Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The softly glowing lights of the distant city of Iacon did nothing to chase away the gloom smothering the small room in which Bumblebee stood. He could practically feel the heavy air pressing down against his plating, constricting him with grief.

He had tried to enjoy the celebrations heralding Cybertron’s heroes back to their home planet, but any fleeting glimpse of joy felt hollow when he knew this was what waited for him at the end of the parade.

Prowl’s casket sat silently in front of him, the glass lid allowing him to see the grayed frame of his friend and teammate. Bumblebee was used to Prowl being silent–after all, he was a trained cyberninja. Stealth was supposed to be his thing.

But this silence was different. It was cold and final, frozen in eternity, never to be broken again. No more incessant humming, no more snide remarks. At the end of his existence, Prowl was rewarded with what he had always wanted: peace and quiet.

“It’s time we get this show on the road,” Jazz’s somber voice cut through Bumblebee’s thoughts. He jerked his head to look at the remaining cyberninja. Jazz’s normally well-polished white chassis was scratched and dented. He hadn’t bothered to repair the damage he had sustained in the battle against the Decepticons.

“Do we have to?” Bumblebee asked miserably. A steadying servo descended onto his shoulder, delivering a reassuring squeeze.

“It’s what Prowl would have wanted,” Optimus insisted. Jazz nodded his agreement.

“It’s the way of the cyberninjas–Prowl wouldn’t have it any other way. Burning the frame allows the ashes to travel back up into the stars and join up with all our cyberninja buddies who went before,” he explained.

Bumblebee chewed this information over only for a moment before opening his mouth again.

“So not only does my teammate die, but I have to watch him burn, too?” he snapped bitterly. Optimus guided the smaller mech to the far side of the room as Jazz ignited the furnace, brilliant orange flames leaping hungrily towards the sleek black coffin waiting to plunge into their writhing jaws.

“No one said you had to be here,” Optimus reminded, sighing. Bumblebee focused his optics onto his pedes, keeping his head lowered petulantly.

Ratchet had made his intentions clear almost immediately upon stepping off of the ship. He had claimed that he had attended one too many funerals during the Great War, and this one wasn’t any different. Bumblebee knew that it was the medic’s own grouchy way of telling them he couldn’t take the sparkbreak of another lost comrade.

Bulkhead wasn’t too subtle in his apprehension, either. The big lug could hardly look at the casket on their journey to Cybertron, much less the cremation. His spark was too large, and he and Bumblebee hadn’t been around for the Great War. Loss was a new, painful experience to them.

Sari, on the other hand, had insisted on joining their procession. She had made it as far as the doorway to the furnace room before buckling. Although she had her mask deployed for her own safety–Cybertronians weren’t all that fond of organics, and they didn’t want anyone stepping on her–Bumblebee could still hear the sniffling from underneath. She had paused at the door, one trembling foot raised.

“I don’t think I can do this,” she had whispered, just barely loud enough for him to make out, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead. “Bee, I can’t–”

“It’s okay,” he had been quick to console her, kneeling down so she could wrap her arms around his servo. “You can wait outside if it’s too much.”

She had nodded and, without a word, wandered a few steps away, sliding down the wall to sit with her head cradled in her knees. He wondered if she could hear the crackling of the fire through the thick steel door.

“I decided to be here,” Bumblebee said firmly, looking up at Optimus, a challenge evident in his optics. “For my friend.”

“And I’m sure he would appreciate it,” Optimus murmured.

Jazz joined the two of them, all staring forlornly as the pallbearer mechanisms under the casket creaked and groaned, pulling the black box towards the incinerator. It was slow and grueling, but Bumblebee promised himself not to look away. He owed Prowl that much, to be with him until the end.

Nanoclicks ticked by. The head of the casket was being engulfed by the first eager tongues of flame, the glow reflecting off of the glass lid, obscuring the empty frame inside.

A strange noise reached Bumblebee’s audio receptors then–it almost sounded like tapping. He’d heard something similar once or twice in very old human buildings. Sari had explained to him that when the pipes humans used to heat their structures carried hot water throughout the building, the metal expanded, creating echoing thunks . He chalked the sound he was hearing up to that and that alone: metal expanding.

But that didn’t explain why the tapping suddenly turned into a loud, frantic banging. Trying to see through the glare of the fire, Bumblebee thought his optics were playing tricks on him. It almost looked as if something inside the casket were moving…

The clear imprint of a servo appeared on the glass suddenly, palm pressed flush against the lid.

“Guys!” Bumblebee gasped, pointing excitedly at the spectacle. Neither of the other two mechs seemed to have seen what he had witnessed.

“Bumblebee, this isn’t the time for–” Optimus’s chastisement was interrupted by the audible shattering of glass. A spiderweb of cracks had formed across the top of the casket, and sticking through a sizable hole at its center, a black and tan servo, stretching up as if to capture the sky.

“What in the name of the Allspark?” Jazz exclaimed, rushing over and forcibly tugging the coffin against the power of the moving mechanisms underneath. Bumblebee was quick to help him, putting every bit of might from his small frame into dragging the casket away from the fire.

Optimus reached for the switch near the furnace, both turning off the conveyor and smothering the flames. The servo had retracted back into the container, and Jazz was fiddling with the lock. Finally, he managed to pry the lid up, flinging the cracked surface open.

Slowly rising from where he lay, as if emerging from a grave–which technically, he was–Prowl sat up. Gold detailing glimmered in the residual orange glow cast by the embers of the furnace, and his visor was back to its signature electric blue, chasing away the last of the gray. He held his head up with one servo as if it were too heavy for his neck, looking at the mechs gathered around him in apparent confusion.

