A cliff?"

"...a bridge, actually."

"Bee…" Wheeljack pinched his olfactory bridge, before rubbing at his optics. "Alright. Let's say that I believe you're telling the truth–"

Dryly, Bee interrupted, "Shockingly, I am. How come nobody ever likes to take me at face value? It's not because of my face, is it?" He didn't let Wheeljack get a word in as he continued, "Come on, you can trust this face! Even Earthlings know that— Granted, that's mostly because they put my face on all of their toys, but still. It's a trustworthy face."

"Are you done?" He asked, nonplussed. Bee nodded. "As I was saying, I just have to wonder what foolishness you could have possibly been doing to fall off a bridge. And listen," Wheeljack added, with a pinched whirl of his optics, "I am glad you came to the base to get yourself sorted out instead of licking your wounds in private, but you've given me a fright today and I can't help but worry."

A twinge gripped his spark and in that moment Bumblebee could do nothing other than focus on the deep stress lines permanently etched onto his friend's face plates. His unexpected entrance to the Autobot base undoubtedly contributed to the tired dim of his optics, having dragged himself through the projection with the gait of a dead mech walking.

It was only by the grace of Solus that Bumblebee stumbled down the right corridors until he made it to Wheeljack's quarters where he knocked on his door. To which he promptly emptied his tanks as soon as they slid open. Considering the scout could hardly follow his internal navigational centers back to the facility as his HUD exploded with improper signals and sensory information from his dislodged wings, it was a miracle he even made it that far. Were the rare instance of luck not on his side, he could have easily collapsed in the woods surrounding Witwicky, waiting for days until either someone came looking or his self-repair diagnostics got so fed up by the persistent pings that they disconnected the pain receptors in his wings.

His current dismissive attitude wasn't exactly fair to the mechanical engineer, who had immediately rushed him to a private repair station. Wheeljack hooked his systems up so that, at Bee's request, he could cut off his processor from the rest of his frame before carefully applying numbing elector-magnetic pulses to the base of his wings. Dizzy from how his chamber pump started to overexert both his energon lines and the rotation of his spark, Bumblebee was grateful that Wheeljack didn't start working on his repairs right away. Instead he waited for his core to stabilize, which gave Bee the ability to come down from his system stall slowly and eventually reach equilibrium within his frame.

It was the kind of harrowing experience that the Autobots were supposed to have put behind them. With GHOST dissolved and the Decepticons playing nice for once, they should have been safe. Unhurt. Not practically stumbling half-way dismantled into the arms of the few that remained.

No wonder Wheeljack looked tired, he thought. Bumblebee must have sent his systems right back to the height of the war…

"Hey," he softly called out to him. "I promise, 'Jack, I didn't get ambushed or attacked or anything like that. I was playing around and did something stupid, resulting in… well, you've seen it for yourself. Humans have a phrase for it even— Play stupid games, win stupid wing-dislocating prizes."

Wheeljack cracked a smile. "Now look who's saying the wrong phrase."

"Yeah, well, it was either that or 'fragged around and found out' and I was just saving your audials from that mental picture."

That got Wheeljack to burst out in laughter, wheel wells shaking with the vocalization. "Yes, it's best that you didn't. Better to curb your language now before you accidentally say the wrong thing in front of the little ones."

"Ugh, don't remind me. The day that any of those kids learn about our swears is the day that I'll have to go into hiding across the planet from Dot," Bee rolled his optics. "Even if Megatron is the one who winds up teaching them, I'll still take the blame somehow."

"Mhm," Wheeljack chuckled. He pulled away from the slab to the monitor hooked up to Bumblebee. The cables plugged into the medical ports at the back of his helm leading back to it allowed him to reconnect Bee's ability to move. "Personally, I think those kids have already overheard us adults gabbing with one another long enough to figure them all out. They're just waiting for the prime opportunity to drop a well-placed 'frag' on us when we least expect it."

"You highly overestimate Thrash's ability to hold himself back from calling his twin an afthole—you remember how Sideswipe and Sunstreaker used to argue over nothing."

