Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Ground Bridge flickered shut with a thrum, leaving the base in its usual hum of machinery and recycled air. Bumblebee rolled out of the vortex in a clean arc, tires squealing as he transformed mid-motion. His plating clicked into place, and he landed in a crouch with a playful chirp.

“Show-off,” Arcee said, arms crossed as she strode in behind him.

Bee beeped an exaggerated “Who, me?” and tilted his helm, optics flashing with mischief.

“You know that stunt wasn’t necessary.” Ratchet muttered from his console. His hands were already flying across keys, checking the data from their mission. “Transforming mid-roll? You could have damaged a stabilizer joint!”

Bee’s reply came as a series of rapid, staccato beeps, pitched high and innocent. Raf, who had been waiting at the edge of the platform with his laptop balanced on his knees, grinned. “He says he was just proving he’s still the fastest.”

Bulkhead lumbered through next, carrying the last of the recovered energon cubes. “Fastest, sure. Though he didn’t actually win the race back.”

Bee emitted a raspberry-like buzz, crossing his arms in mock offense.

“Don’t argue with me, buddy,” Bulkhead said with a chuckle, setting the energon down with a heavy clunk. “You only pulled ahead ‘cause I slipped on the gravel.”

Arcee smirked. “Excuses, excuses.”

The sound of footsteps echoed from the far hall. Optimus entered the main chamber with his usual calm presence, his optics steady and unreadable. He stopped at the center of the room, gaze sweeping across the team. “Well done. The energon is secured, and no lives were lost. That is what matters.”

Bee straightened, plating shifting with quiet pride.

Raf closed his laptop and jogged over, almost tripping on the edge of the platform in his hurry. Bee extended his arm instinctively, catching the boy before he could stumble. Raf’s cheeks flushed, but he smiled up at the Autobot. “Thanks, Bee.”

A warm, low beep answered him.

Optimus’s gaze softened briefly, watching the two. “Bumblebee, your speed and resourcefulness once again served the mission well. But remember, victory is not measured by competition among comrades.”

Bee made a low chirp that translated roughly to Yes, sir.

Raf glanced between them. “He knows. He just likes proving himself.”

“Don’t encourage him, Raf.” Ratchet said without looking up. “His self-preservation instincts are already questionable.”

Bee let out an indignant brrt! and pointed at himself with both arms as if to say, Me? Unsafe?

Arcee chuckled, folding her arms. “You’ve got to admit, Ratchet, he’s good. If anyone can get away with crazy stunts, it’s Bee.”

Ratchet huffed. “Until the day he can’t.”

The base fell into its familiar rhythm after that: Arcee and Bulkhead cleaning their weapons, Ratchet absorbed in his monitors, Optimus quietly observing. Raf climbed into the driver’s seat inside Bee’s cabin mode, plugging in his laptop to run a diagnostic.

“Your coolant system’s running hot again,” Raf murmured, typing rapidly. “You’ve been pushing harder than usual.”

Bee answered with a soft, guilty beep.

Raf sighed. “You know you don’t have to show off for me, right? You’re already awesome.” He glanced up at the others, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret. “Don’t tell them, but you’re my favorite.”

Bee’s optics brightened, and he gave a delighted series of clicks that had Raf laughing. From across the room, Bulkhead called out, “What’s he bragging about now?”

“Nothing!” Raf yelled back, grinning.

Bee tapped the horn twice in quick succession, the Cybertronian equivalent of a wink.

Later that night, when the base quieted, Bee sat near the far wall with Raf perched cross-legged beside his friend. Arcee leaned against a console, keeping a casual eye on them, while Bulkhead and Ratchet argued good-naturedly about field repairs.

Raf asked softly, “Do you ever miss it? Cybertron?”

Bee tilted his helm, optics dimming a little. He let out a low, wavering beep. Raf translated slowly, hesitantly: “All the time.”

Bee’s gaze lingered on the ceiling, where shadows from the monitors played like faint echoes of stars. He emitted a second series of tones, quieter this time.

Raf frowned. “But… you’d still rather be here? With us?”

Bee’s response was immediate, a bright, firm chirp, followed by the gentle motion of his servo nudging Raf’s shoulder.

Raf smiled. “Good. ‘Cause we’d be lost without you.”

Across the room, Arcee caught the exchange and smiled faintly to herself. The warmth of the base: the teasing, the arguments, the quiet moments. It all felt like home. For Bumblebee, these bonds were everything. 