“Prowl?” Optimus asked, mystified. He reached out his servo as if to lay it on Prowl’s arm, but snatched it back against his chest, as if touching the apparition would break whatever spell was causing this insanity.

“Yes?” Prowl responded evenly. He glanced down at the casket in which he sat, then around at the room he had awoken in, his attention lingering on the cooling furnace behind him. “This is…”

“It may be hard to take in, my mech, but just a few nanoclicks ago we were ready to send you off to the ancestors,” Jazz remarked in disbelief.

“I was offline?” the newly alive mech questioned, his servo moving from his head to grip at his chestplate, over his spark.

“Seemed that way, but now I’m not so sure. You gave your spark up to give the Allspark enough juice to save Detroit from those Omega Supreme ripoffs. I was sure…” Jazz trailed off, turning his head away. His servos clenched into fists at his sides.

“Who cares how it happened? He’s back!” Bumblebee shouted jubilantly, shaking the nearest thing he could get his servos on–Prime’s arm–like he intended to rip it out of its socket.

Jazz offered a servo to help Prowl climb out from the coffin, but the cyberninja ignored it, leaping lithely over the edge of the container and landing on the floor. He wobbled ever so slightly, but brushed off Optimus’s attempt to right him.

“If you’re all here…then did we defeat Megatron?” he inquired, still gazing around as if he couldn’t quite believe where he was. His searching glance specifically seemed to fixate somewhere over Jazz’s shoulder. Bumblebee saw a look of realization come over his face, but it was gone before he could pin down exactly what Prowl had seen. All that was there was empty air.

“You bet! The old slagmaker is locked up for good in Cybertron’s most secure stockade. They’ll need the force of the entire Decepticon army if they want to break him out of there,” Bumblebee boasted, whisking away any possible confusion from his processor.

“Which is still a possibility,” Optimus reminded. “Once his scattered troops catch wind of his capture, they may decide to stage a jailbreak. Sentinel wants the entire planet on full alert once the festivities are over.”

“Sentinel wants a lot of things that he can’t get,” Jazz chuckled. “Cybertron could use some jolliness, now more than ever.”

Just then, a series of small taps sounded from the locked door—knocking. Glancing at Prime, Bumblebee opened the door to see a nervous Sari staring up at him.

“I’m not trying to interrupt, I just heard some weird noises and thought—“

Her eyes slid past Bumblebee and landed on Prowl, full of color and standing on his own two pedes. Her jaw practically hit the floor.

“Yeah, so, funeral’s off,” Bumblebee grinned.

For several more moments, Sari remained completely still. Thinking maybe a circuit had popped in her processor, he reached down in an effort to poke her. Instead, she zipped past him almost faster than his optics could process, her jetpack carrying her into the air.

“PROWL!” she shrieked, clinging to the mech’s neck like he might dissolve into dust before her very eyes. For his part, Prowl took a startled step back, looking down in confusion at the organic whose arms were trapping him.

“I thought…I thought…” she sniffled, unable to fully get the words out. Her mask powered down, allowing the gathered ‘Bots to see the tears streaking her cheeks.

“I’m here now. There’s no need to, um, leak,” Prowl said stiffly. His servo hovered behind Sari’s back, but he never completed the embrace.

“But how is that possible?” Sari asked, looking at every other mech in the room as she drifted back down to the floor. “Once a spark is extinguished, that’s it, right? I saw your spark go out, Optimus, and you went all gray, but with the Key—“

“Perhaps,” Optimus cut Sari off with a strained cough, “this is something that Ratchet may have a better explanation for.”

“We gotta go spread the good news!” Bumblebee cheered, already running towards the exit with Sari in tow, his previously dour mood completely forgotten. Jazz dragged a reluctant-looking Prowl along by the arm after them, while a thoughtful Optimus brought up the rear. Their funeral procession had just turned into a jubilant celebration.

“I have no explanation for this,” Ratchet huffed. Prowl sat up from where he had been lying on the examination table, swinging his pedes over the side as Ratchet stared down at the scanner held in his servo. “All vital stats are normal. His spark readings are strong. It’s a medical miracle–and a mystery."

“Maybe Primus finally took pity on you,” Jazz mused, his tone joking.

“Perhaps,” Prowl grumbled. Bumblebee shuffled his pedes where he stood, careful not to jostle Sari, who was sitting on his shoulder. The six of them were all crammed into the small medbay aboard Omega Supreme, who had kindly transformed to allow them to access their ship. Ratchet had been catching up with his old friend when they had called him, along with Arcee, who had respectfully opted to wait on the bridge so as to not crowd the room further.

Bulkhead, evidently, did not get the same memo. He had barely knocked before barging into the medbay the moment the door swept open, making a beeline for the medical berth and its sole occupant.

“Prowl, buddy!” he laughed, gathering Prowl into a strut-crushing hug, spinning him through the air. “I would’ve been here sooner, but I was checking up on the little back on the energon farm, and then Bossbot called me and…you’re back!”

“So it seems,” Prowl wheezed, struggling against Bulkhead’s iron grip. Eventually Bulkhead lowered his friend back to the ground, but not without a hearty pat to his back that nearly sent him crashing to the floor.

“And let’s not send him back to the Well so soon,” Ratchet scowled, glaring at Bulkhead, who sheepishly grinned back.

“Why don’t we all head to the bridge for this reunion?” Optimus suggested none too subtly. With Bulkhead squeezed in, the medbay was about to burst.

“I could use some fresh air,” Bumblebee nodded eagerly, the first to exit the room. He transformed out the wheels on his pedes to speed along the orange hallways, relishing in the wind against his frame.

“Bee, slow down!” Sari giggled, clinging to his plating as they turned a particularly tight corner. They burst onto the ship’s bridge, startling the pink femme who had been curiously looking over the array of buttons available to the crew of the ship.

