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For so long Bumble Prime had hoped to see Cybertron whole and hale again—freed from her burden brought upon by the plague he set into motion. It eclipsed every recharge, it sat at the back of his processor as he fought for the lives of his comrades, and it carried him forward even when he'd rather give up his life in a self-serving sense of accountability.
Until Cybertron returned to her former glory, only then could Bumble Prime be permitted rest. He was beholden to that misbegotten promise to Ratchet who deserved far better than staying by the side of a selfish little bot…
And yet, despite understanding the responsibility to undo his past mistakes, Bumble Prime found himself at the verge of complete collapse at seeing Cybertron… fine. Stable. Every perfect part working in tandem for the Great Autobot machine to chug along as though it weren't in absolute shambles not even a deca-cycle ago.
Had Bumble known that Bulkhead's experimental space bridge still worked, he would have asked it to offline him instead. Hell, when they had made a last ditch effort to storm the Kaon stronghold—avoiding the transmutated forms of their former Autobot allies—he had thought that the device a fluke. Sari believed that the only way out was through the core of Cybertron, Bulkhead supported her theory too. It didn't make sense for him to build an alternative means to an end… but Cliffjumper talked sense into all of them.
"We can't go to the core," fervently he looked between all of them, the semblance of years spent at the backseat of CYINT returning when they needed it most, "If the Predacon Queen does, in fact, operate on a hive-processor then she already knows what our plan is. We'll be ambushed, all of us dead and a part of her before we even get a chance to make a last stand."
His logic was sound, forcing the group to deliberate on their plan of action. They determined that they needed to recover whatever data Bulkhead had been working on prior to his infection, hoping that it would pave the way to something—by the Allspark, anything!—substantial.
A cure would have been hoping a little too far into the realm of fantasy but a sort of biochemical spray would have been nice. Bumble Prime wasn't above engaging in biological warfare, not anymore.
Yet, the experimental space bridge… None of them had expected that.
Send him to the Well already, Bumble could hardly navigate the busy streets of Cybertron without feeling as though he were surrounded by Predacons. Every peering optic, staring at the curiosity of a mech—wielding what appeared as though an extremely damaged and modified Magnus hammer—staggering through the crowds. He dodged every stray bump or touch, protoform crawling at the thought that any one of the bots next to him would lunge and attempt to sink their contagion riddled denta into his plating.
He needed to get away from the crowds. He needed… He didn't know what he needed! The space bridge had been pre-programmed with coordinates to an unknown time period from their past. Bumble could have been eons in the past, prior to the Great War even and he simply wouldn't know until he got his bearings straight.
Darting off of the main road and down a secluded path, Bumble Prime attempted to control his venting. He felt the temperature increase in his helm before it spread across his frame as his fans whirred an angry, anxious sound.
How horrible was it that he couldn't recognize the streets he traveled across? As Bumblebee, he had spent thousands of years off of the mainland—repairing dusty old star stations and rundown bridge hubs. Most of all the jump points he wasted cycles away on were so far away from the inner ring of the Commonwealth that his memories of Cybertron took a back seat in his data storage. And then he spent fifty years in stasis, a handful of cycles on Earth before… Before all the worlds in all the systems collapsed one by one, Cybertron laid to ruin.
Had Bumble Prime fought needlessly for so long, for a planet that he didn't even know? Had he not retreated into the past, what worth would he have been to the rebuilding effort? If Cliffjumper had his way, Bumble would have been crowned as Magnus right away, following the obsolete traditions of the High Council—what sort of Magnus didn't know Cybertron like the back of their gauntlet?
His servos slammed against the pavement before he even recognized the complete failure of his equilibrium. Hunched over on himself, Bumble attempted to wrangle his computer into anything worthwhile but failed consistently at each attempt.
They should have sent Arcee or Ironhide or even Ratchet—anyone would have been a better choice for this than him. The wash-up, the failure, the bumbl–
"Are you ok?!"
Small servos pressed against his pauldrons, the voice jittery warble against his filed down audial receptors. It sounded so familiar in such a strange way that Bumble Prime blinked away the static fogging up his HUD and turned to the source.
Oh.
"Bumblebee?" Stunned, he stared at the face of his past self. Young, unmarred from struggle as he stood in factory regulation armor and ignorant to his ego. Looking past the worried expression on his mirror, he saw his long forgotten cohort whispering amongst themselves as the custodian hurried over to the pair.
Instantly, he understood the unspoken politics at play. It had been many years since Bumble Prime had spent his initial cycles immersed in the barracks of the South Iacon factories. But he remembered the jealousy that interspersed him and his batch mates, all of their personas practically degrading in sync as they seethed at those faster, stronger, or more gifted than the other.
He hated every minute spent amongst this group, focusing hard at excelling in the speed and pressure-withstanding examinations. Test the mettle of his metal, old great warriors contributed to the hardiness of his frame… ignoring that his batch mates were made of the same stuff as him.
And Bumblebee had wanted a recommendation into the Autobot boot camp facilities so badly that the very nanoklik he got it, he hadn't wasted a single moment on goodbyes. His unearned showboating would come later, after he escaped the confines of his proctors because at the time, it felt very justified and deserved.
Breaking formation to help a stranger would reflect poorly on his chances of getting into boot camp. The proctors with their sharp optics would note it down next to persona irregularities and would start to notate a log of impurities.
Even now, they hurriedly approached with an apologetic, "Very sorry for him, sir. We hope that this recruit did not bother you."
"I was helping him out!" Bumblebee argued, glaring up at the stiff custodian. "He'd tell me if I was bothering him." He turned to Bumble Prime, almost desperate, "Right?"
