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From aggravating past experiences, Prowl had come to clench his digits tight around the remote to the lounge television whenever Bumblebee happened to linger too close to the couch. It didn't matter to the smaller bot whether or not someone was already watching a program or that they intended to check the news—Bee had a propensity to assume that whatever they were watching could not possibly be more interesting or more important than whatever it was that he wanted to watch.
Not to mention his insistence on blaring the volume on his already overly loud video games. Considering that Bumblebee had an advanced set of audial receivers, and therefore should have been the most susceptible to unnecessarily loud sounds, Prowl couldn't stand to stay in the same room as him when he had control of the television set.
As such, when he saw Bumblebee meander into the common lounge, Prowl instinctively tightened his grasp on the remote—with his arms crossed across his chest plates, he could practically shove the remote into the gap between his frame and the top of his gauntlet. He wouldn't, of course, because such childishness was above him but the temptation lingered the closer Bumblebee got to the couch.
Bee leaned over the top of the concrete structure, resting his weight against the back as he buried his chin guard into his palm. Prowl halfway expected him to start jabbering into his audials, but instead he surprised him. Bumblebee watched his program with, perhaps not an avid interest, but certainly a degree more attention than he usually afforded the nature channel with.
His presence wasn't wholly distracting, so Prowl stayed silent. They comfortably shared a space with one another, allowing the natural ambiance of the curated footage to speak for them. If Bumblebee behaved himself like this more often, Prowl might not preemptively tense whenever he entered the room.
"Whatcha watching?" Bumblebee eventually asked, optics drifting away from the screen. The narrator droned on in the background, the Earthling's voice a soft white noise to them. Typically, Prowl left the closed captioning on so that he could see the spelling of the different featured species, but it served a new purpose in allowing him to talk to Bumblebee and continue watching at the same time.
"Were you not paying attention?" Clearly not, as he wouldn't have asked the question if so. "It is a documentary series about the aquatic marine mammals known as whales. More specifically, they are discussing the concept known as a whale fall—a phenomenon that occurs when the dead carcass falls onto the ocean floor, providing substance for a wide variety of smaller organisms after their passing."
"Freaky," the subdued nature of Bumblebee's words drew Prowl's attention away from the TV. He hadn't heard the minibot sound so… apprehensive in the entire time that he had known the bot. In fact, now that he took a closer inspection, it rather seemed as though Bumblebee had something on his processor.
Or, that he had something that he wanted to get off of his chest if the nervous tic of pulling at the tips of his digits to release the joint-lock was anything to go by.
"Perhaps," Prowl commented. "However, I find it fascinating that they serve a purpose for the ecosystem even after death. It's honorable, in a sense. Certainly nothing on Cybertron quite resembles the way that nature gives, and inevitably returns, as it does here on Earth."
Bumblebee furrowed his brow ridge, the shade deepening around his optics. "I mean, that's not really true."
"How so?"
"Well— You know this is actually great, because this kinda is related to what I wanted to talk to you about," unaware that he hadn't actually voiced said desire to converse with Prowl, Bumblebee walked around the side of the couch so that he could sit on the armrest. His legs dangled off the side, but he turned his frame toward Prowl. "I was hanging out with Ratchet in the med bay, because there really isn't much to do today since Sari and the Professor are away on a trip and Bulkhead and Prime are off on patrol—which is totally unfair because I know that Bulkhead would have preferred to finish up that new oil painting he started–"
"Focus, Bumblebee," he scolded, using the remote to lower the sound further. With a sigh, Prowl lamented that he hadn't thought to record this episode on the VCR. Hopefully, there would be a re-run at some point in the future. "If you were in the med bay, then what could have possibly inspired you to seek me out? Unless Ratchet kicked you out for being an annoyance whilst he was working and now you decided to turn your attention to me instead." As though their only purpose was to cater to his boredom.
