Work Text:
It’s a fluke.
It has to be- bad luck’s been one of Bee’s personal aggressors since the war. First with the birth of Megatron, then the conflict of the fallout. The war- then his voicebox… just once he’d like to be able to go a cycle without some terrible slag coming to dog his pedesteps. It would be nice.
Not that Lady Luck’s graced his frame for a while.
Except not this time. This time, he makes it out. This time Breakdown makes it out. This time they streak away into the night, energon boosters snarling, while G.H.O.S.T tries to mobilise behind them for a chase. (Primus, it’s been so long. In a matter of moments Breakdown had gone from being an old faded ache to a fire in his fuel lines. He’d thought he’d be over it by now. He’d thought he’d be able to look the mech in the optics and not feel like his tanks were full of grit and impurities.)
His frame hurts, bodywork chipped and scorched from the gunfire, but he’s not worried about that. What he is worried about is the acrid smoke leaking from under Breakdown’s hood. The sparks spitting like venom from his bent fender, the burn scarred over the steel.
::we can’t stop here:: says Bee. Primus, Optimus is going to be pissed that Bee blew his cover, isn’t he? He’s probably going to get a talking-to. (He still worries about disappointing people, some old virus born in the War that he hasn’t been able to shake, despite trying. War doesn’t make for a good therapy)
Bee’s dash flickers and a grating sound issues from his engine. Slag. There’s warnings popping up in his HUD, something about damaged fuel lines, and he swerves, once, wild, before he gains control again. His rear axle creaks alarmingly, but hold.
::Bee?:: There’s concern in Breakdown’s tone, and even if Bee’s still furious with him over the attempted self-sacrifice and reckless behaviour, it warms him ever so slightly against the backdrop of the night.
It’s not as if he wasn’t going to do the same thing.
::it’s fine. I’m fine:: he grits out, and keeps rolling. He has to be- it’s an old mantra, one he can’t shake. It’s an echo of his old life, before Orion Pax, before Optimus, and it fits him like a badly chosen alt-mode. It’s the shadow of B-127, nervous, so desperate to please, and so fragging disappointed when he couldn’t. He’s worked so hard to put it all behind him… sometimes it feels like he failed.
(Even when he’d lost his voice… he’d been convinced for the longest time that he’d done something to deserve it. That it was the hand of Primus reaching down to remind him he was getting too cocky, or something else entirely. He doesn’t know)
::hey, Bee, you’re leaking a little there-::
He knows. He can feel the slow loss of energon, see the warnings in his HUD. He can hear a rattling deep in his frame, twin to the sound issuing from Breakdown’s ventilation grills. He saves the energy he’d use for a response, focuses on getting somewhere safer than out here.
There’s an old abandoned warehouse just outside Witwicky that should work fine. If they can reach it. He’s a little surprised that Breakdown is still sticking by him, he’d half expected the Con to peel away once they were in the clear.
But, then again… maybe it shouldn’t surprise him anymore.
Bee tastes old oil. Before the war he wouldn’t have dared. During the war was impossible. But now… after… is there harm in talking to Breakdown about it? Probably. There’s an ages-old friendship at stake, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he looses this. He doesn’t want to loose this. And besides… there’s the ‘other issue’. The one that renders all this moot.
Breakdown’s taken, after all, has been since before the war.
(Or, rather, he used to be. Before the fight entered its twilight hours.)
He should probably just keep his intake shut. Pity he has a working voicebox now, he thinks, bitterly, or it would have been easier just to shut up about it forever.
They reach it, barely.
Bee hardly has the strength remaining to shift back to root-mode, and even when he does, his frame aches like the war’s only a day old.
Breakdown shifts back, promptly says, “nope,” and ends up on his aft when his pede gives way under his weight. In a better situation, Bee would laugh. Probably. But he doesn’t because it isn’t.
Breakdown doesn’t have the same reservations, he snorts a sound of mirth, “Humans,” he says with distaste. “Yeah, not a fan.”
“They’re not all bad,” says Bee, out of reflex. Mandroid’s one of the worst, and what he’s seen of Croft and Schloder hasn’t warmed him to them either, but his family on the other hand…they’re good. Kind. Worth protecting.
Like Breakdown, even if he makes it hard to believe that sometimes.
Breakdown grins but it’s bitter. “Uh huh, I’ll believe that when I see it.” He stabs a digit at Bee, pointed, “you saw it- you saved their afts and they just pulled a trigger on ya.”
Bee… doesn’t really have a good argument for that one.