“Oh, goodness!” she gasped, spinning quickly to see the objects of her surprise. Assessing that the new arrivals weren’t a threat, she visibly relaxed. “What’s the sudden rush?”

“What can I say? I like going fast,” Bee shrugged, nearly dislodging Sari from her perch–she made sure to give the side of his helm a good whack in return. “Besides, the others are coming over here to be somewhere a little more comfortable. Especially with Bulkhead’s big backside taking up half of the medbay.”

“Will Prowl be with them?” Arcee inquired, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“Yep, it’s a whole team reunion,” Bumblebee replied.

“That’s good. I didn’t want to intrude, but Ratchet spoke so fondly of him–Omega Supreme, too. I was disappointed I wouldn’t get the chance to meet him, but it seems fate had other plans,” she smiled.

“We’re all happy to have him back. This is the best spirits I’ve seen from you guys in weeks,” Sari commented. Bumblebee was sure that if her mask weren’t up, she’d be grinning ear to ear.

The sound of multiple voices bounced against the walls of the control room.

“–that really necessary?” Bumblebee could faintly make out Optimus’s distinctly annoyed tone as he rounded the corner.

“‘Fraid so, Prime. Rules are rules,” Jazz responded evenly.

“I just don’t understand why he has to come now ,” Optimus puffed, the low rumbling of his engine audible. The rest of the Autobots filtered in after them.

“Mechs,” Ratchet cleared his throat, gesturing to where Arcee, Bumblebee, and Sari stood. “Maybe we leave this conversation for a later time.”

“Right,” Optimus sighed, straightening his shoulders. “Nice to see you again, Arcee. And under much happier circumstances.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Optimus Prime, as well as the rest of your team. Your full team.”

All optics drifted towards Prowl, but when he made no effort to move, Jazz filled his spot effortlessly.

“I believe we met briefly before, but I’d like to introduce myself if I could. The name’s Jazz,” he said, extending a servo, which Arcee gladly shook. With a sharp tug, Jazz brought Prowl forward–Bumblebee caught a brief frown cross Prowl’s face. “And this here is my friend, Prowl.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he greeted flatly, bowing.

“I’m honored to meet the hero of Detroit,” Arcee said politely, gracious enough not to show her confusion as she copied Prowl’s movement. Prowl turned his head away ever so slightly, making no reply.

“Woah, did that hero stuff really go to his head that quickly? No thank you or nothing,” Sari whispered into Bumblebee’s ear.

“And he wasn’t even around for his own parade,” Bumblebee scoffed back, an eyebrow raised in bewilderment.

Before the suddenly awkward silence could stretch for too long, Omega Supreme’s deep voice surrounded them.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you’ve got visitors,” the ship informed apologetically. A nearby screen came to life, its flickering display showcasing Sentinel Prime standing near the loading bay, Jetfire and Jetstorm flanking him.

“No problem, Omega. Thanks for the heads up,” Ratchet said, much more softly than he may have otherwise, patting one of the nearby consoles.

“I’ll go let them in,” Jazz remarked, slipping away with the practiced ease of a cyberninja.

“Wait, what’s Sentinel doing here?” Bumblebee asked, looking to Optimus for answers.

“Well, once our acting Magnus caught wind that Prowl wasn’t actually offline, he insisted that he investigate the matter personally. Make sure there was no foul play involved,” Optimus explained with a heavy dose of sarcasm sprinkled in.

“Foul play?” Sari parroted back, sharing a confused glance with Bumblebee.

“An imposter! It’s the only explanation,” Sentinel announced, strutting into the bridge like he owned the place. Jazz and the Jettwins rushed in right behind him.

“You sure got here quick,” Ratchet remarked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“It’s not a very big ship,” Sentinel seethed. “Besides, there are more important matters to discuss.”

“Sentinel, as Jazz has already explained to you, there is no possibility of a mistake. We watched him climb out of the coffin,” Optimus was quick to try and diffuse the situation, holding his servos out placatingly.

“Mechs don’t just suddenly rise from the dead, Optimus. He could be a clone, or a line of errant code, or a virus, or…or…a sparkeater!”

“Sparkeater?” Jetfire repeated dubiously.

“Is like Earth zombie movie,” Jetstorm supplied for his brother, nodding in satisfaction with his own knowledge.

“Sparkeaters are myths, Sentinel. You of all mechs should be smart enough to know that,” Ratchet snapped, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“That is Sentinel Magnus to you, medibot!” Sentinel raged, his voice raising an octave as he shoved a finger into Ratchet’s face.

“Last time I checked, you were only filling in while our real Magnus, Ultra Magnus, is recovering,” Ratchet shot back.

“Sentinel–” Jazz was scorched by the blue mech’s gaze as he stepped between the two, “...Magnus, there’s no need for this. Don’t ruin the reunion,” he chided. Bumblebee had heard that tone used many times before, but normally it was directed at himself or Sari.

Appearing to take a long breath, Sentinel turned his attention back to Optimus.

“My scientists need an explanation. Either your ninja was never truly dead and you’ve lied to the population of Cybertron for the sake of recognition, or you’re dealing with a freak of nature. We don’t know what kind of problems this could pose in the future.”

“I’ve been presumed dead for millions of stellar cycles. Am I a future problem in need of study, Sentinel Magnus?” Arcee spoke up from where she stood beside Ratchet.

“What? No, no, we had plenty of documentation of your condition. Your processor was scrambled, but your spark was just fine,” Sentinel waved her off dismissively. “Besides, it wasn’t like you–”

“Sentinel.”

Prowl was suddenly standing directly in front of Sentinel, his neck craned to look the taller mech squarely in the face. How he had gotten there so quickly, Bumblebee couldn’t say–one blink, and he practically teleported. Apparently, this movement had spooked Sentinel as well, who took a tentative step back before regaining his composure.