"Hey," Bumblebee glared with a pout. "I didn't get kicked out," with a roll of his optics, his sullen mood returned, "He, uh, asked me to try and talk to you actually. About stuff."
Prowl tilted his helm in consideration. That was… disconcerting, to say the least. "What kind of 'stuff'?"
"It's just… Stuff. You know?" At Prowl's unimpressed expression, he elaborated, "Alright fine, he was casually going through all of our files to make little updates and notes when we both realized that we've spent all this time together and we still don't really know much about– about you." A slight frown broke through his usually jovial features. "I know you're cagey about your past and all but… Ratchet said he wants to at least know what generation you're from. For medical reasons."
"What generation I'm… What are you talking about?" Flabbergasted, Prowl shook his helm. As with most topics regarding his past, he guarded his failures firmly away from the rest of the team. He knew that they wouldn't judge him for his past actions, but… Doubt lingered. They couldn't possibly understand the depths of grief in his past for what could have been and what he could not change.
And yet, if Ratchet had sent Bumblebee to do his dirty work, then that meant the medic was one step away from haranguing Prowl on the subject until he eventually relented. To prevent further disruption from his day, he admitted, "I was sparked during the Great War. But I can't give you a precise amount of cycles since my forging if that's what he's looking for—he can carbon date me if he likes, but it's been millions of years since I last thought about keeping track of that."
"Whoa," Bumblebee gaped. "That means you're around the same age as Ratchet!"
Wry, he let the comment pass. "A little younger, but yes, I am by no means a 'young bot' like you and Bulkhead." Or even their Prime who practically exuded an aura of only having book-smarts with very little field experience… Up until their crash landing on Earth, of course. "Satisfied? You can report that back to him and hopefully assuage his so-called medical concerns."
"That's…" An unexpected nervousness welled up within Bumblebee. What Prowl wouldn't give to understand what could have been going through his head. "Say Prowl? When you die, what do you plan to do with your frame?"
Perhaps not. "I'm sorry? What could have ever possessed you to say something so morbid?"
Bumblebee chewed on his lower lip, a habit he unfortunately developed from watching over Sari. "Well that's what I was getting to! With the whole whale fall thing? Ratchet proposed that you might have been from the Great War era of well-made protoforms and that… That got me thinking about how different we are. Because you? You're the real deal and me…" He looked down at his servos, curled up in his lap. Bumblebee clenched them closed, "I'm a recycled protoform, made up of smelted metal from war heroes with very little to show for it."
The remote clattered as Prowl abruptly straightened. "What? Recycled– What?"
"You didn't know?" Bumblebee had the audacity to look at Prowl as though he had grown a second helm, "I mean, it's pretty standard knowledge. But I guess you were on that rock for a long time."
"Bumblebee," Prowl turned toward him, one servo pressed flat against the couch as he restrained himself from impulsively grabbing him by the wheel well and shaking the confounding minibot. "What in the name of the Allspark is a recycled protoform?"
"Ok, so I'm not the best person to ask about this, but apparently a really long time ago one of the major strongholds for protoforms got raided by the Decepticons?" Without thinking, his digits curled into a fist as the reminder of his failings sharply lanced through his spark. To hear Bumblebee refer to the event that changed Prowl's life so casually and with such uncertainty… "And even though we won the war, the lack of protoforms to replenish the ranks was a major blow to the Autobots. That's why they created the initiative for older bots to waiver away the burial rights of their frames when they offlined so that they could be used to recycle viable proto-metal for new protoforms."
"That's…" Horrid, a desperation entirely unneeded for a species with a lifespan as long as their own. Master Yoketron's words about how if the Omega initiative failed, they would have no other choice but to mold the protoforms into cannon fodder in the fight against the Decepticons. In a perfect world, they were supposed to be the future of Cybertron, not… "I had no idea such a thing was even happening."