Chapter Text

The desert stretched out before them, all heat-shimmer and broken stone. The midday sun glared off jagged rock formations, and the dry wind carried grit that scraped across steel plating. Bumblebee crouched low behind a ridge, his optics narrowing on the canyon floor below. A squad of Vehicons was moving cargo crates toward a hidden Ground Bridge relay. Energon, judging by the faint readings pulsing on his HUD.

He clicked a short burst of code across comms: [Target acquired. Flanking?]

Arcee’s voice came through, sharp and decisive. “On your left. Wait for my mark.”

“Got your back,” Bulkhead rumbled, perched above them on a higher ridge.

From the rear, Ratchet’s annoyed voice filtered through the comms. “Remember, the objective is retrieval, not demolition. Do try to restrain yourselves.”

Bee buzzed softly in response, a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. Ratchet never changed.

A smaller, human voice chimed in on a secure line only Bee carried: Raf. “Bee? Be careful, okay?”

Bee tilted his helm just slightly, subvocalizing a string of beeps no one else would hear.

Raf translated quietly from the safety of the base, “I’ll be fine. Promise.”

It made Bee’s chest feel lighter somehow. Even in battle, Raf anchored him.

Arcee’s order cut in: “Now.”

Bumblebee launched forward, transforming mid-leap. His wheels hit the canyon floor with a shriek of rubber, dust pluming behind him. He tore across the sand, blaster shifting into place on his arm.

The first Vehicon never saw him coming. Bee slammed into its side, flipping it into the dirt, and fired at the cargo line in the same motion. Arcee vaulted down a ledge, blades flashing, cutting another Decepticon down.

“Keep them off the crates!” she barked.

Bee answered with a bright, sharp trill, blasting a second enemy in the knee joint. Bulkhead thundered in next, smashing one Vehicon’s chest plate like it was paper.

For a moment, it felt easy. Familiar. Teamwork.

Then the air changed.

A heavy pulse rippled across Bee’s sensors, wrong and sharp, like feedback shrieking through his comms. He staggered mid-stride, plating buzzing uncomfortably. His vision doubled for a fraction of a second, then snapped back, leaving static crawling across his HUD.

“Bee?” Arcee’s voice cracked through. “Status?”

He beeped back quickly, assuring her he was fine, but his tone warbled unevenly.

The cargo had almost cleared the canyon. Bee pushed himself faster, cutting ahead of the line. He transformed mid-run, skidding to a halt in bot mode with blasters raised. The Vehicons opened fire, forcing him back behind a jagged rock spire. Plasma bolts scorched the stone near his helm.

Bee peeked out, firing a few controlled shots. His aim was true, until the pulse hit again. This one stronger.

Pain stabbed through his chest like a splintering crack, straight to his spark chamber. His optics dimmed for a heartbeat, and when they flared back online, his shot had gone wild. The bolt seared into the canyon wall, collapsing part of the ridge. Rocks cascaded down, nearly crushing Arcee below.

“Watch it!” she shouted, darting aside just in time.

Bee froze, horror clamping around his spark.

“Bee, what’s going on?” Bulkhead demanded, smashing another Decepticon aside.

He stammered a rapid series of beeps, fragmented and high-pitched. [Didn’t mean—systems glitch—sorry—]

But there was no time. The cargo convoy was nearly through the Ground Bridge. If they lost it, the Decepticons would have enough energon to power who-knew-what.

Bee clenched his servos, forcing the static aside. He sprinted forward, sliding into the open as his blaster powered up again.

That was when the prototype weapon appeared.

It was carried by a single towering Decepticon soldier, larger than the others, armor gleaming with sickly violet circuitry. The weapon in its grip pulsed with unstable energy, like lightning trapped inside a cannon.

“Target acquired,” the Decepticon rasped. It aimed directly at Bumblebee.

Bee barely had time to register before the shot tore across the canyon.

He leapt aside—almost. The blast grazed his side, just below his shoulder plating. Instead of burning through like plasma, the energy crawled across him, wrapping around his chest in crackling tendrils. His spark chamber screamed in his processor, lights flickering violently across his frame.

He hit the ground hard, armor sparking.

“Bumblebee!” Raf’s voice shrieked faintly through his comm, panicked.

Bee struggled to rise, but his limbs locked in jagged spasms. The energy burrowed inward, sinking into his core. And then—

He felt it.

Something inside him split.

Like glass shattering underwater, fragments of thought scattered. Rage, cold and sharp, surged in one direction. Reckless abandon in another. A crushing, suffocating fear spiraled downward. His own voice—his real voice, the one he hadn’t heard in years, echoed faintly in the distance before dissolving into static.

The world tilted.