Bumble Prime saw his future crumbling before he even got a chance to fight for it. He discarded the thought that if he had never become an Autobot hopeful, maybe then Blackarachnia wouldn't have the chance to spread her contagion. That wouldn't help him now or stop the devastation waiting to unfold.
Because despite what he might have thought in the past, Bumblebee was not the center of all things wrong with the universe. His actions that day were merely one piece to topple onto the next until all fell to the Predacon Queen. Elita-1 had likely fallen prey to the organic venom a long time ago already, with Optimus Prime on trial for his actions that day. Cybertronian law, when not expedited for personal gain, took a long time to proceed. They would review the case, postpone it, attempt to find all manner of loopholes to circumvent the conclusion, but reluctantly land on the decision of demoting Prime to grunt work.
He'd keep his title and Ultra Magnus would award him with pity by assigning him to captain the Omega Sentinel. Omega's keeper, Ratchet, would join him as would two repair mechanics. Bumblebee's presence wasn't necessary or even required for the events of their crash landing on Earth to occur.
And even if by some miracle of the Allspark they didn't, could he really leave such a thing up to chance?
No, he really couldn't.
And so, with a goal finally in sight, he felt all of his systems slow to a methodical crawl. Bumble Prime rose from the ground, Bumblebee putting in a good effort to assist, and allowed a mockery of authority to embolden him.
"Please don't apologize for Bumblebee, he came to my aid—that's admirable," he smiled, a fake and disgusting mimic of the expression. As though a puppeteer, he manipulated his servo until it settled between the audial horns on Bumblebee's head. The newbuild seemed stunned by the action, but practically melted at the affection. He hadn't felt a soft touch in his entire run cycle and still hadn't.
"Bumble…? I apologize, sir. This recruit is as of yet nameless. He will earn his designation once he has finished his vocational training."
He continued to rub Bumblebee's helm softly, ignoring the custodian. Bumblebee likewise ignored them in favor of exclaiming, "No way! You see that," he jerked his chin guard at the tittering cohort, "I got a name before any of those guys! Say, what's your name?"
The direct address did stump him and unfortunately he never properly curbed the fact that sometimes his intake worked faster than his higher processor, "I'm Bumble–ah."
He caught himself in time before he could utter 'Prime'—access to knowledge of those who possessed the title of Prime were public record. They would investigate him if he wasn't careful, but his computer continued to blank out on him as he searched for a convincing stage name.
A little too late perhaps, as they tilted their helm, "Your designation is Bumble-A, is that correct?"
"And I'm Bumble-B!" Bumblebee exclaimed excitedly, unknowing that this whole conversation was serving to practically push Bumble Prime over the edge. "Bumble-A and Bumble-B! That's awesome! I mean, I'm nobody's second best but, uh," his face plates burned as he nervously grabbed at Bumble Prime's servo. He pulled it away from his helm, grasping it tightly. "You seem pretty cool, so it's fine. I mean, you have a war hammer and everything! Wait– Did you fight in the war?"
"Something like that." Releasing Bumblebee's servo, Bumble Prime used the Magnus hammer as a prop, drawing attention to the weapon. He privately delighted in the way that the custodian paused at the posturing, grateful for the borrowed power it granted him. "You said that he was a new recruit?"
"… Yes." They answered, hesitant and almost anticipating the next line of dialogue.
"Good. I would like for you to transfer his care over to me. I will mentor him," Bumble Prime ignored the rousing cry of excitement that Bumblebee let out, the young bot not understanding the unraveling threaded path before him.
Yet, Bumble found that he shared his eagerness, a plan developing in his mind.
"That–! That is entirely unprecedented," the custodian fumbled, glancing back at the rest of the cohort who drew silent at his proclamation. He saw all of their fists clench, envy developing within them. Bumble Prime couldn't say as to what any of them went on to develop into other than dead. "There is a process—a lengthy one at that—when it comes to mentoring a new build and that usually only occurs for future warrior molds."
For future Primes, they did not say. They didn't have to. All the same, Bumble Prime could have thrown back his helm and laughed himself to stitches.
"Then let's get started," he moved forward, bridging the distance between him and his former caretaker.
His height forced them to crane up their helm to keep optic contact with him and he reveled at that—at the shift in their power balance. He had begged for death in the time between the accident and Ratchet rebuilding him piece by piece, sobbing and wailing like a pathetic runt as his medic worked his bumper off to turn him into the mechanism needed to save them all. To think that he'd find any sort of amusement or enjoyment out of this frame, hah! What a joke.
As a newbuild, he feared all of his proctors because he knew that they held his future in their hands.
Now? Now he only feared failure.
And, frankly, they were in the way.
Bumblebee followed at his heel, riding a high of perceived exceptionalism. If he knew what Bumble Prime had in store for him, he might have filed back in line—attempting to coast under the radar now that the consequences of seeking attention made itself known.
Bumble needed events to go exactly as they had the first time around, not willing and entirely unable to handle any deviations. Pulling Bumblebee out of the cohort was a necessary action—his presence had already ruined his chances of getting a recommendation letter and without that, he sincerely doubted he had the aptitude to even qualify for boot camp on his own merit. Having a mentor was almost better in every sense than having a measly factory letter to back up his enlistment papers.
He'd get Bumblebee into boot camp and he'd instruct him to fail. Sentinel would grant him his designation of a bumbler, not knowing that Bumble Prime had already beaten him to the punch. And he'd not inform the young bot of the identity of the real traitor, allowing him to have the steel wool pulled over his optics. He couldn't allow Shockwave to realize that his position was compromised from the start.
Blackarachnia wouldn't escape with Meltdown's bio-weapon in this timeline. He simply wouldn't allow it.
Because Bumble Prime would teach Bumblebee discipline.
And more than that, he would teach him obedience.