Breakdown narrows his yellow optics. They remind Bee of the sun here, on clearer days. “And don’t you dare give me the ‘they were just following orders’ scrap.”
He’d been thinking about it. And… he’s missed Breakdown like a broken connection; like someone’s plugged a critical wire back into his relay system, but… he hasn’t missed how self conscious he gets around the other mech. Stupid slagging feelings. Ugh. The last thing he wants to do right now is argue.
He doesn’t. Partly because it’s a choice and partly because he can’t think up a convincing reply, so he just says, “Okay.”
“Hm,” says Breakdown, but his engine rumbles, edgy, and it reminds Bee of the worst moments of his absence- when hiding from G.H.O.S.T, dead to everyone but Optimus and the Autobots, weighed on him the most. “How’s the rest of the crew?”
Very subtile change of subject, thinks Bee, sardonic.
Also, smalltalk? Now? Then again, it’s not like they have somewhere else to be. It’s been too long- they haven’t seen each other since the war ended, not for lack of searching on Bee’s part. He doesn’t know if Breakdown was looking for him in return, though-
Bee sits down on an upended trailer, because his knee joints feel alarmingly weak. “Fine.” He doesn’t want to give away secrets, but maybe general news is alright. “Surviving.”
“You uh…” Breakdown peers at him sideways, eyes bright in the gloom. “Speaking of- you know if G.H.O.S.T has anyone else looked up in that basement of theirs?”
And it would be a strange, pointless question, if not for the length of their friendship. He isn’t sure how long Breakdown’s been on the run, how much he does or doesn’t know… but Bee knows the subtext, says, “Just some of the usual faces.” He can guess where this is going, and suddenly all the old bitter jealousy floods back into his tanks. He hates it- he doesn’t want to be petty, or think on things that are out of reach. He doesn’t want to be that mech, the one who inevitably ruins everything because he can’t shake a few foolish feelings.
He knew this was coming. It was inevitable.
“Is-“
“Knockout defected,” says Bee, and to his relief it doesn’t come out as sharp as it felt, because he doesn’t have to wait for the question to know his answer’s the right one. “Just before Megatron did.”
Breakdown stares at him. “What?” His tone sharpens, but it seems to be more out of shock than anything else. “But I- he never- how- he just vanished! I never-“ he breaks off, then says, quieter, in a tone of awful relief, “I thought he might be… that he got offlined.”
“He asked us to keep it quiet,” says Bee. No offence to the ex-decepticon medic, even if he is a narcissistic little shit. Bee still sometimes misses it, before the war, when the three of them weren’t divided by sides or pain or smoke and screams in the shadows of their dying homeworld.
“Huh,” says Breakdown. It feels stupidly anticlimactic.
“What?” It’s something. He knows. He always knows. He hates that he always knows.
“No, just…” Breakdown’s engine growls along to his uneasy expression. “I… that explains why he was acting so weird before he disappeared.”
And that’s… slag.
“He might be our only hope right now,” says Bee, glancing up at the darkness of the sky overhead. Sometimes he wonders if Cybertron is still up there, beyond his sight, waiting for them to come home. Maybe it’s just gone; pieces of metal and stone floating through the void of space, castaway like they are. “He’s as neutral as it can get with G.H.O.S.T up the Autobots’ afts.”
“You know where he is?” Breakdown sounds horribly hopeful, and Bee realises that he’s been subjected to radiosilence on Knockout for over fifteen years. His spark twinges, and he shakes himself. Enough. He’s done this long enough, he will get over it. For the sake of both his friends.
Now.
Bee offers him a servo, pulls him to his pedes. “I know where he might be.”
“Bumblebee has gone dark.”
Megatron narrows his optics, says nothing. Optimus sighs, and it sounds like grit in an air-vent. Maybe he should have tried harder in the beginning- to negotiate the terms of the alliance with G.H.O.S.T. Evermore he’s realizing that this isn’t the ideal partnership it seemed at first glance. Here, on the inside, something festers. “Perhaps I should have listened to you,” he adds, tired.
Megatron doesn’t laugh. Not this time. Instead he just says, “on what?” He’s on his back on the berth, helm beside the Prime where he’s sitting on the edge with his arms resting on his knee joints.
“G.H.O.S.T.” Optimus rubs a servo over his helm, feels the itch of his battlemask as it aches to snap into place and hide his emotions. He declines the protocol, feel the tension in his jaw. “You cautioned me against the Alliance the day it was broached.”