"Course I do, those kinds of tiffs are hard to forget! And you are underestimating how sneaky those kids can be. I'm sure they've been cursing up a storm at one another in private but keeping mum the second one of us comes around," Bumblebee's body jolted at the sudden stimulus from his sensors flaring to life one by one. Wheeljack politely ignored commenting on his convulsions as he parsed through the rapid fire data coming in. "Alright, that should about do it. Tell me if something feels off."

Flexing his digits, Bee ensured his servos were stable enough to prop up his weight. Pushing himself up, he groaned as his joints popped and shifted with his repositioning. Swinging his legs over the side of the slab, he craned his neck left and right. Rolling his arms forward, he stretched out his wings flat to the sides and when no twinge of discomfort or hurt occurred he knew that Wheeljack had worked his magic.

With a grateful sigh of relief, Bumblebee smiled at him, "I can happily report that it doesn't hurt anymore! Thanks, Wheeljack, I don't know what I would have done without you."

"More than happy to help, Bee." Wheeljack assisted him with disconnecting the cables, port covering clicking into place. With a reassuring smile, he sheepishly went, "Now, I know I'm no Hoist but it's been some time since any of us have had a chance to look you over mechanism-wise. And since you're here anyway, why not get yourself checked over for some quick frame maintenance. Can you spare a klik or two, Bumblebee?"

Fear flashed through his computer before he stifled the response. "Um, I'm not too sure about that, 'Jack. Remember, the kids–"

"Won't notice you missing for another hour or so, I'm sure. This is more important than some dents and scuffing—I want to make sure that your wings are calibrated correctly, to establish a baseline for any further in-depth check-ups." Wheeljack insisted. "And your spark chamber, too. Just those two things and I'll let you go without any hassle."

Worrying his lip, Bumblebee looked away from the engineer. He couldn't deny the importance of ensuring his two most sensitive components were in working order, but there were… things that he didn't want any of the other Autobots finding out about. Wheeljack investigating his core could potentially expose everything he kept hidden from his superiors but his wings… That shouldn't cause him any issues, beyond the obvious.

"Alright," he relented cautiously. "But nothing else, got it? I want to get back to the Maltos within the hour."

"I'll do my best," and true to form, Wheeljack flitted about the repair bay with an almost whirlwind of energy. He moved aside sensitive equipment to make room in front of Bumblebee. He knelt before him, helm level with Bee's chest plate—gently, he produced a dingy medical scanner. The design was old fashioned and outdated. One of Ratchet's old ones, he assumed. Maybe even Hoist's. A sentimental keepsake regardless of who. "When you're ready, open up your chamber, please."

Grimacing, Bumblebee avoided his gaze before obliging. His plates shifted out of the way and revealed to the other mech his core. As the scanner entered, he didn't feel the need to obsessively watch Wheeljack closely. Bumblebee implicitly trusted his dear friend to treat him with care, the same way that he hoped the Terrans would trust him if he ever needed to inspect their chambers.

Once, millennia ago, Bumblebee used to ride in Wheeljack. Of course, this was back when he was still mini-sized and in his Cybertronian alt—even if Bumblebee shrunk back down to his natural size, their Earth modes would make traveling in that style impossible. Still, that level of trust didn't come easily or freely. It took centuries of being his brief ward, partnering up on missions, before Bee put his safety behind Wheeljack's wheel. And it was faith well placed.

As such, Wheeljack had more than earned his right to handle Bee's laser core.

In examining a spark chamber, the first and most important aspect to examine would always be the tandem-momentum of both the spark and its energon pump. Ensuring that the rotation that provided energy for the pump which then pumped the energon to power the forward rotation took precedence over any other bio-system. If both stayed in prime condition, a Cybertronian function indefinitely—but if one or the other failed, then the whole system would come crashing down. Typically, the metal surrounding the chamber and the plates situated above it were the strongest compositional material a Transformer had to prevent structural collapse but…

Wheeljack hummed as he measured the rate at which Bee's spark rotated around his core. From what the scout understood, humans did something similar when checking their heart rate. Hah, the similarities between their two species continued to stack, even as the small vocal minority tried to deny it.

"Your spark rate is on par with the results of the last time we measured it, which was thirty Earth stellar cycles ago," Wheeljack voiced. Removing the medical scanner out of his core, the engineer briefly logged the results into the computer. His blast mask slid up as he inched closer, helm breaching the barrier metal. His optics focused hard on Bee's pump. "Hm. Your energon reserves look slightly lower than last time," his cables tensed, slowing his energon flow, "Thankfully, it's not at the point where it's affecting your core stabilization quite yet. As such, you should double up on your energon intake for the next few cycles."