“Bee!” Arcee’s voice dragged him back, but faintly, like through water. She fired on the weapon-bearer, forcing it back. Bulkhead charged in to grab Bee under the arm, hauling him upright.

“Got you, buddy. Stay with me!”

Bee tried. He really did. But when his optics flickered, he saw something else in Bulkhead’s face—disgust? Distrust? He blinked, and it was gone.

Arcee fired again. “Ground Bridge, now!”

The portal swirled open on Ratchet’s command. Bee stumbled with Bulkhead’s support, sparking still crawling across his armor. The last thing he saw before the vortex swallowed him was the strange Decepticon retreating, the weapon still pulsing, as if satisfied.

The base was chaos.

“Get him on the platform!” Ratchet barked, tools already in hand.

Bulkhead lowered Bee onto the diagnostic bed, metal screeching as Bee convulsed. Raf ran forward, laptop clutched to his chest, but Optimus’s massive hand caught his shoulder gently.

“Stay back,” Optimus said firmly, though his optics flickered with concern.

“No...Bee...he needs me!” Raf’s voice cracked. “He’ll want me there!”

Bee’s optics locked on Raf across the room, glowing weak and fractured. A distorted chirp broke from his vocalizer, half-words, half-static.

Ratchet cursed under his breath. “His spark is destabilizing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Arcee stood at Bee’s side, fists clenched. “What did they hit him with?”

“I don’t know,” Ratchet snapped, his tone sharp with fear disguised as irritation. “Something designed to do more than just damage armor.”

Bee’s plating rattled, and suddenly he lurched upward, grabbing Ratchet’s wrist with shocking strength. His optics burned brighter, colder. His tone warbled low and dark, nothing Raf had ever heard from him before.

Arcee drew her blaster. “Bee—!”

“Stand down,” Optimus ordered, voice steady but grim.

Bee released Ratchet, collapsing back against the berth with a weak beep.

Raf tore free from Optimus’s grasp, sprinting to Bee’s side. He clambered up onto the edge of the platform, pressing a small hand to Bee’s massive forearm. “Bee, I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Bee’s optics flickered wildly, shifting from soft to hard, cold to confused. He let out a low, static-filled beep that fractured into two tones at once—one pleading, one sharp and hostile.

Raf squeezed tighter. “I don’t care what that weapon did. You’re still you. And I’m not leaving.”

For a moment, Bee stilled. His optics dimmed, focusing on Raf like a tether in the storm.

Then he sagged back, systems stabilizing slightly under Ratchet’s steady hands.

But the unease in the base was palpable. Bulkhead’s expression was shadowed, Arcee’s optics wary. Even Optimus lingered longer than usual, his gaze thoughtful and troubled.

Raf stayed where he was, his small hand never leaving Bee’s.

Because even as the hum of the medbay settled, he could feel it: something inside his friend had changed. And the fracture was only beginning.

Chapter Text

The medbay lights hummed low, casting a sterile glow over the diagnostic berth. Bumblebee lay motionless, though “still” wasn’t quite right—every so often, a faint tremor rippled through his plating, like the aftershock of something deeper than circuitry.

Raf hadn’t moved from his spot all night. He sat cross-legged on the platform, laptop open on his knees, cables trailing into Bee’s side port. His fingers flew across the keys, monitoring vitals Ratchet hadn’t bothered translating into human-friendly code.

“Your energon flow’s stabilizing,” Raf murmured, more for Bee than for himself. “Pulse still spikes sometimes, but it’s better. I think your spark chamber’s rebalancing.”

Bee’s optics fluttered online, faint but aware. He released a low, tired beep.

Raf leaned closer, whispering, “Yeah, I know. Ratchet keeps saying I shouldn’t be here, but I told him he’d have to carry me out.”

A sharper beep this time—half amusement, half gratitude.

From across the room, Ratchet made a noise suspiciously close to a harrumph. “I can hear you, you know.”

“I know,” Raf shot back, without looking up. His voice trembled at the edges, but his hands never stopped moving. “He needs me.”

Bulkhead shifted uncomfortably where he stood at the wall, arms crossed. “Kid’s not wrong, Doc. Bee calms down when Raf’s around.”

Ratchet glared at him, then at Arcee, who was leaning against the far console. “That’s hardly scientific.”

Arcee raised a brow. “Neither is ignoring the obvious. He responds to Raf. You saw what happened earlier.”

Ratchet muttered something under his breath and returned to his readings.

Optimus had said little since returning from his private briefing with base command. He stood near the main table, silent as stone, optics fixed on Bee with a weight that was hard to read—concern, yes, but also calculation.