(His… friend? Primus knows it’s been so long, he doesn’t even know what they are anymore) Megatron frowns- he misses nothing, as usual. “You have means to doubt them?”
“More of a hunch, as the humans would say.” It’s a weak stab at humour, and it falls flat.
Megatron’s frame rattles ever so slightly, the plating bristling. It isn’t as though he hasn’t been voicing concerns since day one. Perhaps Optimus was so tired, so desperate for peace, that he was blind to points of greater importance. He was blind to so many things.
Megatron sighs. “You’re making that face again.”
“What face?”
“The ‘weight is on my shoulders, and I’m guilty for everything’ face.”
Optimus shifts, wires coiled with an itching tension. He feels as though he’s suspended in stasis lock, yet aware of everything occurring around him. The matrix hums behind his windows, and Optimus finds himself wishing, just once, that it would shut up and leave him be. Hasn’t he done enough? Hasn’t he earned a rest.
Megatron shifts ever so slightly, turns his helm so it’s resting against Optimus’s thigh. The weight is familiar, grounding, and Optimus rattles a vent in a time tested motion.
“If G.H.O.S.T ends up something other than they claim to be,” says the ex-warlord in a low rumble, “then we will deal with it.”
It’s an old abandoned facility, built during the war to house cybertronians recovering from their wounds. It’s far from civilisation, walls grown over by moss and threads of ivy, and other earth-based plants that Bee still doesn’t know the names for. His engine whines horribly when they roll to a stop by the doors, smoke acrid in the pit of his throat when they shift back to root-mode. Breakdown sways, and Bee ducks close to pull his arm over his shoulder before the larger mech can buckle.
Breakdown’s grin is strained, fleeting, but Bee sees it nonetheless. “Thanks,” he says, vocaliser on the fritz with static.
Quiet clanking, to a beat of pedesteps, and Bee curses, pain shooting through his cables when he backs them away from the gaping door. He should have commed ahead- but he’d gotten nothing last time he tried, and besides, he’s only hoping Knockout is still here. He’s playing off a hunch, assuming the medic still doesn’t like bunking at G.H.O.S.T HQ but trusts Optimus enough to stay reasonably close by.
“Scrap,” mutters Breakdown, “bad company?”
“I don’t know.” Bee tries to form his blaster, but his plating won’t move right, and the motion’s cut short with his hiss of frustration when his plating grinds painfully against itself.
There’s a gleam of vivid ruby optics and bio-lights, and then the gloom parts around a cherry-red mech, white faceplates decorated with a crooked smirk. There’s subtle detailing, gold rims on his wheels, and a chrome autobrand on the front of his chassis. It catches the light and Bee uncoils.
“I see trouble found me,” drawls Knockout. He’s as elegant as ever, though it doesn’t escape Bee’s notice that his paint is latticed with scattered scratches. That’s… tellingly out of character. Being alone clearly doesn’t suit him all that well. “Never thought it would happen that way around.” He considers them, then adds, “then again, it is the two of you…”
“Knockout,” says Bee with no small amount of relief. The medic snorts, closing the distance, optics flitting over their damaged frames. He seems to be avoiding Breakdown’s gaze, his plating ever so slightly bristled. It’s tense, old things vibrating between them. Bee tastes oil and smoke, and doesn’t speak up.
“…hey,” says Breakdown, and it’s quieter than Bee’s ever heard it. There’s a long pause, uncomfortable, (he’s caught between them again, it seems) and then, finally,
“Hey,” says Knockout, and there’s a hint of static.
That breaks the dam, clearly because, “Why didn’t you tell me? Before you left?” It’s not quite a demand, but there’s force behind it, and badly hidden pain.
Knockout crosses his arms over his chassis, almost defensive, claws tap-tap-tapping on red and white steel. His finials flatten along his helm, and for a klick, the self-assured medic is gone. “Because you would have tried to stop me.”
The fact that Breakdown doesn’t argue speaks volumes.
“Why-“
“Look, I might be an afthole,” snaps Knockout, optics flashing, “but I’m also a medic. It went too far. Even Megatron saw that in the end.” He pauses, adds, a little acidly, “though some mechs didn’t.”
Breakdown scowls, “C’mon, don’t be like that, Knocks-“
Knockout turns to Bee, ignoring the bigger mech. “What happened?”
“G.H.O.S.T,” says Bee, frame shuddering as pain throbs through his plating. He’s not sure how much longer he can stay standing. How much longer he can keep Breakdown standing.