With a hum, Bumblebee turned away from him entirely. "Everyone always shrugs it off when I mention it, but I'm never really just stroking my own ego when I say that I'm Elite Guard material, because on a technicality… I am." Whirling around quickly, the whiplash of his voice shocked Prowl back a tad, "But it's not like I'm looking for sympathy or anything! You mentioned honor earlier with the whales—I've already decided that when I offline, I want my proto-metal to be recycled as well. It'll be an even sweeter deal if I can manage to make something of myself, because then I can help fill the cracks of whoever is made next… the same way that the warriors who gave up their frames tried to do for me… Even if it didn't work out as expected."
"You– Bumblebee you don't have any cracks that need filling," Prowl said, finding the entire concept absurd. "And you shouldn't be talking about offlining when you've barely lived a fraction of your life out."
"But who knows what's going to happen in the future," Bumblebee swung his legs over to plant them against the seat of the couch. Hugging his poleyn close to his false-hood, Bumblebee stared at everything and nothing at all. "Prime has already died once and Ratchet found that the more that Sari uses her key on me… the faster my components have started to deteriorate. Recycled protoforms already don't have the same life expectancy as pre-war mechs and the more times the metal is reused the weaker it grows. I'm a third generation newbuild, I've got a lot of different bots linked to my medical files which doesn't help either…"
"Bumblebee, this is…" Prowl could hardly believe what he was hearing, the bombardment of equally distressing information cutting through his computer like a slog. Of all of them, Bumblebee seemed as though he lived life without considering the consequences. He threw himself into danger for them all the time, nearly in the same spin of his fans as he raced off to dive helm first into chaos.
"I kinda wished that I had been made up of parts of you," Bumblebee confessed, not daring to look at Prowl as he said it. "I bet any bot would be lucky if they had half your genius or talent."
He sprung off of the couch, unable to stand the conversation for another klik more. Bumblebee's words picked at old welds that would never heal, and worse yet, he knew that the minibot meant no offense with the conversation. Never before had he seen Bumblebee so open with his feelings about any of them, let alone Prowl.
And yet, his words of admiration sought to hurt him in every possible way. Prowl thought that of all the things that he and Bumblebee shared in common, an appreciation for living was one of them. They might express it in different ways, but he thought they shared that value. Never would he have suspected that behind the exuberant mech a pervasive desire to seek death, or at least compulsively turn the concept over prematurely, consumed his thoughts.
Although, it might not have been premature if what he claimed about Ratchet's findings were true in any capacity and not merely exaggeration. They all knew what a reckless fool Bumblebee was, his intentions meaningful when not self-serving, and they had all at one point scolded him that Sari's key wouldn't always be there to keep him safe. But they never truly believed that he would wind up grievously injured, not when things always seemed to work out in their favor.
Only to find out that Bumblebee, for all that he mocked Ratchet for having one servo in the scrapheap, was actually closer to the Well than any of them? Because of the way that he was forged? Because of the fail safe they had all hypocritically relied on?
Prowl banished the thought of Bumblebee dying from his computer, scrubbing his data banks clean of the mere idea of it.
As he passed, Prowl did not look down at the disheartened Bumblebee who quietly sat and allowed him to leave without a fight. His spark pounded away in his chamber, thinking himself into oblivion that it was all his fault.
Had Prowl only mastered processor over matter in time, the protoforms wouldn't have been stolen. Master Yoketron would have lived and continued his custodial duties over the protoforms—their precious futures, stolen from all of them because of his inadequacies.
The Autobots wouldn't have grown desperate enough to artificially grow their population from willing veterans, creating their own hope for future generations because they believed in their cause even after rejoining the Well.
And maybe then Bumblebee could have been produced from one of those protoforms, taken care of and guarded by… By Prowl, in another life. He wouldn't have to worry about offlining or what would happen to his frame after death, because the concept would have been far from his computer.
Nearly making it down the hallway leading to his room, he heard Bumblebee turn the volume all the way up. Miraculously, he continued to watch the documentary—finding solace in serving a purpose after death, where Prowl could no longer abide by it.