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Rain pelted down on the roof of the large modified aircraft hangar-cum-warehouse that served as the Autobots’ base of operations in the abandoned patch of land just outside the small town of Tranquility. It was only six in the evening, but it was already dark outside which made the lightning all the more brighter as it flashed through the small windows close to the roof of the hangar. No one was going to venture outside except in the most dire of emergencies.
Bumblebee paced restlessly, pausing now and then to look up at the windows in the hope that the storm was clearing enough for him to go outside, but dark, angry clouds glared back at him with the promise of more rain to come. Sighing in defeat, his doors giving a little flap of annoyance, he looked down at Jazz who sat with his back to the wall, absorbed in the music coming the iPod he had plugged into his audio receptors – most likely swiped from Sgt Epps again, Bumblebee thought.
Further inside the hangar where Ratchet’s repair bay was located, the medic was busy doing inventory of all the equipment he had, would and might need as long as they were here. Just above the repair bay was another, smaller room that served as guest quarters for when their human friends needed to stay overnight. Currently, the room was occupied by the two children who were busy studying for an important exam the next day, and Bumblebee didn’t have it in his spark to disturb them, especially since they offered to stay over and thereby spare him the drive through the rain.
Ironhide and Optimus Prime were both out – Ironhide with the Lennox family and Optimus in Washington, meeting with the Secretary of Defense. Neither would be back before dawn, which basically meant that Ratchet was left to baby-sit the two younger mechs and the children.
With a final huff, Bumblebee plonked himself down on the floor next to Jazz and leaned against his shoulder, wrapping both hands around his arm.
“I’m bored,” he announced.
Jazz glanced at him in amusement. “Sorry Bee. Nothing I can do that’ll make it stop raining.”
“Can't we play inside?”
“I’d rather Ratchet not weld our skids to the wall for disturbing him and the children.”
Bumblebee crossed his arms and pouted.
Jazz sighed in defeat and pushed himself to his feet, tucking the iPod away. He hated to see Bumblebee miserable in any way, shape or form, which usually meant him getting into trouble on behalf of the yellow mech, but Jazz knew it was all worth it in the end when Bumblebee smiled again.
“Be back in a second,” he said and jogged off in the direction of the children’s room.
With a powerful leap, he caught hold of the railing and swung himself up and onto the landing. Bumblebee watched him in admiration. He’d always marveled at Jazz’s agility. The mech could contort his body a myriad of ways and never get tangled up, whereas he on the other hand, had once tried to emulate one of Jazz’s moves and ended up stuck with one leg draped over a door. Jazz had nearly killed himself laughing as he helped him untangle himself.
Said acrobat emerged from the room a moment later with a small box in one hand, lept over the railing again and landed back on the ground with a dull thud, sending a gentle tremor through the floor.
“Do that again and I’ll string you by your heels from the rafters!” came Ratchet’s angry yell.
Jazz chuckled and beckoned Bumblebee over to a spot near one of the heaters where it was a bit warmer. The yellow Camaro scurried over to where Jazz had sat down and was now taking some items out of the box. Bumblebee tilted his head in curiosity, taking in the brightly-colored square-shaped board Jazz laid out between them, and the small plastic pieces.
“What is this?” he asked.
“This, my little Bee, is a board game,” Jazz explained. “You said you were bored so I asked Sam what humans normally did when they couldn’t go outdoors. Mikaela suggested we try this.” He gestured to the board. “It’s called ‘Slides and Ladders’ or something like that.”
“Okay. So how do you play?”
Jazz explained the basic rules to him. “So? Wanna give it a shot?”
Bumblebee nodded and picked up a yellow marker for himself while Jazz chose blue, and both mechs stretched out on their fronts facing each other. Jazz handed the small cube of dice to Bumblebee.
“You go first,” he said.
“Why?”
“’Cause I say so,” Jazz winked. “Besides, alphabetically, your name comes before mine.”
“Alright alright.” Bumblebee rolled, and the game was on…
============
… The minutes ticked by into hours and the hours slowly slid away into the night. The rain still fell steadily outside and by the time midnight was on the horizon, the two Autobots had already played a total of four games, with each one winning two games a-piece.
“Best of five?” Jazz asked.
“Yup!” Bumblebee nodded eagerly.
“Let’s add a little something to it.”
“Like what?”