Considering that Bumblebee had made a sizable dent in his rations by virtue of payment alone, that definitely wasn't happening. "Is that an official order or your opinion?"

"Can't it be both?" Wheeljack reached steady servos into his core and pierced his pump membrane with a thin lancet. He quickly collected the energon sample before Bumblebee's repair system became alerted to the superficial damage in his laser core. He smeared the energon onto a sterile slide before replacing the lancet with a surgical blade, to scrape at the metal inside of the chamber. Repeating the process, he announced, "Alright, you're clear to close back up."

Bumblebee's panels returned to position with a grateful snap. Carefully handling the samples, Wheeljack placed both into the data analyzer and let the machine handle the specifics. It shouldn't take more than the rest of the day before they gained the results on the health of his core, so he said, "I'll have this running in the background. Hopefully, by the time you come back for your overnight stay the results'll be ready. For now, we'll move onto your wings."

"Got it." Idly, Bumblebee watched the machine whirl around the samples. He wondered what they would reveal about his health. Or rather, he wondered what they would expose. Nothing too damning, he hoped.

Pulling out a tiny drone from his subspace compartment, Wheeljack pressed down on the panel at the top of the sphere. Onlining, it lifted up into the air to hover above their helms. "I figured it'd be easier on the both of us to test how well you can track objects before tackling the sensitivity of the sensors themselves."

"By using this thing?" Bee reached out to poke at the red LED light in the center of the drone. It stumbled back before returning to its previous position. The little thing didn't have any ancillary gadgets to justify a grander purpose beyond hovering.

Swatting his servo away, Wheeljack sheepishly admitted, "I know it's nothing fancy, but it's all that I have on hand, I'm afraid. Were this a planned check-up, I'd use a stealth drone for you to go up against. Not only that, but a wider space to conduct the tests too since it's a little cramped in here."

"I'm sure it's fin–"

"And I'm not entirely convinced that you won't run off if I leave the room to grab a more complicated design or set up the testing grounds."

Nervously chuckling, Bee admitted, "Guilty." Wheeljack knew all of his tricks, that does sound like something he'd do to avoid the inevitable.

Not dignifying that with a response, Wheeljack focused on popping open his control panel, so that he could direct the drone to turn off exterior lights. It darted up and off, as he waved Bumblebee into standing up. "For this first test, I want you to turn off your optical cameras and rely solely on your wings to find the drone. You can shutter them too, if you want, but it's not necessary."

Obliging with the request, Bee removed his vision and steadied his frame. Entering familiar territory, he spread out his senses. With no announcement to start off the examination, Bumblebee assumed it started already. In his element, he easily called out, "Upper right rafters."

"Good. That took you less than a klik. Now, can you keep track of it?"

He could. Wings vibrating, they followed the flight path of the drone as it nestled in-between the emergency charge unit and the door. Without waiting for a verbal confirmation about its current location, the drone silently jumped over to lift at the back of the room. It continued to move across the room, his wings jutting out to increase his visual range. In doing so, the appendages didn't need to move nearly as much. Honestly, Bumblebee almost imitated a yawn to express how amateurish he found the exercise. If he didn't have too much on his list already, he might just find the time to schedule a proper appointment for a real challenge.

"So… Swindle, huh?"

"He–?!" His optics flickered back on, whipping his head at the engineer at the subject change. As a result, he lost sight of the drone for a just moment, but a moment was all that it needed to nestle away elsewhere in the room. Now unable to find where it had hidden, he glared at Wheeljack, "That's a dirty trick."

Smug, Wheeljack said, "Is it? Last I checked, a cavalry unit needed to focus completely on their task and not fall prey to distractions. Isn't that what you've been teaching the kids?" Then, he cracked a smile, "Also, I couldn't help but to ask. You two have been the talk of the base lately, you know?"

Mulish over the initial scolding, but attempting to collect himself nonetheless, Bee grumbled, "Have we? And who'd you hear that from—Grimlock?"