Raf finally tore his gaze from the laptop to look at the others. “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. You all know that, right?”

Silence stretched. Bulkhead’s optics darted away. Arcee’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Ratchet pretended to focus harder on the console.

Bee let out a sharp, almost panicked chirp, his optics flaring. Raf instantly reached for his arm. “Shh. Don’t listen to them. I know you didn’t mean it.”

The sound cut off. His optics dimmed again.

Ratchet sighed heavily. “Intentions or not, the fact remains—he’s unstable. That weapon destabilized his spark. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Then fix it!” Raf snapped.

Ratchet’s expression softened just slightly. “I’m trying.”

Hours passed. The base moved through its routines—Arcee sparring to bleed off restless energy, Bulkhead watching monitors with unusual focus, Ratchet scouring archives for anything resembling the weapon. Optimus had left briefly to report to command, though he’d said little about what conclusions they were drawing.

The silence weighed on everyone. Even the hum of the base seemed subdued, as though the metal itself was waiting.

Raf dozed fitfully against Bee’s arm, waking each time Bee shifted. Once, he woke to the sound of Bee making a low, fractured series of beeps—not his usual pattern. Harsher. Angrier.

Raf sat up quickly. “Bee? It’s me. You’re safe.”

Bee’s optics snapped online, burning brighter than usual. He sat upright too fast, nearly knocking Raf back. A sharp, cold buzz came from his vocalizer, and his hand slammed into the berth’s edge hard enough to dent the metal.

Arcee was at his side in an instant, blaster half-raised. “Bee—easy!”

Bulkhead stood too, tense.

“Wait!” Raf cried, scrambling up. He placed both hands against Bee’s plating, looking up into those searing optics. “Bee, it’s okay! It’s just me.”

For one terrifying moment, Bee didn’t respond. His optics narrowed, unreadable, and the growl in his systems deepened. Raf swore he felt heat radiating from his chest, like his spark was burning too bright.

Then something shifted. His optics flickered, dimmed, steadied. His servo—still clenched into a fist—relaxed.

Bee beeped, shaky, confused. [Raf?]

Raf exhaled hard, trying not to show how badly his hands were shaking. “Yeah. I’m here. Always.”

Arcee lowered her weapon reluctantly but didn’t step back. “That wasn’t just a glitch.”

Bulkhead’s jaw tightened. “Felt like someone else was drivin’ him.”

Ratchet scowled at his readings. “Fragments. His spark is dividing, pulling traits apart instead of holding them together. The Bumblebee we know—loyal, controlled—he’s…splintering.”

Optimus’s voice filled the chamber as he returned, quiet but firm. “Which means he will need all of us. Especially now.”

Bee looked between them, confusion radiating through every line of his frame. Then his gaze found Raf again, and something like fear glimmered there.

Later, when the others finally dispersed to their duties, Raf remained curled against Bee’s arm, laptop humming beside him. The medbay smelled faintly of scorched metal, though Ratchet had scrubbed away the worst of the burns.

Raf typed quickly, logging every spike and drop in Bee’s systems. But his words weren’t just data; they were promises. Notes that said I see you. I’m not giving up.

“Don’t listen to them,” Raf whispered fiercely, pressing a hand against the warm seam of Bee’s plating. “You’re not dangerous. You’re you. And no matter what happens, I won’t let anyone say otherwise.”

Bee made a soft, wavering beep, one that translated loosely as [Promise?]

Raf pressed his forehead against cold plating. “Promise.”

Bee’s optics dimmed, but not before they softened. He released a sigh-like click, fragile as glass.

What neither of them said aloud—but both felt in the quiet—was that promises might not be enough to stop what was coming.

Chapter Text

The next morning came in layers of sound.

Not sunrise—underground bases didn’t have those—but the soft mechanical dawn: coolant pumps cycling up, the low purr of ventilation, the distant hiss of the GroundBridge powering a test spin. Somewhere deeper in the base, Ratchet cursed at a stubborn coupling; closer by, Bulkhead laughed at something he’d found on Miko’s most recent playlist.

Raf woke where he’d fallen asleep—half on his side, half draped across Bumblebee’s forearm like a thrown blanket. His neck was stiff. His laptop screen still glowed with lines of data, battery at 5%.

Bee’s optics were already online, soft and steady. A querying beep dropped gently into the quiet.

Raf scrubbed a hand over his face. “Morning. You didn’t recharge?”

Bee’s reply was a hushed trill that sat somewhere between I tried and It wouldn’t let me. The it was not a thing outside of him; they both knew that now.

Raf sat up and stretched, wincing. “Okay. Can you give me a sixty-second systems ping? Just—uh—top-line vitals.”