“Well… how about this – every time one of us goes up a ladder, we have to state a point in our lives where we were happy. A positive time, in other words. If we go down a slide on the other hand…”
“… A negative or a sad time?”
“Y’got it.”
“Okay, I’m game.” Bumblebee picked up the dice and rolled a five, starting them off and giving him his first ladder. “Meeting you in the academy.”
He smiled at the memory of the first time he met Jazz. Back then, Jazz had been a couple of ranks higher than himself and was assigned to train Bumblebee and five other mechs in basic combat. The two had hit it off together and Bumblebee soon became Jazz’s favorite trainee.
Two throws later and Jazz moved his marker up a ladder. “When you were promoted to my partner.” He grinned. “Remember that? We had a party for you that night and nearly missed our first mission the next day because we forgot and wanted to sleep in a little more.”
Bumblebee giggled. “I remember. Ironhide almost took our heads off for being late to the briefing.” He rolled again and slid down a small slide. “The first time I saw you get hurt trying to protect me.”
“Ah, man. It was nothing. Just a scratch, I swear, and I had my forcefield on.” Jazz grinned. “Besides, I couldn’t let my little buddy get hurt, now could I?”
“Jazz, you lost one of your arms from the elbow down. I’d hardly call that a scratch.”
The Solstice chuckled. “Neither did Ratchet.”
Four rolls later and he went down a slide of his own. He thought for a moment. “… I remember the time you went missing ‘cause you got lost in one of the old ruined cities. I was so worried about you. I thought something had happened to you and I was so pissed at myself for letting you go alone.”
Bumblebee shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault. Someone skilled enough had to go and you were needed where you were. I made it back in the end, though.”
“Yeah you did. Well done, little Bee.”
The Camaro went back up a ladder. “When you were promoted to First Lieutenant. I was really happy for you. You don’t know how many of us had been lobbying for that, but we all thought you really deserved it. You did so much for all the trainees, making sure that we’d all be alright and keeping us sane eventhough everything around us was going crazy.”
Jazz dropped his gaze a bit, slightly touched by Bumblebee’s words. “I did what I had to do. All of you – especially you, Bee – were my responsibility, my buddies. I couldn’t let you down or get treated like crap just ‘cause you were young and new to all of that crazy shit.” His expression hardened a bit. “Wasn’t gonna do to you what some of those fraggers did to me when I was a trainee.”
Bumblebee reached over and gave Jazz’s forearm a gentle squeeze of reassurance before bringing his hand back and using it to prop his chin up. He knew, of course, of the horror stories told by other young mechs like himself and Jazz – stories of bullying and abuse of juniors by seniors under the pretense of toughening them up.
He knew of one of Jazz’s seniors who finally pushed the usually easy-going mech too far that Jazz ended up snapping and put the other bot in the med-bay. He’d been in the gallery when Jazz had been brought before a disciplinary panel for punishment, and remembered sighing in relief when they let him go with only a few days in the brig and minor clean-up duty. He had a feeling Optimus Prime had a lot to do with that decision.
Jazz softened at the touch and picked up the dice for his roll, bending his knees and crossing his feet at the ankles as he moved his marker up a ladder. “The day I saw you kick the slag out of the bunch of Decepticons who tried to attack the academy. My little Bee with a big-aft gun, blowing the scrap out of those drones.” He laughed. “I know I was inside the wall on the ground trying to block a breach when I heard this familiar voice yelling…”
“Get the slag out of our home!!” Bumblebee laughed, too.
“And I couldn’t believe that was you standing on top of the wall and blasting away. You were awesome that day, Bee.”
The yellow mech shrugged and three rolls later went up another ladder. He was silent for a moment, a slightly embarrassed expression creeping into his face, and had he been human, he would have blushed. Jazz nudged him and when he looked up, his optics were all but shining.
“What is it?” Jazz asked.
“The storage closet,” Bumblebee replied, and giggled when Jazz looked equally embarrassed. “We got locked inside and… well… it kinda was the first time we… uh… tried a link-up.”
Jazz groaned and buried his face in his arms. “Don’t remind me. I thought I was so sure of what I was doing. You did like it though, right?”
Bumblebee nodded. “It was nice. Felt really good… and it’s not like I had prior experience to know if what you were doing was right or not.”
“And you avoided me for three whole days after that. I was terrified I’d screwed up royally and pushed you away.”