“I’ll let Prime know you’re here,” says Knockout, suddenly brisk. The Doctor takes over from the racer, calm, professional. “Get inside, we’ve lingered out here long enough.”
———
Optimus jerks out of recharge to a flashing comm in his HUD.
The berthlights are dim overhead, and the prime blinks sleepily for a moment before everything finally falls into sharper detail. Megatron’s on his back in recharge, engine rumbling quietly under Optimus’s audial. He’s somehow ended up on his side with his helm on the silver mech’s shoulder, one arm slung over his chest plates. He doesn’t really want to move- he’s comfortable, undisturbed by regrets for once, so he opens the comm without any real effort on his part.
::knockout: you misplaced a bumblebee recently, prime?::
Optimus sits up, alert, and he hears Megatron huff a grunt when his elbow joint catches the silver mech’s plating in his haste. The idea of sleep flees, and his spark kicks out of it’s slow revolutions.
::optimus: have you heard from him? we lost contact-::
Megatron’s watching him lazily, ruby optics half-lidded. Optimus feels some of the earlier worry teetering, as though it might leave him alone if given the chance.
::knockout: he’s with me. banged himself up quite a bit too, but it’s nothing a buff won’t fix::
Tension ebbs like a tide, his frame shuddering with his relieved sigh. As long as Bee’s safe, the details can wait. He doesn’t know why they lost contact, or how, but that can be addressed with the sunrise.
::optimus: keep me posted::
::knockout: if you insist::
Optimus can’t help huffing a small laugh, before he’s easing back down, the undertow of exhaustion surging up once more.
“Bumblebee?” is all Megatron murmurs, because he knows Optimus too well by now. Maybe it should concern him more than it does. The silver mech’s servo rubs a soothing path up his back and the Prime feels his own engine rumble in response.
Optimus hums, and that’s enough.
For now.
“Ow-“
Knockout slaps Bee’s servo away with a clang, narrows his optics at the scout. “Lie still or I’ll get Breakdown to sit on you.”
Breakdown says, “Uh, I’m beat up too, Doc-“
Knockout says, “Hmm,” in a tone that’s vaguely threatening. “Really? I didn’t notice.”
If Bee wasn’t actively receiving medical attention he’d be tempted to just get up and go somewhere to give these two some space. The tension ramps every time Breakdown says something, because, as much as Bee loves him, he’s an idiot who wouldn’t know Timing if it bit him in the aft.
“What did you do to get in this state?” says Knockout incredulously from where he’s got his claws jimmied under one of Bee’s plates, because apparently there’s a ruptured energon line under there somewhere. He pauses, wrinkles his nasal ridge as he shifts on his knees. “Do I want to know?”
“Um,” says Bee.
Knockout growls a sigh, fires up a small welder. “Brace yourself.”
Bee offlines his optics and grinds his dentae through the burn as the medic works to stop the leak.
The room they’re in, while abandoned, is clean and sterile, a few old medical berths pushed up against the wall. They’re on the floor, because it’s easier, or so Knockout says anyway, and Bee’s hardly going to argue with the professional, so he just flickers his optics open when the pain fades with the flame and gazes idly up at the ceiling from where he’s sprawled on his back. Its paint is chipping off in small sheets, like snow.
“Knocks?” Breakdown sounds a little meek, like he’s finally realised that shoving at the matter isn’t going to get him anywhere. He’s sitting against the wall, legs drawn up to his chassis.
Knockout’s claws don’t stop their movements but Bee can see the tension stiffen his plating and knows the medic is listening.
“Are you, um… did they treat you okay? When you… defected?”
Knockout pulls a face. “It’s in the past, Breakdown- really, I’m not a fragile flower, I can-“
Breakdown glares at him, stubborn. “Did they hurt you?”
Bee bristles, “Optimus would never-“
“I wasn’t asking you, I’m asking him-“
“Primus give me strength,” hisses Knockout, before he stabs a claw at Breakdown. “One more noise out of you and I’ll let you patch yourself up.”
“-that’s not an answer-“
“They’re Autobots, Breakdown,” says Knockout with a sudden laugh that reminds Bee of the times they’d meet on the opposite ends of the battlefield. It’s sharp, with a touch of malice. “In what world would they break their precious code?”
Breakdown opens his intake, but then closes it. Knockout turns back to Bee. “Rev your engine for me,” he says, neutral again.
Bee fires it up. The medic listens for a long moment before he nods and gets up. “Your self-repair protocols should do the rest, but I recommend you don’t transform for a few days at least.”