Bee obliged, a sequence of short, precise tones. Raf typed while Bee “spoke,” translating the familiar code faster than Ratchet’s console could. Pulse spiking during idle. Energon flow stable. Spark flux low in the last hour, medium before that.

“Better,” Raf said, though he didn’t quite trust the word. He looked up, trying a smile. “Hungry?”

Bee produced a soft click that was very close to a laugh.

“Right, not you.” Raf slid off the berth. “I’ll grab cereal. You… don’t move.”

Bee chirped obediently.

He did move, of course, the moment Raf stepped away—just a fraction, adjusting the angle of his shoulder so the indentation Raf’s body had warmed didn’t feel like an absence.

Across the room, Arcee noticed and said nothing.

—

They kept the day ordinary on purpose.

Bulkhead rolled a training pallet into the main chamber and dropped a battered practice drone onto it. “Thought you’d like something to hit that won’t shoot back,” he told Bee, forcing cheer into his voice.

Bee stood slowly. The tremor from last night had faded; his balance looked normal. He pinged a thanks in bright, quick beeps.

“Take it easy,” Ratchet called without looking up. “If your spark flux spikes above a two-point differential, you stop. No arguments.”

Bee made a performatively innocent buzz. Even Ratchet’s mouth ticked.

Raf stayed near the wall, laptop at the ready. “I’ll watch your levels. If anything goes weird, we pull the plug.”

“Plug?” Bulkhead said, mock-affronted, hands on hips. “Buddy, this is art.”

Bee rolled his optics and flexed his servos. Bulkhead activated the drone.

It sprang to life with a whirr, zipping toward Bee at chest height. Bee pivoted; the drone missed by centimeters. A second darted low for his knees; he jumped, rotated, and came down with a palm strike that sent it skidding.

“Nice,” Bulkhead said. “Add speed.”

The drone program obliged. Three on one now—zigs and feints. Bee’s movements smoothed into the precise economy Raf loved to watch: weight shifts like a dancer, spins that ate ground without looking like they did, the quiet power of someone who knew his own body down to each plate and pin.

Arcee leaned on a column. “He’s fine.”

Ratchet murmured, “For now.”

Bee slapped a drone from the air, ducked a second, then lunged for the third. It juked left. He corrected mid-stride and overcorrected—not physically, but in affect. The change was subtle until it wasn’t.

Everything about him sharpened.

His optics cut colder, the line of his mouth-plates tight. He stopped dodging in favor of angles that gave him kill shots. When the nearest drone darted back, he pursued with ruthless efficiency and punched through its casing hard enough that pieces skittered across the floor.

“Bee,” Bulkhead said, tone shifting. “Hey. Ease up.”

The second drone went for Bee’s flank. He didn’t seem to register it as a practice unit anymore. He caught it by the tail, slammed it into the floor, and stepped on it until it stopped moving.

“Bee.” Arcee pushed off the column, voice low. “Stand down.”

The third drone hovered in a defensive circle. Bee’s targeting reticle flickered across his optics—Ratchet’s monitors caught the spike. Raf’s heart jumped. “Bee, your flux—”

Bee snapped his helm toward the sound of Raf’s voice.

The coldness cracked. A micro-hesitation. Then his hand came up, palm-out—not to strike, but to show he was empty.

A shiver ran through him. Plate by plate, the coiled aggression unwound. He looked down at the crushed drone under his pede like it had appeared there without his consent.

A small, apologetic beep.

Bulkhead exhaled. “It’s fine, big guy. We’ll get you new toys to break.”

Ratchet’s voice was gentle by his standards. “I’m increasing the dampeners another five percent.”

Bee nodded minutely and powered down his training subroutines.

Raf crossed the floor. “You okay?”

Bee’s response was soft enough that Raf barely caught it: [Didn’t feel like me.]

Raf set his palm against warm plating. “Then we anchor you when it doesn’t.”

Bee quirked his helm—curious, a little wry. He pinged once, a precise note Raf had learned meant: Then anchor me now.

Raf’s hand stayed where it was. “Right here.”

—

Patrol should have been routine.

Arcee and Bee took the north loop—a two-hour sweep through scrub and low industrial lots where Decepticons liked to pretend they were not Decepticons. Optimus had assigned it with the mild formality he used when he was giving someone a test and pretending he wasn’t.

“Status checks every ten,” he’d said. “No engagement without confirmation.”

“Yes, sir,” Arcee replied.

Bee’s beeps were crisp and compliant.