“It’s Sentinel Magnus, soldier,” he sniffed, staring down his nose at Prowl.

“I’m not a soldier,” Prowl was quick to remind him. “I was never formally inducted into the military ranks after joining Optimus’s team.”

“You like bringing up that little technicality, don’t you?” Sentinel sneered. “As acting Magnus, I still have authority over–”

“I have a simple question to ask,” Prowl interrupted. Looking more enraged by the moment, Sentinel grit his teeth.

“Permission to speak.”

Prowl took a careful breath in.

“Do I scare you?”

A heavy silence blanketed the room, thick with tension so palpable it felt as if it had frozen Bumblebee in place. A thundercloud descended over Sentinel’s face.

“Excuse me?” His voice was deathly quiet.

“Does it make you nervous that a lowly spacebridge repair crew of societal rejects has gained more fame and goodwill in a few solar cycles than you have managed to garner over your entire career spent in the Elite Guard?” Prowl forged on, his face eerily blank. When Sentinel failed to respond, his mouth flapping like a fish out of water, Prowl continued: “I gave up my spark to save a city full of organics, and all I’ve seen you do is sit high on your throne and expect power to be spoon-fed to you. You accuse me of not being the real deal, but will you stand here and say to my face that I’m a fake? Will you spread rumors about the authenticity of our victory over the Decepticons so you can attribute more false glory to your own name?”

Sentinel said absolutely nothing. For the first time, Prowl’s mouth curved down at the corners. He took a threatening step forward, bringing him mere inches from Sentinel’s chestplate.

“Well?” Prowl goaded, raising his voice from its usual monotone. If Bumblebee didn’t know him better, he’d say Prowl was moments away from taking a swing at Sentinel’s oversized chin.

Before that could happen, however, Bulkhead pushed between the two of them, his hulking form blocking their sight of one another.

“Woah, woah, what’s that the humans say? Let’s take a chill pill? We’re all friends here, right?” he laughed nervously, taking Prowl by the shoulders and steering him away from Sentinel.

“Get your team in line, Optimus Prime. I have more important things to do than deal with the deranged ramblings of a mech who’s fresh out of the grave,” Sentinel said darkly, motioning for his entourage of the Jettwins to follow him back towards the exit.

“You still want that explanation?” Optimus called after his retreating form. Sentinel paused in the doorway, his scathing glare raking across the gathered Autobots.

“My scientists will be in touch,” he growled before disappearing down the hallway.

A moment passed before the room erupted into a cacophony of noise as everyone scrambled to speak over one another.

“What in the name of the Allspark was that, Prowl?” Jazz asked, his tone a mixture of exasperation and pride.

“You totally stuck it to him!” Bumblebee exclaimed, jumping excitedly from pede to pede.

“That’ll show him not to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong,” Sari agreed eagerly.

“Good way to get yourself onto Sentinel’s bad side by pointing out his insecurities,” Ratchet grunted.

“Exactly.” Optimus’s voice cut through the rest of the chatter like a blade. His eyebrows were pinched together, his optics disappointed. “That was out of line, especially for you, Prowl.”

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Prowl pointed out defensively.

“Maybe not,” Optimus conceded, “but it’s not in the best interest of yourself or this crew to be stoking coals under Sentinel’s aft. I don’t want you to become some kind of lab experiment.”

“We wouldn’t ever let that happen,” Bulkhead butted in.

“No, but now that we’ve incited Sentinel’s wrath…” Optimus trailed off, deep in thought. “Omega, how quickly would we be able to travel back to Earth?”

“With operational spacebridges on both Cybertron and Earth, we could charter a flight in under a megacycle,” the deep voice of the ship responded.

“We’re running away?” Prowl asked skeptically.

“No, we’re taking a break. If we spend some time out of Sentinel’s way, he may forget to be angry,” Optimus sighed. “Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to spend a few days away from the bustle of Iacon? Just the crew? I don’t know if you’re overwhelmed, or–”

“I’d like to run a quick errand before we leave.”

Optimus’s face went from tired to exasperated in the matter of a nanoclick.

“Is now really the best time? We won’t be on Earth for very long, maybe two or three solar cycles.”

“If you’re concerned about my wellbeing, I can take Jazz with me,” Prowl suggested quickly.

“Now who said I was going?” Jazz chuckled lightly–he was quickly silenced by a glare from Prowl.

“Am I at least at liberty to know where you’re going?” Optimus relented.

“Cyberninja business,” Prowl replied curtly.

Optimus let out a long breath of air.

“Permission granted. Be back within the megacycle.”

Prowl barely even waited for Optimus to finish speaking before he turned and began making his way towards the exit, Jazz reluctantly in tow. Bumblebee felt that even if Optimus had refused, Prowl still would have run his little errand anyway.

An idea struck him.

“Hey, Bossbot, mind if Sari and I tag along with them?” he asked their leader, putting on his biggest smile. Optimus eyed him dubiously.

“If it’s cyberninja business, do you think they’d want you coming with them?”

“Prowl!” Bumblebee called after the retreating ninjas before they left the bridge.

“Don’t care,” the black mech threw over his shoulder, barely glancing at his teammate.

“See? He doesn’t care,” Bumblebee stated. He could tell Optimus’s nerves were already very thin, but it wouldn’t take much more pushing before–

“The more the merrier, I suppose. Don’t get into trouble,” he waved Bumblebee off with an exasperated shrug. Attempting to contain his excitement and failing, Bumblebee sped after the two mechs, falling into step beside Jazz as they both followed behind Prowl.

“Do I get to have a say in this?” Sari whispered to her friend.

“Nope!”