"Optimus, actually." Bee returned focus back on the drone after his wings flickered toward the darkest corner of the room. Keeping his optics open, to demonstrate that he could filter through multiple feeds because he was an amazing scout, Bumblebee brought out his stinger. "I thought he was just blowing things out of proportion like always, but given your reaction I can assume it's true? You two are really together?"

"In a manner of speaking." Partners in rebound related crime, at the very least. A slight shift in shadows gave away the position of the drone and redirected his focus back on the task.

Locking on to the drone, the spherical form solidifying in his processor, he spun around. Taking aim he shot into the dark with the expectation that he'd nail the drone, only to miss by wide margin. Confidence taking a hit, and ego bruised, he forced his optics to focus. Ignoring the irritated twinge, he gave off a second shot. Mercifully, he knocked it out of the air and it came crashing down.

Leaning back and popping his hip out, Bumblebee exclaimed, "Ha-hah! How's that for a demonstration?"

Bee turned to Wheeljack, grinning wide at his success but his excitement dissipated at the strange look of consideration the engineer gave him. Wheeljack silently looked between the downed drone and Bumblebee's still smoking blaster. Concerned that he hurt his friends' feelings by taking out the drone, he quickly apologized, "Sorry about that, Wheeljack. I got ahead of myself, but that's no excuse for breaking it. I'll help you fix it."

Shaken out of his stupor, Wheeljack waved him off. "No, no, you're fine." He took the three steps necessary to pick up the broken drone, scooping it into his servos. Without saying another word, he looked between his position and Bumblebee again. Connecting the dots.

Bumblebee kept quiet. He wouldn't say a single word until Wheeljack voiced his suspicion first. If neither of them spoke it into existence by acknowledging the problem, they could keep up the illusion. After all, there was no fixing this. Everyone knew that.

Fiddling with the machine, Wheeljack shook his helm. He failed to share his concerns with Bee, likely agreeing with the same conclusion that the scout himself came to. "Let's… Let's move onto the wings themselves now. You should sit for this one, Bee."

Stiffly returning to the medical slab as Wheeljack shuffled behind it, Bumblebee fought back the urge to follow his every move. The unspoken problem shattered their easy camaraderie for the rest of the check-up. Not only that, but testing the camera capabilities was one thing—physically handling them was a different beast altogether. Fifteen solar cycles may have passed since altering his frame but his wings were still new.

Without coaxing, and to avoid Wheeljack touching them more than absolutely necessary, Bumblebee spread them wide. They quivered in anticipation, his entire sensor network wired up and aware of Wheeljack's digits inching closer to the first cluster. The second they made contact with the glass, Bumblebee jolted in his seat and clasped his hands over his lips to withhold a gasp. He highly suspected that the only reason he didn't scream at the touch was due to the earlier numbing agents applied, otherwise he would've startled the entire base into action at his wail.

Wincing, Wheeljack kept his servos steady as he mapped out both wings with his tactile tracing. He'd recreate the layout digitally after, saving it to the Autobot database. Once permanently in their records, Bumblebee would never have to endure this torture again—and by the time that it became necessary to have any sort of contact on his wings again, his systems should have fully integrated the appendages.

For now, he had to tough out the keyed up sensitivity of a live wire, even as his computer grew fuzzy and light. Bee could honestly purge his tanks again if this went on for much longer.

At a burst of input from a particularly sensitive cluster node, optical fluid streamed down his cheeks. His optics spiraled wide and hazy, mortified when a spray of wiper fluid produced from his mouth the second he opened it. Wiping at his lips, he bit back another agonized whimper. Upon noticing his heightened distress, Wheeljack jerked his servos away and took a few steps back. He wasn't far away enough, Bee's twitching wings were still interpreting the proximity signals as intensely as they did actual physical touch.

Slumping with guilt for insisting that they do the tests the same day that Bee's wings dislocated, Wheeljack let out a shaky vent. "I'm done. That's everything I needed to check over."

"Awesome. Great," he wiped at his face and launched himself off of the slab. Hurrying to the door, and not really paying attention as to whether Wheeljack followed behind, Bee tried to force his frame into a system cool down. Was it foresight or just intuition that they checked his spark rate first things first, instead of after? Because he desperately tried to slow the speed at which his spark spun, lines flushing with a rush of energon from his panicking pump. "Thanks for fixing me up, again, 'Jack. I really should go now, though, the kids– Sorry, I have to go."