Raf wanted to go. He did not ask. He knew the look Optimus would give him—a thoughtful apology that felt like gentle steel.

The first twenty minutes were clean. Arcee kept chatter open—stories about Jack, about a human driver who had tried to race her at a light (“He was very proud of his spoiler. I let him be proud thirty seconds longer than he deserved.”). Bee’s replies were all sounds: beeps, clicks, a radio snippet of The Cars that made Arcee groan.

“If Miko hacks your presets again…” she threatened.

A blip pinged Arcee’s radar. Bee caught it, too—an energy signature two blocks over, weak but wrong.

“Reroute,” Arcee said.

They slid down a service street between two abandoned warehouses and came out on a loading yard pocked with oil stains. The signature strengthened. Arcee lifted an arm to signal stop—

Bee moved.

Not recklessly fast. Not showy. Just… decisive. He ghosted along the fence line like a blade, optics narrowed, scanning for the threat with a focus that didn’t include her.

“Bee,” Arcee said. “Hold position.”

He did not hold. He cut a neat arc around a stack of pallets and put himself in the most tactically advantageous corner of the yard—perfect cover, clean line of fire. If this had been an ambush, it would have been beautiful.

“Bee.” Arcee’s tone cooled. “You’re not point today. You’re wing.”

Bee’s answer was a single beep: [Copy.]

It didn’t sound like a copy. It sounded like a recorded word he’d dropped in the line because he knew she wanted it there.

They found the source: a Decepticon scanner node, jury-rigged behind a concrete bollard. Bee investigated with clinical efficiency, disabling the broadcast, tracing the cable, yanking it with a hard twist.

Arcee watched him for a second longer than habit, a frown creeping in. “You’re quiet.”

Bee looked up. He offered the self-effacing beep he always used when someone said he was off. It was correct in shape and wrong around the edges, like a perfect signature forged by a hand that didn’t understand why the flourish mattered.

Arcee said nothing on the drive back. Bee matched her speed exactly, never half a tire-length ahead, never late on a turn. He was flawless company.

It wasn’t how he felt like himself.

—

Optimus heard Arcee’s report with hands folded at the small of his back.

“He was effective,” she said. “But—flat. Command-like without being… him.”

Bulkhead, sprawled on the steps with a rag and a gearbox, made a face. “You calling him Optimus?”

Arcee’s optics slid sideways. “I’m calling him wrong.”

Ratchet, elbow-deep in a terminal, didn’t look up. “Fragments sort themselves under pressure. Which means different traits may surface on different tasks.” He finally glanced over at Bee, who stood near the far wall beside Raf, silent and watchful. “For training, we got the aggressor. For patrol, the tactician.”

“And for me,” Raf said, more heated than he meant, “we get the real one.”

Three pairs of optics landed on him, and he flushed but didn’t back down. He felt Optimus watch him, not judgmental, just taking measure.

Optimus said, “All of them are real, Rafael.”

Raf bristled. “Not if they hurt him.”

Optimus inclined his helm a fraction. “Then our task is to help Bumblebee bring them back into one.”

Bee had been listening, optics steady on the floor. At Optimus’s last line, he looked up and pinged a note Raf could not fully translate. It held respect, and a question too careful to ask out loud.

Optimus, who was very good with careful questions, answered as if he had been asked. “Yes, Bumblebee. I still trust you.”

The air in the room loosened a degree.

—

For three hours, the base was quiet.

Bee helped Bulkhead rehang a sparring bag. He let Miko FaceTime in to tell him he was still cooler than Arcee (Arcee yelled from the corridor, “I can hear you!”; Miko yelled back, “I know!”). Ratchet ran another scan and didn’t complain when Bee winced at the cold sensor ring.

Raf did math homework on the steps and pretended it was more important than the spark flux graph on his screen.

So when the alarm went off, it cut through peace like a blade.

Every console lit in angry red. Ratchet was on his feet before the second beep. “Security breach—internal! Storage bay two.”

Bulkhead dropped the sparring bag. Arcee was moving before it hit the floor. Optimus didn’t hurry; he simply became faster without seeming to move differently.

Raf did not think. He ran.

Bee beat all of them there.

Storage two wasn’t the energon vault—that was armoured and sealed with codes Raf wasn’t allowed to see—but it held pieces that could become terrible things. Stasis cuffs. A Decepticon disruptor Ratchet had sworn to dismantle “tomorrow” for the last four tomorrows. Resonance relays no one trusted but no one threw out.

The door stood open.

Inside, a crate sat askew on the floor. The seal on its latch had been cut with a clean, mechanical precision that didn’t look like a panicked thief. The lid yawed open by two inches as if it had been closed again, then reconsidered.