The peace holds until the moment Breakdown’s been patched up and pulled to his feet because he refuses to lie down one moment linger- he’s always had too much energy, and then he says, “I… get what you said, but I also really don’t-“ referencing the first altercation outside because he’s never quite known when to leave well enough alone and the medic rattles his plating like that one species of snake with the noisy tail.
Bee steps back, unwilling to get dragged into their drama. Not over this. He knows Knockout’s reasoning already- they’ve spoken about it since he defected. They’ve spoken about a lot- apparently that’s what happens when you get one of your oldest friends back.
“I believed in the cause, as much as you did,” snaps Knockout. “But eventually it turned into a power grab. We weren’t fighting for freedom anymore in the end, darling, only domination. And I… watched too many mechs offlined in pursuit of it.”
Breakdown wilts a little.
“And I know you agree with me on some level,” says the medic, and it softens. There’s so much in his optics and Bee looks away because he feels like he’s intruding. It’s heavy in his tanks. “Or you’d be arguing.”
Breakdown reaches out, hesitantly, like he’s afraid his servo will get slapped away, but Knockout doesn’t move save for the unsteady vents leaving his frame. It settles against knockout’s faceplate, thumb-digit rubbing a small circle. Knockout shudders, as if he’s restraining himself from leaning into it, and for a moment there’s no jealousy at all and Bee just aches for them. Seeing them like this, so uncharacteristically unsure of each other… it’s like a blade to the chassis.
For a moment, it’s not the speed-chaser and the arrogant doctor, it’s two stars pulled out of orbit, hurtling for burnout.
“Knocks,” says Breakdown, soft, tilting his head forwards until it tinks against the doctor’s helm-crest.
“I couldn’t tell you,” says Knockout, “before I left. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was terrified.” He barks a laugh, suddenly bitter. Finials pinned back. “I’ve always been a coward, you know that-“
“You’re not a coward,” says Bee, firmly, and they both look up at him. They’d probably forgotten he’s there. Bee can’t find it in him to be angry about that, he’s too tired of this middle ground by now. Of hoping silently for something that’s out of reach. “I’ve watched you run onto a battlefield at risk of your own spark to drag wounded mechs to cover.”
Knockout’s smile falters, then slips into something smaller. Something real.
“Bee’s got a good point,” says Breakdown with a grin. He kisses the red mech’s helm. “You’d do it even when you’re told no.”
Knockout rolls his optics. Shoves at him. “Oh, shut up.”
The other mech laughs, and Bee can’t help joining in when the tension alleviates fully. If he closes his optics and just listens to them, be can almost trick himself into thinking he’s back on Cybertron, before the war, when all they had to worry about were the dwindling quintesson attacks. He remembers one specific cycle, after they’d raced their engines sore, when they’d just collapsed in a giddy heap, laughing until their vents grated. He remembers Knockout shrieking something about his paint while Bee tried to struggle out from under Breakdown, and the mech just spread his weight around to make it impossible-
“- ‘s not listening.” Breakdown’s amused voice registers, and Bee snaps his helm up.
They’re watching him, expectant, slag, Knockout with a servo on his hip-plating and Breakdown with a grin.
“You flew off there, Bee.”
Bee vents, rolls his optics. “We can’t all have an empty processor like you,” he snarks.
Knockout smirks. “He’s driven into too many walls.”
Bee hums in agreement and Breakdown splutters in protest. “Just because i’m no innerl… innle- scrap, what’s the word?”
“Intellectual, darling,” says Knockout, and he’s smiling like a shark.
This is… good. This is fine. Bee’s missed this for so long… He can be content with it, like he was before. Even if he has to lie to himself until it becomes true. He’s grown up enough by now to know when he’s being stupid.
There’s no time the next morning for Optimus to reach out to Knockout for news on Bumblebee- Croft finds him first.
“You didn’t tell me your scout was still alive, Prime.”
She’s on the gantry, just above eye level, so he has to tilt his helm up ever so slightly to meet her gaze. It’s petty- perhaps it helps her feel a little larger, even if Optimus is the polar opposite of deliberately threatening on a bad day.
Optimus frowns. “I fail to comprehend your meaning, Agent Croft.”
They can’t know. He hates that he has to push Bumblebee aside like this, to profess ignorance while he keeps putting his scout in danger, even if Bee has assured him time and time again that he’s fine. After everything they’ve been through, they both know that ‘fine’ is just a lie they each keep telling to help the other fool themselves.