"Bee wait–!"

He slammed the panel to the door, barely waiting for it to slide open before he was squeezing himself out of the room. His escape was halted as he stumbled right into a solid wall of metal. Startling back, and nearly falling over, his optics widened at the familiar pectoral glass panels of the mech before.

A surge of anger returned to the forefront of his mind and kicked out all feelings of overstimulated torture. Optics ablaze, he hissed, "What are you doing here?"

Looking awkward in the halls of the Autobot base—despite Optimus telling the Decepticons they were more than welcome to stop by and use their facilities—Swindle shuffled in place. His intake opened, ready to speak before he paused. "Are you crying?"

Furiously wiping at his face plates again, Bumblebee scowled at the fluids leaking from his… everything. Cheeks burning, he snapped, "What do you care?! Get out of my way!"

Taken aback by his temper, Swindle looked at him wildly. "What do I– Obviously I care if I'm checking in on you, idiot!" He blocked off Bumblebee's escape attempt, crowding in on him. "Did someone make you cry? Who?"

Bumblebee pushed him back, answering his questions one after another. "Yeah! You!"

"Me? I just got here!"

"Oh, please! You are not this dense!" Hitting him square in the chassis, Bee went, "It's almost like somebody dropped me off the side of a bridge!"

A crashing sound signified something getting dropped to the ground behind him. His wings identified the shape as the broken drone. Without a doubt, Wheeljack was watching the display slack-jawed if his cameras were anything to go by.

"I–!" The Con growled and looked off to the side. He worked his jaw, holding back some choice words, before turning back to Bee. "I didn't intend to pull us off the side. Swear."

"Whatever." He scoffed. Leering at him, he asked, "Why are you really here?"

"You ran off with your wings hanging on by a wire and you think I wouldn't race after you to make sure you were fine? You guys have one mechanical engineer to your name who has," he looked over Bee's pauldron to address Wheeljack, "No offense," before continuing, "Battery acid where his logic chips should be."

Walking over, but eyeing Bee's wings cautiously and keeping his distance, Wheeljack delivered a light judgment, "You're a real sweet talker, aren't you? I'm afraid I can't see what you do in him, Bee."

"Hey, I said no offense."

Grinding his denta into a fine powder, Bumblebee kept in mind his friend's presence. With Wheeljack lingering, he couldn't express his displeasure with Swindle to its fullest intent. If it weren't for him, Bee had half the computing power to tell the Con that he was docking his pay as recompense.

Choosing his words carefully, he corralled the subject back on target. "Considering that it was your fault that happened in the first place, no! Actually! I didn't think you'd care." Because why would he? They weren't actually together, they weren't friends, and they were barely cordial were it not for the transactional aspect of their current relationship…

"My fault? Last I checked YOU were the one who climbed into MY lap." Close behind him, Wheeljack let out a little, 'Oh!', at the statement. Swindle poked his chassis, hard. "It would've been just me going over the edge if not for that."

Crossing his arms, Bee said, "Really? Forgive me if I'm not particularly endeared by that excuse."

"You're forgiven."

Infuriated at the entire conversation, and honestly wanting to get away from it all, Bumblebee pauldron checked the mech out of the way. He stomped down the corridor, wings held high.

"Wait!" Swindle chased after him, catching up easily.

Fully intending on ignoring Swindle the entire way out of the base, Bee was forced to stop when the mech grabbed his wrist. "Bumblebee. Listen to me for a moment, would ya?"

Whirling around, he attempted to snatch his servo away, but Swindle fought against his wrenching pulls. He even brought up his other hand to Bumblebee's rerebrace to forcefully shove him into facing forward. And honestly how dare he. The bastard dislocated his wings, he didn't deserve Bee's time of day! Fighting every step of the way, it got to a point where Bee feared that Wheeljack would intervene if their spat escalated further.

Snarling, he opened his intake to give the profiteer a very simple ultimatum—let go of Bumblebee now or risk a rematch of their fight from over a year ago.

But the look on Swindle's face stopped him in his tracks.