Bee slid in and scanned. Arcee took the opposite flank and mirrored him. Bulkhead blocked the door like a wall.

“Report,” Optimus said from the threshold.

Ratchet’s console chimed. “Item list… giving me a second… slag it—someone disabled the bay’s camera twenty minutes ago.”

Raf’s stomach dropped. “Who was in here?”

Arcee looked at the latch and said, “Someone with hands. Not a Vehicon drone on remote.”

Bee’s optics went bright, then narrowed. He did not move wrong. He did not move at all.

Ratchet’s report popped on the main screen, the font too big and too human-friendly—Raf had set it that way weeks ago so he could read quickly when it mattered. It mattered now.

“Missing: two high-frequency resonance relays, one stasis cuff battery array, a signal amplifier cap…” Ratchet’s voice thinned. “And a partial map of our GroundBridge routing from last quarter. Not current. But not old enough to be useless.”

“Slag,” Bulkhead breathed.

Arcee’s jaw worked. “How!”

Optimus’s optics dimmed for one long, heavy beat. “First, we determine whether the breach is internal or external. Ratchet?”

“I’m trying,” Ratchet snapped, fingers a blur. “Cameras looped clean. Whoever did this knew our system. I can pull access logs but if they wiped those—”

“They didn’t,” Raf said, too quickly.

Every face turned to him.

He swallowed. “I mean—they might have—but the last time Knock Out took a tour through our network he bragged that we were too paranoid to leave logs where he expected them. So I hid a mirror cache that copies entry handshakes to a side process. It’s small. It might have caught—”

“Show me,” Ratchet ordered, already stepping aside.

Raf ran to the console. Bee followed, one quiet step behind.

Raf’s fingers flew. He found his hidden folder—no point pretending it had been sanctioned; Ratchet would scold him later—and pulled the tiny packet capture he’d hoped he’d never need. It was thin. Barely a skein of time signatures and truncated hashes. But it was something.

Two entries glowed. One was Ratchet’s maintenance sweep an hour ago. The other—

Raf’s mouth went dry. He felt Bee lean, the heat of his frame seeping into the back of Raf’s hoodie like a furnace that worried.

Arcee said, “Spit it out, kid.”

Raf forced the words around the pinched place in his throat. “The other handshake is… Bumblebee’s.”

Silence hit like impact.

Bulkhead made a small, lost sound. “No.”

Ratchet’s optics flicked from the screen to Bee to the screen again, like a diagnostic that wouldn’t reconcile. “Identifiers can be spoofed.”

“They can,” Arcee said, rough. Her eyes were on Bee’s face. “But why spoof Bee’s? Why not mine? Why not Ratchet’s?”

Optimus stepped forward just enough to be felt. He was not looming, but his presence filled the doorway anyway. “Bumblebee,” he said, voice soft in the way it was when he was choosing each word. “Did you enter this bay in the last hour?”

Bee did not answer with sound.

He ran a trace inside himself.

Raf watched it happen. Not the code—that was private, and Bee was not a screen to read—but the physical echo of it: the micro-tilt of his helm, the way his plates tightened around his spark like a hand trying not to shake.

His optics flickered once. Twice.

A single, hesitant beep: [I don’t know.]

Raf stepped in without realizing he was moving. “He doesn’t know because it’s the—” He couldn’t say fractured out loud, not in this room with a crate open and pieces gone. “Because it’s the thing,” he said, uselessly.

Arcee’s voice had gone careful. “Bee… if you did enter, do you remember why?”

Bee’s reply came in two notes layered over each other, fractionally out of sync. Raf had never heard that exact sound before. He didn’t have a word for it. His translator gave him one anyway:

[To protect.]

“Protect what?” Bulkhead asked, lost.

Bee’s optics slid to Raf. They held there, unblinking. Something in Raf’s chest went tight and hot.

Optimus said, softly, “From whom?”

Bee’s hands opened and closed once. On Ratchet’s screen, a line spiked and then steadied as if Bee had decided to be steady right now no matter what.

Raf heard his own pulse in his ears. “If someone spoofed his handshake, we’ll find it. If he… if a part of him came in here, then it wasn’t to hurt us. It wasn’t.”

“No one is accusing,” Optimus said.

No one else spoke. The words sat between them like a thing you could trip on in the dark.

Ratchet cleared his throat. “We need to isolate the resonance. If those relays were taken to build a transmitter, we’ll hear a background hum across our spectrum within twenty minutes. If it’s here, we can triangulate. If it’s off-site—”

Alarms flared again. Not the internal tone this time. The perimeter.