She crosses her arms, the very picture of irritation. It’s probably a good thing that Megatron is out- he doesn’t need the situation to escalate. “We found Bumblebee at a racetrack last night.” Her eyes narrow. “With a decepticon.”
… Breakdown, thinks Optimus, and he suppresses his heaving sigh by the bare metal of his dentae, because who else would it be? He’s surprised Knockout didn’t mention that- then again… maybe he shouldn’t be.
Optimus’s engine rumbles. He says, carefully neutral, “To my knowledge, we lost Bumblebee in the war. I will confess, however, that we never did find a body.”
Croft’s shoulders ease ever so slightly. Maybe because it’s what she wants to hear, maybe because she believes him even if he is a horrible liar (Megatron’s words, not his own), or maybe she’s just eager to get back on the hunt.
Either way, she turns with a huff and strides through a door at the far end of the gantry.
Optimus pulls up his commlink, plating rattling with his unease.
::optimus: g.h.o.s.t might be en route to your location. i would wager they will check in with all autobots after discovering bumblebee last night::
::knockout: don’t they know it’s rude to drop in unannounced?::
::optimus: are they still with you?::
There’s a pause, in which Knockout probably realises that Optimus knows Bee isn’t alone, and then his tone shifts from sarcastic to serious.
::knockout: yes. if g.h.o.s.t shows up, i’ll deal with them. there’s enough space here to hide from their scanners- i’ll get an energon suppressor on breakdown, bee already has one::
It’s going to have to do for now, at least until G.H.O.S.T exhausts the search. He pings his location to Megatron, once, sends a crackle of urgency with the frequency.
He just hopes this doesn’t all backfire.
::optimus: contact me if aid becomes necessary::
::knockout: righto::
They arrive with the afternoon clouds.
It’s no real surprise, he knew they’d end up here last- it is quite remote, after all. It’s amusing how G.H.O.S.T seems to think that the autobots would hide Bumblebee somewhere he could be found.
Then again… the natives of earth seem prone to foolishness.
“Ah. Croft,” says Knockout, leaving the safety of the building and making his way across the gravel and overgrown grass. “What a surprise.”
The female fleshy’s face does something that looks like a hybrid between distain and dislike. That’s fine, he doesn’t like her either, never has. He can tolerate Schloder, if he has to.
“Knockout,” she allows, because someone clearly gave her manners at some point and she hasn’t entirely forgotten them. “Are you going to permit a search?”
He smiles, sharp and dangerous like his claws. If Prime wasn’t so against the whole ‘step on a few natives here and there’ he’d have gone for her long ago. “Why certainly, my dear. Aren’t we autobots supposed to let you walk all over us?”
Her hand twitches towards her weapons, hanging on her belt. If it had been up to her, he’d probably never have made it out of stasis cuffs after he defected.
::knockout: g.h.o.s.t is here::
::optimus: megatron and i are standing by::
Well, at least he’ll be able to call in the cavalry if Bee and Breakdown can’t sit tight and be quiet for a little while. He wouldn’t put it past them, they’re both the sort of mechs who tend to act instead of thinking first.
Croft’s agents abandon their vans to spread out across the lawn. Knockout watches them vanish into the old building in groups of three, fighting to keep up his bored air.
Croft looks up at him. He could probably take a knee, make it easier on her neck, but he won’t. If he’s lucky she’ll get that nasty bone thing fleshies are prone to catching- arthritis? He can’t remember what it’s called or how it works, exactly.
“Prime put you up to this?”
Croft’s expression curdles like bad milk. “Hardly,” she says, sharp. “He seems to be incompetent on quite a few levels.”
“Ah,” says Knockout, tone sickly sweet. How rude of her. “And that has to do with this gross invasion of privacy?”
She glowers up at him. “Your leader’s scout turned up alive last night.”
“Which one?” says Knockout, affecting boredom. He checks his claws- they need to be sharpened. Buffed too, probably, they’re getting dull. It’s been far too long- he knows he looks worse for wear. The war took its toll on everyone. Being lonely isn’t a remedy for anything.
If Croft were a feral animal, she’d be bearing her teeth. “Bumblebee.”
“HA,” barks the doctor, and she jumps, her hand arrested mere inches above her weapon. He grins, wicked, “well, if that’s true then good luck catching him. Only Megatron’s ever managed that, and it was a fluke.”