The normally observant optics were dimmed to a dull lilac, looking away as he barely maintained contact with Bee. All his charm and perfunctory attentiveness were strangely absent as he held onto the scout. In response, his escape attempts faded until they ceased entirely, merely watching the Con to see what he would do or say next.

"I swear I didn't mean to pull you off the side of the bridge. It was an accident—my computer crashed." Swindle relaxed his grip, noticing that Bumblebee stopped fighting him. He established a nervous contact with Bee, "And… You gotta understand, I was shocked by your…" He looked over his shoulder at the tense Wheeljack. "Flirting," he settled on.

"I wasn't trying to…" flirt, "Surprise you." Bee reflected. He tacked on, "I thought you'd enjoy it." The bonus—the dud weapon. He had been so sure that Swindle would love to add it to his arsenal of tricks, which was precisely why he chose it as the perfect reward for him.

Only to find out in the worst way possible that he picked wrong. Bumblebee always did.

"I did! I do," Swindle clarified. "I just wasn't expecting it from a goody two-shoes Autobot like you."

"What does that even mean?" He asked helplessly. "What does being an Autobot have to do with me other than my allegiance?"

Didn't Swindle know him better by now? At least a little bit? Did this whole set-up not teach him anything about who Bumblebee was as a mechanism? Loath as he was to admit it openly, he knew that he was difficult and a bit of an afthole. His humor was cracked. The whole erasing his memory bit was meant as a joke, one they could both laugh at but clearly didn't.

Stunned, the Con stammered, "Nothing. I suppose." He shook his helm. "You're right, you being an Autobot has nothing to do with anything. You… You really got me good, you know that? Nailed me better than I think you could ever know."

Were… were they still talking about the gun? Lost after a tiring and painful day, Bee muttered, "That still doesn't make up for what happened."

Servos rubbing down to his bracers before letting go, Swindle clenched his fists and stepped back. "I got that. If… I don't know if it'll make you feel better or anything, but falling was no successful arms deal on my end of things either." Bee's optics darted up to the wide dent in his helm. The metal depressed inward, the damage not nearly as the superficial dents left on the bottom of his wings. If he thought hard to recollect the anguished data from the fall, Bee could sort of remember Swindle falling helm first whereas he landed on his back.

"Are you alright?" Tentatively, he reached out for the dent. Tracing the metal lightly, he wasn't offended when Swindle jerked his head back.

"I'll live." Swindle rubbed the back of his neck cables. "Shockwave will take some convincing to set it right, but it's not impacting any functions so it might take him a cycle or two to get around to it."

"Wheeljack can fix it for you," Bumblebee volunteered, the mech in question making a neutral grunt—not indicating whether he agreed or objected to the offer. "Come back here tonight and he can pound out both of our dents."

"We'll see," Swindle said, placating Bee more than committing to the plan. "Hardtop has been nonstop blowing up my comms, so I might have to skip out. I swear this guy can go days without giving a damn where I am or who I'm with, but whenever it's most inconvenient he needs constant updates. He hasn't even responded to my last message saying that I'd be back at the base soon-ish. He left me on 'read', can you believe that slag?"

Chuckling weakly, Bumblebee nodded. "I think that's just how siblings are."

Perking up slightly, Swindle went, "You looking for another? Take him off my hands, I won't even charge you."

Hiding a smile, Bee joked back. "No thanks, I have my hands full with the Terrans—I don't need to add a full grown mech on top of that."

On a roll, Swindle, reinvigorated by the back and forth, returned back to their original argument. "I gotta say one more thing and you have to let me finish saying it, or I never will. Ok?" Bee nodded his assent. "Here's the thing. By the time I booted back up, my memory was behind by a couple of kliks. From my perspective, it was like one klik we're sitting and in the next you're screaming loud enough to jolt me from my stasis. I could have sworn that I was transported right back to the war looking over at you, Primus your wings were mangled. I'm not gonna get that sight out of my processor any time soon."

He stepped back and Bumblebee waited, steeling himself from the whiplash of the last couple of kliks. "Confused and alert, it really felt like any battle from way back when. Except for some reason instead of reaching for a gun, I was reaching out for you instead. That's weird, right? By all means I should have leapt away, regained my bearings, and armed myself but I didn't. Maybe if I wasn't so dazed from the fall I would have, maybe it's a good thing my reaction time stalled. Because maybe I would have reacted how I should have anyway…" Unfurling his servos, Swindle stared down at his trigger digit. "You didn't see that part though. Unlike me, you scrambled up and stumbled off without looking back."