“External breach,” Arcee said, already moving. “Northeast quadrant.”

“Raf,” Optimus said, without looking at him. “Stay in the control room.”

“I need to—”

“Stay.”

Optimus was already gone. Bulkhead thundered after him. Arcee vanished between heartbeats.

Bee stood very still.

Raf tugged his sleeve down to cover his hand—the habit he’d started when Bee had first gotten hurt because he didn’t want skin oil on singed plating—and reached for Bee’s fingers anyway. He pressed his palm to the broad seam where finger met palm.

“Don’t go,” he said.

Bee’s helm dropped the smallest fraction. He pinged: [I have to.]

Raf’s hand tightened. “Then take me to the control room on the way.”

They ran there together—Bee at a human-safe clip that still ate ground. The control room glowed with unslept-in light. Ratchet crashed in moments later, slightly out of breath, muttering about old joints. The screens filled with motion: Arcee flanking left, Bulkhead to the right, Optimus center like a promise.

“Perimeter breach located,” Ratchet said, fingers flying. “Cross-referencing the hum—yes, there it is. Hear that? Just below twenty-one kilohertz.”

Raf strained. He didn’t hear it until Bee boosted the audio. Then he did. A headache note like a mosquito at the edge of thought.

Bee’s plating shivered. He keyed something into the console with one hand while his other remained exactly where Raf’s hand was, as if being two places was easy when the second place was this small.

On the exterior feed, Arcee slowed. “I have eyes on—what even is that?”

The camera caught it: a metal spindle perched on a fence post a hundred yards out, humming under a skin of violet light. Not Decepticon design—too clean—but very Decepticon purpose. An attractor. A lure.

“It’s pinging our Bridge,” Ratchet breathed. “Not opening it—just mapping the harmonics.”

“Which means whoever set this up wants to know how to pull it from their side,” Arcee said. “Great.”

Bulkhead moved to smash it. Optimus’s hand lifted. “Wait.”

On the control room screen, a second light blinked to life, far side of the yard. Then a third on the roofline. The map spattered with dots. They were inside the circle before they’d seen the circle.

“Scrap,” Ratchet whispered. “It’s a net.”

Raf’s hand trembled against Bee’s. “Can you jam it?”

Bee was already trying. His beeps came tight, compressed: [Yes. Maybe. Not all at once.]

The hum rose a notch. The lights brightened.

Over external comms, Arcee said, “I really hate when they get clever.”

Optimus: “Ratchet.”

“On it. Shifting our frequency three points up, oscillating, spiking noise.” Ratchet’s hands blurred. “If this blows the breaker, I’m blaming Miko.”

The hum didn’t stop. It wavered and then steadied stronger.

Bee’s optics dilated. He keyed a command Raf had never seen and split the output into two streams, one threaded through the main antenna array, the other through a backup he’d taken apart with Raf six months ago “for fun.” The move was elegant and a little illegal.

The hum faltered.

Onscreen, Arcee grinned. “There’s my boy.”

Optimus’s tone stayed level. “Maintain.”

Raf exhaled and didn’t realize how hard he’d been holding his breath until he felt lightheaded. “You did it.”

Bee didn’t answer. His gaze had fixed on a fourth light, far out, almost invisible even amplified. It pulsed differently. Not in sync with the net.

Raf followed his line. “What?”

Bee pinged a note so low Raf felt it more than heard it. [That one answers me.]

A chill ran down Raf’s arms. “Answers you how?”

Bee’s reply came without sound: he cut the audio for half a second and flashed his headlights in the control room glass—one, two, three—because sometimes the old ways made you feel more in your body. On the screen, the far light pulsed in answer—one, two, three, but off by a fraction, like a heartbeat that used to be yours and wasn’t anymore.

Raf’s voice went whisper-small. “Bee… did you build that one?”

Bee’s optics didn’t leave the pulse. He didn’t move, except for the smallest tilt toward Raf’s hand, as if the answer needed contact to form.

His beep was quiet. Honest.

[I think a part of me did.]

Downrange, something huge shifted in the dark.

“Movement,” Arcee said. “Company.”

The net brightened like a grin.

Raf gripped Bee’s hand harder. “Then let’s get that part back.”

Bee’s systems flared—fear, resolve, something that sounded like a promise answering a promise. He dropped into a jam pattern that would burn his relays if he held it too long.

Outside, violet light knotted like a storm.

Inside, the boy and the bot stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the console—not flawless, not whole, but aligned.

The hum climbed.

And far off, a light that answered Bumblebee’s pulse beat again, patient as a trap.