“Why are you doing this anyway? We don’t even know where they’re going,” she admonished.

“So, where’re we headed?” Bumblebee piped up instead of answering Sari, glancing between his companions. Prowl did not turn around to speak as they stepped off of the ship and into Iacon’s buzzing port.

“The dojo.”

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve been back here since I graduated, and I’m not exactly a spring chicken,” Jazz remarked as he transformed out of his alt mode, followed by both Prowl and Bumblebee.

“I’m not sure even Bumblebee picked up human phrases that quickly,” Sari said teasingly. She stood at the mechs’ feet, her hands propped on her hips.

“What can I say? I like to get in touch with the local culture,” Jazz shrugged easily.

“Now is not the time for small talk,” Prowl said sourly.

“Who invited Professor Buzzkill?” Bumblebee whispered loudly to Sari, who hid a snicker behind her hand.

“Hey, take it easy on him. A mech only rises from the grave once a millenia,” Jazz chided, although the slight smile tugging at his lips diminished the seriousness of his statement. “What brings us back to the old stomping grounds anyway, Prowl?”

Before them rose a rather dreary building, the outside clad in shades of brown and gray with little decoration. The surrounding area was one of the more rundown districts of Iacon, although Bumblebee could imagine at one point it being a fairly nice neighborhood. Now, rust had eaten away a good portion of the surrounding structures, and the only mechs Bumblebee could see were the shady sort, flitting between shadows like rats.

“I thought I would check on something before we departed for Earth,” Prowl said simply, pushing open the front door with a great amount of effort. Paint flaked off of the creaking hinges. Almost as an afterthought, he continued: “And maybe in the meantime, you could give the others a tour.”

“A tour of Master Yoketron’s dojo? Oh, oh, do we get to learn secret ninja fighting techniques? Like, um, circuit-doh?” Sari asked eagerly.

“Circuitsu,” Jazz corrected as their group stepped into the dark interior. There was the flip of a switch, and miraculously, soft lighting flickered on from various lamps and fixtures mounted on the walls and high ceiling. They were standing in some kind of foyer, a short bench and a rack that may have been used to store weapons occupying the small space.

“Woah,” Bumblebee muttered under his breath, moving further into the dojo. The foyer led into what seemed to be the main training space—a large rectangular room, sparsely furnished, its faux wood floor scratched from many stellar cycles of use.

“This is where the magic happened,” Jazz said, gesturing grandly around the room. “I don’t know how many times our sensei beat my aft in this very spot. I stopped counting after the hundreth.”

Sari drifted over towards one side of the room, her eyes locked onto a pile of metal staffs strewn haphazardly across in a corner. They may have once been leaned against the wall in an organized fashion, but time had taken its toll, and the once careful order of this sanctuary had been trespassed upon many times since.

Sari picked up one of the staffs, although it was nearly three times her height, and grinned up at Jazz.

“What do you think I could do with this?”

“The way it is now, maybe you could climb it and reach the top shelf at the old oil house,” Jazz chuckled, taking the staff gently from Sari’s grip. In a single fluid motion, he brought the pole down over his knee, breaking it into lopsided pieces. The smaller one he handed back to Sari, and the larger he gave to Bumblebee.

“Awesome,” she said giddily, already spinning her staff in circles. It was a perfect fit. Bumblebee looked down at his own gifted weapon—he tried to twirl it, but only succeeded in dropping it on the floor.

“Up for a little teaching, Prowl?” Jazz threw over his shoulder as he bent and retrieved two full-sized staffs, extending one towards his fellow ninja. Prowl had propped himself against the wall opposite to his friends, his arms folded across his chest and a small frown etched into his face.

“No, I believe your lesson will be sufficient,” he stated in his usual monotone.

“Aww, come on, Prowl,” Sari whined, sending her most spark-tugging pout in Prowl’s direction. The black mech remained unmoved.

“If he wants to watch, that’s alright by me,” Jazz said, shooting Prowl a brief glare. “We’ll just jive to our own tune. Maybe we could even teach him a thing or two.”

“Boy would I love to see that day: when Prowl discovers something he isn’t good at,” Bumblebee sighed longingly. He knew he was being a bit harsh on his teammate considering the circumstances, but it felt good to have someone to poke fun at without having his own head bitten off–he didn’t think he’d ever get the chance again. Unfortunately, Prowl didn’t rise to the bait. He remained where he was, stoic as ever.

“Okay, watch as I put my staff into the starting position, like this,” Jazz instructed, holding the metal pole at arm’s length from his chest, parallel to the floor. Bumblebee and Sari copied his demonstration. “The most important thing to remember when fighting with a staff is that it’s a balancing match between your strikes and your parries.”

Without warning, Jazz suddenly brought his staff down against Bumblebee’s own. The impact reverberated up Bumblebee’s arms, but he kept his grip on the pole and moved to block the next two attacks Jazz brought down upon him.

“Too many parries, and your opponent gains an advantage. You never land a hit before they’ve got you tired out,” Jazz explained. Catching on to the advice, Sari surged forward, whacking her staff across Jazz’s pede with a hollow-sounding thunk . Before she could react, Jazz had turned and swept her feet out from under her, sending her crashing to the ground with a short shriek.

“Too many strikes, and you leave yourself open to attack,” Jazz nodded, offering a finger to help Sari up again. Once she had righted herself, Jazz returned to the starting position. “There’s also a certain level of finesse involved,” he grinned.

With a quick flick of his wrist, the white cyberninja sent his staff twirling behind his back and into his other servo. Bumblebee barely had time to reposition himself to intercept the blow before it made contact with his shoulder. He pushed Jazz’s staff away and made to put his own mark on the other mech’s chassis, but Jazz flipped over his strike, landing neatly a few feet away.