And why would he? Assailant down for the count, afflicted with the kind of hurt that desperately needed repair… To stay or look back for Swindle would make Bumblebee an absolute fool and he wouldn't put himself in that position. Not now, not ever.

Still, he paused for a moment and mulled over everything that had happened since the fall. Reflecting, perhaps he had been too harsh on Swindle. For all that it had hurt like the Pits, in the back of his processor a part of him knew that it was unfair to blame a mech for their processor crashing. Watching him for a moment, Bumblebee tried to find any tells that would reveal Swindle was just telling some sob story so that he'd let go of his grudge and continue filling in his role as energon dispensary.

When he didn't find them, he slumped. "You're right. I didn't see that."

"I figured. Considering the state you were in I'm surprised you were even able to stand." Swindle shrugged. "But I swear, I was reaching out to help you. That's gotta count for something."

The idea of Swindle's servo extending towards Bumblebee in any context was so improbable, it bordered on the edge of the known laws of their universe. Words laced with a persisting disbelief, he asked, "Did you really?"

"I did."

"Then…" Bee steadied himself. "Thank you for that. You didn't have to."

Flustered at the unexpected gratitude, Swindle shuffled in place. "Yeah, well, don't expect it to happen too often." With a careful glance at their silent observer, he threw out, "'Cause I don't know about you, but I have absolutely zero desire to sit on the side of a bridge going forward."

"No complaints here," Bumblebee tried not to outright stare at Wheeljack, who had a meditative look on his face. Primus, why had he stayed the entire time? Watching the whole confrontation go down well after it became clear that it wasn't going to turn any more physical than it already had? Were it any other Autobot, they'd have run off to tell the whole base about how messy the scout's latest relationship was going from the first shout. Perhaps they'd have even fetched Prime to get him to kick Swindle out before he could explain himself.

Thankfully, Wheeljack understood a thing or two about propriety when it really mattered.

Or, at the bare minimum he knew how to stay in his own lane and let others deal with their own nonsense at their leisure. The engineer had enough on his servos without adding Bee's problems to the pile. In all likelihood, this little spat would stay between the three of them.

Still, for the sake of the ruse, the two would need to recover from this outburst of rare, unobstructed emotions. Swindle, coming to the same conclusion, got close to Bee and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Let me handle the next couple of dates, ok? Come on, I'll join you on your drive back home." Starting to steer Bee down the hall, he addressed Wheeljack over his shoulder, "Guess we'll both be seeing you later tonight, huh?"

"I suppose so," dryly Wheeljack narrowed his optics. To Bee, he went, "Tell the kids I said 'hi', will you?"

"I always do—although I'm sure Twitch would be more than happy to hear it from you personally, Dad-2."

"I'm sure she would! Well, you can tell her that I'll visit when it comes time for that big meeting Optimus and Starscream have been working on." After he finished speaking, Wheeljack waved his goodbye and turned down the opposite end of the corridor.

Once he was out of sight, Bumblebee fully expected Swindle to let go of him only for him to keep holding on. They continued walking side by side toward the hidden exit of the base, huddled close. Figuring the Con was concerned about whoever reviewed the camera feeds later questioning why they pushed away from one another so soon after embracing, Bee refrained from asking for space.

It didn't take long before Swindle leaned close to his audials to break their silence. He whispered, "I need a check-in real quick, we're still on, right? With the whole…?"

"Nothing's changed about our arrangement," Bee confirmed quietly. This incident wasn't a deal breaker, especially since Swindle had proven he was genuinely apologetic. "For me at least."

Glancing at him, Bumblebee played around with the idea of informing Swindle about how close he came to pouring all of his money down the drain—well, setting aflame, same difference—but figured that the mech had been put through the wringer enough for one day. And, it meant he could keep that one in the back of his subspace in case he needed to reuse the plot in the future. He couldn't exactly have Swindle changing up the cache locations on him now could he…

"Great. Perfect." Swindle stared ahead. After a moment, he strangely added, "Me either."

For some odd reason, Bumblebee's spark wasn't inclined to believe him.