Croft sneers. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
::knockout: are you sure i can’t kill her?::
::optimus: knockout, we have talked about this::
::knockout: fine::
It’s dark in the basement. (It’s probably more of an underground bunker than a basement, it’s much too large) and Bee doesn’t dare switch on his headlights, so their optics dance alone in the gloom.
“I think I fragged up somewhere along the line,” muses Breakdown. He sounds tired. Bee’s tired too, and his wounds are aching.
Bee smiles, the curve a little sad, because the other mech can’t see it, and says, “Everyone does. Sometimes.”
The light, when it slices down from the panel that slides open in the ceiling, is sharp after so long in the dark. Bee offlines his optics, rapidly, flinching at the discomfort while they adjust.
“Give a mech some warning,” grumbles Breakdown, servo shielding his face.
Knockout snorts, and his frame vanishes from view. He’s waiting for them in the main room on ground level when they get up the steps. “You two really kicked the cyberwasp nest, didn’t you?”
“Croft?” says Bee.
Knockout jerks his helm in something like a nod. “The glitch likes to throw her authority around.”
Bee vents a sigh. That sounds like her. He applauds Optimus’s patience, having to deal with her more often than not. Even Megatron, though he knows that might be a little more touch and go.
“Should we go?” says Bee. He’s asking more than that, and they all know it. It’s the deck of cards, waiting to be dealt.
“It might be better if you didn’t,” says Knockout, perhaps a little carefully. “Your wounds… I’d rather keep an eye on them a little longer.”
They stay.
He doesn’t know what finally gives it away after so long in secrecy.
He doesn’t remember what it is he said, or did, or if he looked at Breakdown wrong, or Knockout’s just grown wiser. It’s sunset, three days later, the colors streaming through the skylights, and they’re standing in the back room, rambling on about random scrap. They’ve been relearning each other, fitting back together as a whole. Bee wishes they could race, but he can’t risk it- doesn’t want Breakdown to risk it. He hates this. This constant state of vigilance. He’s so fragging tired.
The point it, Bee does something, whatever that may be, because he’s finally at ease amongst his two best friends, and they’re together again, and that’s probably what does it because the next thing that happens is:
“Oh, you idiot,” groans Knockout, servo over his faceplate. He drops it eventually, scowls. He looks like the world has just resolved itself around them and finally makes sense. He clarifies, “both of you- you’re both idiots.”
Breakdown looks confused. Bee’s actually suffering the same ailment- he feels like he missed something. Knockout points at him with one black claw and says,
“How long?”
“What?” Says Bee.
Knockout growls a frustrated sigh, pinches at his nasal ridge. And then he says, without leaving space to hide, “How long have you been in love with him?”
Oh slag. Bee freezes, doorwings rattling. It can’t… after all this time, and he’s slipped up? He knew Knockout was shrewd but-
“Wait, who’s in love with who?” says Breakdown, because he’s clearly not following.
Knockout gives him a look that’s a savage blend of affection and exasperation. “Bee,” he enunciates slowly, “is in love with you.”
Bee wishes the ground would swallow him up right now. Anything to escape the yellow optics that Breakdown turns on him, their light as familiar to him as his own spark.
“I- I n-never said-“
“Wait, really?” Breakdown isn’t laughing. “Since when?”
They’re really going to do this? Bee wants to snap at Knockout for exposing him like that, except… maybe it just finally became obvious. Maybe he really does just need to come clean.
“… a while,” he admits, and his vocaliser scratches with static. He wants to get out of here, away from the inevitable fallout. He wants to… he’s not sure.
Which is when Knockout starts laughing. It’s from deep within his chassis, rattling his plating, viciously amused. “Primus, I can’t with you two, ahahahahaha!”
Bee winces. “Did I miss something?” he tries, and, wait… is Breakdown blushing? There’s a creeping shade darkening his faceplates, and he won’t meet Bee’s optics.
He just scuffs a pede and mumbles, “Knocks, that’s not-“
Knockout wipes a bead of lubricant from his optic and flicks it onto the ground. “You really are perfect for each other, darling,” he says, voice still colored with mirth.
Bee doesn’t know why he’d-
“All this time,” says Knockout, “and you’ve been pining over each other instead of just talking like the grown mechs you are.”
Wait. What?
Bee shoots a look at Breakdown who gives him a sheepish grin in return. “Uh… oops?” says the stunticon, like it’s supposed to be an apology.
And- wait, Knockout knew? Bee splutters, protests, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Breakdown counters, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you had him,” says Bee, pointing a digit at the doctor, and his vocalizer cracks a little. “What kind of friend tries to break up a relationship?”