“No fair,” Sari huffed, bringing her weapon down to her side. With a fair amount of concentration, she copied Jazz’s twirl trick, charging not at Jazz, but instead aiming for–

“Hey! Ow!” Bumblebee yelped, hopping away from the sudden onslaught. “I thought we were a team in this.”

“I gotta take advantage of any openings I can, and you’re an easier target,” Sari smirked, landing a particularly nasty blow to his pede.

“That’s gonna leave a dent!” Bumblebee squawked in outrage. “Why are you so strong for being so tiny?”

“You’re not exactly the biggest bot yourself,” Sari shot back. Bumblebee made to sweep her feet out from under her, similar to the move Jazz had used, but she easily jumped over his staff. Suddenly unbalanced, Bumblebee found himself facedown on the floor of the dojo, an elated Sari cackling somewhere near his head.

“Not funny!” he complained, but he couldn’t stop a hiccup of laughter from bubbling out of his own mouth.

“You sure you don’t want to get in on this, Prowl?” Jazz called across the room, a touch of fondness in his voice. He turned his head left and right. “Prowl?”

As Bumblebee pulled himself up from the ground, he gave the training room his own once over–now empty save for the three of them.

“Where’d he go?” Sari wondered, setting her shortened stick back onto the pile with the rest of the discarded weapons.

“He did say he had something he wanted to check on,” Bumblebee mused as he and Jazz set down their own poles.

“I’ve got an idea where he might be hiding,” Jazz said, looking across the space at one of the many off-shooting hallways. The playfulness had disappeared from his tone–Bumblebee shared a look with Sari. Suddenly this errand seemed a lot less enjoyable.

Trailing after Jazz, the small group entered a room much different from the training room. Where the training room had been scraped up and shaped by time, this one seemed almost frozen in its pristineness. The walls were lined with holographic portraits of different mechs.

“What is this?” Sari asked, glancing around in wonder. “Hey Jazz, is that you?”

Bumblebee followed the girl’s eagerly pointed finger, and indeed, one of the busts was unmistakably made in the likeness of their friend.

“In the flesh–or rather, in the pixels,” Jazz nodded. “Each of these heads represents a graduate of Yoketron’s cyberninja training.”

Figuring he had missed something, Bumblebee scoured the faces for a second time. Failing to find who he was looking for, Bumblebee inquired: “Where’s Prowl?”

“Is that empty space for him?” Sari added, gesturing to a pedestal that was suspiciously blank. Jazz shifted uncomfortably for a moment, and Bumblebee saw the slightest sag in his shoulders as he turned back to face them.

“Thing is, Prowl never finished his cyberninja training. Master Yoketron went missing just before he was meant to complete it,” Jazz explained.

“Prowl didn’t finish his training? But, he’s like–”

“One of the best of the best? Tell me about it,” Jazz chuckled, hollow at the edges. “His control of processor over matter rivals that of Yoketron himself. I never could much get the hang of it.”

They approached the opposite end of the room. An ornately carved door stood partially ajar, almost as if it had been forcibly pried open.

Within the room itself, a narrow walkway jutted out into open air. Extending above and below them were dozens upon dozens of empty pods. A sinking feeling entered Bumblebee’s spark.

Protoform pods, he thought to himself, completing a full turn to truly take in the scale of the space. He heard Jazz gasp quickly beside him, and saw a stricken expression cross the mech’s typically lax face.

“What…happened?” he whispered.

“Lockdown.”

Prowl rose up from the depths of the chamber, the sparkling blue flame of his jet boosters glimmering off of the broken glass clinging to the pods. He landed gracefully on the walkway, each of his friends staring at him with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. Bumblebee noticed, gulping, that the cyberninja had placed his pedes on a pool of long-dried, crusty energon.

“Lockdown?” Bumblebee could practically see the gears spinning in Jazz’s processor. “The official report said that the dojo had been broken into, the protoforms stolen, and Master Yoketron was missing. You’re not saying that–”

“It was all Lockdown,” Prowl cut in. His voice was cold, his posture rigid. There was rage brewing behind his visor. “While I was away, he defaced the sanctuary of the dojo, left Master Yoketron with fatal wounds, and took the helpless protoforms. I found Master dying, right here–” he brushed his pede across the floor, “–and consoled him in his final moments. I even tried to transfer his spark into a protoform that had been left behind, but alas, he was too far gone.”

“Wait, protoforms left behind? I thought–”

“That the culprit had taken them all, as I presume was reported?” Prowl raised an eyebrow at Jazz. “When I arrived, there were still a few that Lockdown had missed. It appears another party came in after me and…cleaned up the rest. Including our sensei’s frame, which I was too absorbed at the time to properly send off.”

Jazz was completely still. Sari and Bumblebee glanced anxiously between the two cyberninjas. The undercurrent of tension flowing between them threatened to drag Bumblebee off his pedes, down into the depths below them.

“Why didn’t you tell me that day?” Jazz eventually forced himself to ask. “When Sentinel was being helped by Lockdown? That’s not a thing you keep from a mech.”

“It would have clouded your judgement.”

“Oh, and it didn’t cloud yours? I don’t remember you making the smartest decisions that day, either,” Jazz bit back. Sari moved herself behind Bumblebee’s pede.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jazz truly angry before, Bumblebee realized–it only made dread seep further into his spark. Something in Prowl’s expression darkened.

“You don’t think his death hasn’t eaten at me for the million stellar cycles since his spark was snuffed out?” Prowl questioned, his voice dangerously quiet. “How I grieved, and fought, and gave up my own spark to stop the protoforms which had been stolen under my watch from destroying the one place that had accepted me after my failure?”

“He wasn’t just your Master,” Jazz rebuked.