“I was just a little confused. I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven.” Jazz leaned over the board and gently nuzzled his cheek. Then he rolled and dropped down a short slide. “Ah, that time you got angry with me for charging out into that battalion. I was actually more afraid of you ditching me than I was of the Decepticons.”
“It was reckless! And you scared the slag out of me when you ran out there with only your silly little shield-gun. Wasn’t my fault that I wanted to strangle you for doing it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jazz said.
“Forgiven.” Bumblebee leaned and returned the nuzzle.
The next few turns were without any ups or downs until Jazz rolled a three and landed on a slide.
“Tyger Pax,” he said. “I nearly lost you then.” He reached out and gently stroked Bumblebee’s helm.
Bumblebee took his hand. “But you didn’t.” His marker landed on a slide as well. “Instead I lost you.”
Jazz squeezed his hand. “I had to. I had to save you – all of you. For all the good it did, but still, at least it was long enough for you to get away.”
“I should have been there to help you. We were partners.”
“Still are.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to have you back, Jazz.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to be back with you, Bee.”
They were quiet for a while, the game forgotten as they lay facing each other. Above them, the light in the children’s room was out – had been for a while, since it was close to 3am and they had called it a night at midnight. Ratchet had stopped tinkering so the back was quiet, too, and the rain was starting to grow lighter.
Bumblebee broke the silence first, nudging the board away and moving closer to Jazz. “Remember when we stole Ironhide’s cannons to keep him from shooting up the dorms every time he got into a temper? He wanted to string us in the assembly yard in our protoforms.”
Jazz chuckled and edged closer to Bumblebee. “Yeah. For an old timer he can move pretty fast when he wants to. Though I still recall the time we locked Ratchet out of his repair bay because Optimus mentioned he was working too hard and needed to take a break.”
The Camaro giggled. “He was about ready to weld us to the spire for that.”
The Solstice chuckled as well. “As I remember it, we had to climb it anyway in order to get away from him.”
Pillowed on arms, their heads gently touched and rested against each other. The heater warming their armor nicely while memories and the simple presence of each other warmed their sparks. Bumblebee’s optics started to dim, now sufficiently tired enough to attempt recharge. Jazz, too, let out a sigh, his hydraulics giving off a light hiss that may as well have been a yawn.
“Don’t think we’ll have any more memories to make on Cybertron,” Bumblebee murmured.
“No, but we have Earth to make a whole new bunch of memories on,” Jazz replied.
“Mmm… that’s true. Goodnight Jazz.”
“Goodnight Bee.”
===========
… Morning dawned bringing with it a clear blue sky and a large black truck that stopped at the entrance to the base and transformed into a large robot. Ironhide stretched and admired the fresh-looking landscape for a moment before heading inside. He hoped Ratchet hadn’t pulled another all-nighter.
To his relief, he saw Ratchet coming out from one of the back rooms looking like he had woken up a while ago. At least the stubborn fragger had rested, Ironhide thought to himself. Though something still felt a little off. It was too quiet. By this time though, the medic had spotted him and came over
“Morning Ironhide,” Ratchet greeted the weapons specialist.
“Morning Ratch,” he started. Then he stopped. He knew exactly why it was quiet, and frowned. “Where are our resident hell raisers?”
Ratchet only smiled and gestured to a corner where, beside a heater, Jazz and Bumblebee lay close to each other, fast asleep. An unfinished game of some sort lay further away. “They were playing that and talking through most of the night, about Cybertron and their days in the Academy.”
“And you know this, how?” Ironhide asked, optics narrowing suspiciously
“Well I didn’t eavesdrop if that’s what you’re thinking. I came out for a moment to get some old newspaper to wrap some tools in and I heard a bit of the conversation,” Ratchet replied.
Ironhide moved over to the two, careful not to disturb their slumber, and turned the heater down so that they wouldn’t end up burning out their systems with excess heat. Then he gazed down at them with a touch of fondness and shook his head.
“Kids,” he said. “Let them sleep. I’ll take Sam and Mikaela to school today. Make sure no one disturbs them till they wake up.”
“Protective are we?” Ratchet asked, though he nodded.
“Have to be. They’re the only young ones we’ve got at the moment. Can't afford to lose them. I'm old, Ratch, seen a lot of amazing things in my time. These two? Hardly started.”
“They’ll be fine, Ironhide,” Ratchet assured. “Stubborn little fraggers the both of them, they’ll have another share of ups and downs to deal with soon enough.”
~END.