Breakdown sobers, yellow optics flickering. Bee drags in a vent through an aching intake. He feels unsteady. He didn’t want it to become a problem. He didn’t-
“You could have told me,” says Breakdown. He sets his jaw, amends, “you could have told us. We’re together ‘till the end, Bug. Ride or die, remember?”
“Breakdown,” rasps Bee, because no, he couldn’t have-
“I’m fine with it, by the way,” drawls Knockout, “not that anyone’s asking.”
“I know, Knocks-“
“-yes, well, he doesn’t.”
That’s too much for Bee, and he lets his helm fall into his servos as he sits down heavily with a clang. He… could have just told them? How was he supposed to know that? They could have been- he could have had- Primus, his processor hurts. His tanks roil, settle, roil again. He doesn’t want all this- all these feelings. He wishes they would just abate for a klik and let him vent-
A servo settles on his shoulder plating, weighted, and the panic pauses for one shaky moment. Bee swallows, a bitter taste behind his denti, and then a weight drops down and settles against his side, the familiar rumble of Breakdown’s engine vibrating through his plating to the frame beneath.
Bee looks up, confused, (who’s touching his shoulder then?) and meets red optics. Knockout doesn’t move his servo, and Bee finds, deep down, that he doesn’t want him too. He’s missed their old ease.
“You changed, bug,” says Breakdown, butting his helm gently against the scout’s. “You used to be… brighter.”
“A war kinda’ happened,” says Bee, thick, and Knockout laughs, almost bitter.
Breakdown reaches up awkwardly to snatch at the doctor’s arm. “Sit down- ‘s hurting my neck to keep looking up at ya-“
“-unhand me you-“
“Sit down,” enunciates Breakdown, coupled with a heave. The doctor’s knee folds and he crashes down on Bee’s other side with a grunt.
“Breakdown,” he hisses, trying to swat at the other mech over Bee, “I have enough scratches on my paint without you adding to-“
Bee laughs. It feels alien in his intake, almost sacrilegious, like he’s not sure if he still can. His optics burn as they blur with coolant, except now he’s started he can’t stop.
“S0rRy,” he manages, at last, vocalizer glitching, royally embarrassed.
They don’t say anything, because maybe they don’t need to. But they don’t go either. They never have. (Except for the war. When he watched them leave with a breaking spark. Knowing they had each other and he had no one)
It’s a long silence. Or it is until it isn’t.
“Oh, just do it, Knocks,” says Breakdown, almost cheeky. “I can see the look in your optics.”
“Do what?” says Bee. Should he be wary? A normal mech would probably be wary. Sitting here between two decepticons. Except they’re not. Not anymore. Not really.
Knockout smirks, and then he’s- he ducks in to steal a kiss from Bee and the scout’s brain module short-circuits, because oh frag, it’s-
“You broke him,” says Breakdown when Knockout pulls back, red optics decidedly smug.
Bee lets out a garbled burst of static because what- he’d never seen that coming. In what world- how did- what’s- Primus, he resets his optics, tries to ignore the flush on his faceplate. His frame rattles with his shiver, and he has to decline battle protocols, because when was the last time someone actually-
Never, probably.
“You always have to be first, don’t you?” says Breakdown, wry. They’re still here. Is this a dream? It’s one crazy dream if it is. Bee doesn’t want it to be a dream. His spark stutters.
Knockout settles back, optics half-lidded. “I’m a Velocitronian, darling, it’s practically pre-built into my code.” It’s a lazy drawl. His plating is pressed against Bee’s like a mirror to Breakdown, and it’s the lack of further protest over his paint-job that strikes into Bee’s spark the most.
Maybe he never really lost them. And now he has… them both? Somehow, crazily, Bee finds that he’s fine with that.
Breakdown grins when Bee turns his helm, and he’s so fragging familiar… the burn is back, lacing his intake and the back of his optics. Would this have happened? Before the war? Without the war?
“You gonna leave me hanging?” says Breakdown, and it’s stripped down of bravado and dares. It’s almost vulnerable.
Bee reaches out, hesitant, and the mech meets him halfway, entwining their digits as though they’ve always done it.
“I’m sorry,” says Bee quietly. “For not telling you.”
“‘S fine.” Breakdown grins a little. “I get why you didn’t.”
It’s- in reality, it’s probably not a world shaking act. Nothing big changes, (everything changes) the world keeps spinning, (the world stills on its axis) and the warmth of Breakdown’s mouth on his feels like coming home.