“No, he wasn’t. And I have avenged all of his students by retrieving his helmet from Lockdown’s malevolent grasp,” Prowl stated, gesturing towards his head proudly. Almost at once, tension melted away from Jazz’s body.

“You should have told me,” he sighed.

“I was ashamed,” Prowl admitted. The words felt like a slap to Bumblebee’s face–when had Prowl ever been this open before? Outwardly, he was completely calm and collected, but the words he was saying held more unsaid emotions than Bumblebee had ever seen from the mech.

“So what changed?” Jazz asked, exhaustion clear in his voice.

“Visiting the afterlife can put a few things into perspective,” was all Prowl responded with. As if waking from a spell, he walked past his three stunned Autobots. “Our time’s up. Let’s head back to the docks.”

He transformed and was out of sight before anyone could get in a word.

“My bad, my mech–and femme,” Jazz said bashfully, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Didn’t mean for you two to get caught up in our bad vibes.”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Sari assured him quickly. “It’s not your fault, anyway.”

“Prowl was right, though,” Bumblebee grumbled. “Bossbot’s gonna be getting his tailpipe in a twist if we’re not back on the ship soon.” He transformed, popping his door open to allow Sari to hop inside. As he began rolling towards the exit, he adjusted his rearview mirror–Jazz hadn’t moved.

“You coming?” he asked.

“Nah, I’ve still got a few things to take care of on Cybertron,” Jazz replied mildly, his gaze travelling around the yawning chamber. “Stay in touch, though. You’ve got my comm link.”

“Will do. Bye, Jazz!” Sari promised, leaning out Bumblebee’s window to wave goodbye. The cyberninja returned the gesture halfheartedly, a lopsided smile on his face.

Once Sari had tucked herself back inside Bumblebee’s cabin and was safely strapped in, he set off at top speeds along Iacon’s freeways.

“So that was a little weird, right?” Sari spoke up after a few clicks had elapsed.

“Tell me about it. I knew Prowl was secretive about his past for a reason, but I wasn’t expecting that ,” Bumblebee shivered.

“And he hadn’t even told Jazz. They’re ninja buddies, I thought they’d have some kind of secret ninja trust bond or something,” Sari huffed. Bumblebee was silent for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts.

“Maybe…we keep this between you and me for now, yeah?” he said tentatively.

“More secrecy?” Sari asked, deadpan.

“Well, think about it–he didn’t tell us about the whole Yoketron thing until we were literally standing at the scene of the crime. Maybe he wants to keep it there,” Bumblebee mused.

“It’s not like I’m one to go spilling people’s secrets to whoever I please. That’s typically more your department,” Sari teased.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” he snarked back before glancing at his chronometer, pressing hard against his accelerator. “Aw, scrap! Prime is gonna kill me.”

Chapter Text

They made it back to the ship without a moment to spare, Bumblebee’s tires skidding across the smooth metal floor of the cargo bay as the vessel began to slowly lift into the air. He watched through the closing cargo bay doors as Arcee stood on the docks, waving goodbye. He supposed she had decided to stay on Cybertron while the space bridge maintenance crew took temporary refuge on Earth.

Although the flight had been chartered, it turned out spacebridges, especially from Iacon, tended to form traffic—of which, Omega Supreme was stuck in for two megacycles. Initially, every member of the team had been at their stations on the bridge, slapping Bumblebee with a heavy dose of deja vu. But after the first megacycle or so, they began to filter out one by one. First it was Prowl, claiming to need a bit of calm and rest after the ordeals of the day, then Ratchet complaining about the state the medbay was in, and then Bulkhead making some excuse about preparing the latest spacebridge schematics to compare with Professor Sumdac.

Seeing as he had nothing better to do, Bumblebee also removed himself from the bridge, leaving Sari with Optimus and his war documentaries (Primus only knows why he liked those things so much). His brief wandering brought him to the entrance of the medbay, and with a furtive glance over his shoulder, Bumblebee stepped inside.

Ratchet was busy tidying up one of his portable work stations, positioning the tools just to his liking.

“Haven’t you rearranged that cart, like, two times already?” Bumblebee asked, leaning back against the now closed door.

“Perhaps someone on this ship likes to keep his things orderly,” Ratchet replied evenly, not looking up from his task.

“Have you seen Prowl’s room on Earth? Aside from that tree, I swear he’s got everything glued down—I never see anything move. And ever notice how clean the floor always is? With a fragging TREE in his room? He’s gotta be sweeping, what, three times a day? At least?” Bumblebee hesitated for a moment, the words sticking in the back of his throat. He had promised not to bring up the incident at the dojo, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still express worry for his teammate. “Hey, speaking of Prowl—“

“Whatever it is you want to talk about, kid, I’m not in the mood,” the medic sighed, putting a piece of equipment down with much more force than was necessary.

“I never said talk, who said anything about talking?” Bumblebee chuckled nervously. “I just need someone to…listen. To me.”

For the first time since he had entered the room, Ratchet glanced at him. Maybe it was something about Bumblebee’s tone of voice, or his fake aloofness, but the old mech’s expression softened ever so slightly.

“I suppose my audio receptors are still functional enough for that,” he snarked, returning to his tools.

“Well, Prowl is someone I consider…a friend—and believe me, it takes a lot of effort to say that,” Bumblebee began slowly. “Sari calls all of us family, and I don’t know that I would go that far, but I do know the guy. And I like to think that I know my friends well enough to say when they’re acting strangely, and Prowl is acting strangely.

“It’s like he did a total reset on his personality core! That speech he made to Sentinel—granted, Sentinel definitely deserved it—sounded like it came out of the mouth of the mech who we picked up stellar cycles ago on a rock in the middle of space. That speech didn’t come from Prowl who would marry a tree if given the opportunity; that didn’t come from Prowl who took time out of his day to try and teach an eight year old self defense; that didn’t come from Prowl who reconnected with his old pal Jazz and unlocked whatever freaky ninja powers he used to bring the fragments of the Allspark together.

“And just now! We went back to his and Jazz’s old dojo, and I won’t get into specifics—“

“You? Not poking your nose into other mechs’ business? The world really has turned upside down,” Ratchet scoffed, mostly to himself.

“What happened to listening ?” Bumblebee asked smugly, to which Ratchet’s only reply was a low grumble. “Anyway, he brought us all there and spilled a bunch of stuff about his past.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Prowl. Master of standoffishness. Told us something about his personal history. Of his own free will. It was so…out of character.”

Ratchet’s servos stilled above the work station. He sighed audibly and, seeming to accept he wouldn’t be getting much more work done with a particular young mech present, he fully turned to face Bumblebee.

“I suppose I hadn’t exactly dealt with a resurrection during the war, but I treated plenty of life-altering injuries—the kind you couldn’t fix with just a few spare parts. Most of them were up in the processor: glitches that scrambled the circuitry of young bots beyond repair. My assessment is that Prowl is much the same: he’s experienced something wholly unprecedented, and is navigating it in the best way he sees fit. If that means reverting back into a high and mighty pompous afthole who can’t tell the difference between a cube of high grade energon and the products of his own waste tanks, then that’s how his processor is coping with the situation. In my experience, the afflicted patients eventually gain better control over those glitches and return–at least in part–to how they were before the event that changed them.”

Bumblebee slumped against the door.

“And how long could that take?”

“Sometimes a stellar cycle or two, sometimes millenia. It affects every mech differently, and keep in mind that I haven’t discussed any of this with Prowl himself. It’s my own little theory, and of course I could be wrong.”

“If he had to come back at all, couldn’t he have at least come back right?” Bumblebee lamented, his voice barely above a whisper. “I miss my friend.”

“You’ll get him back, sooner or later,” Ratchet reassured, approaching Bumblebee and placing a comforting servo on his shoulder. “It’s only been a solar cycle—give him some time. I think we all could use a bit of patience.”

“Since when have you ever known me to be patient?” Bumblebee chuckled, and although there was still a seed of doubt rooted deep inside his stomach, his spark felt much lighter than it had that same morning.

“This is the Orion, preparing to travel through spacebridge,” Optimus announced over their assigned comm frequency. Everyone had returned to the bridge and was again seated at their stations, ready for the arduous task of piloting a several-thousand ton vessel through a swirling vortex of mayhem.

“Orion, cleared for spacebridge. Enjoy your destination,” parroted back one of the operating technicians of the bridge. The Orion was the given name for Omega Supreme when he had been offline and in hiding as a simple cargo freighter–it remained his callsign for the sake of simplicity.

Bumblebee watched intently as Ratchet steered Omega Supreme into the ever-expanding blue sphere of the spacebridge. Having been on a spacebridge repair crew for who knew how many stellar cycles, Bumblebee was plenty familiar with the technology, but that twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach as they were transported across space within the span of nanoclicks never got any more pleasant.

Where the Iaconian skyline had previously filled their viewfinders, now the grand metropolis of Detroit sparkled in late afternoon sunlight below them. Ratchet guided the ship to hover beside the spire of Sumdac Tower.

“We’ll only be here for a few clicks, then we’ll find you somewhere proper to land, old friend,” Ratchet promised the large craft.

“Thanks, Ratchet,” the ship said back, the sound of the engines humming as he moved them to a lower gear for their brief visit. Bumblebee picked Sari up and followed the rest of the Autobots as they quickly disembarked from the extended loading bay walkway.

Bumblebee was barely on solid ground before Sari was practically scrambling out of his palm–he stooped down to allow her to climb to the ground without injuring herself.

“Dad!” she exclaimed, throwing herself around Professor Sumdac’s neck, who had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the ship. The man was quick to return the embrace, but a confused expression remained on his face.

“Oh, Sari, it’s so good to see you again, but why such a sudden visit? I only received your message fifteen minutes ago, I had to rush to get the bridge operational, and–”

The professor paused in his ramblings as he finally took a proper look at the Cybertronians standing before him, one in particular catching his eye.

“Prowl? But I thought–”

“It’s good to see you again, Professor Sumdac,” Prowl greeted in his usual monotone.

“How is this possible?” the man gasped, looking between his daughter and the living ghost before him.

“It’s a long story–one that I can tell you while the guys park the ship,” Sari said to her father, already guiding him farther into the tower and away from the waiting vessel. She gestured hurriedly for the Autobots to leave. Catching on to her intentions, Bumblebee gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“You got it, Sari! Meet you back at the plant,” Bumblebee called after his friend, herding his teammates back onto Omega Supreme.

“What was that about?” Bulkhead asked, scratching at his chin.

“She probably just wants some time alone with her dad. Also to make sure his head doesn’t explode. You know how he gets about scientific anomalies,” Bumblebee shrugged.

“Well this anomaly would like to return to base as quickly as possible,” Prowl spoke up, already situating himself at the navigation terminal.

“You heard the mech,” Optimus commanded, taking his position in the captain’s chair.

As it turned out, the nearest parking spot for a ship the size of Omega Supreme was an empty loading area at the docks. Working together, they had to carefully navigate to the ground so as to not knock over any of the numerous shipping crates stacked nearby. 

Everyone safely having unloaded from the ship, Ratchet waved them off, insisting they head back without him so he could continue to chat with Omega.

“Alright, just don’t stay out too late,” Optimus conceded.

“You say that like I’m a human teenager and not millions of stellar cycles older than you, young bot,” Ratchet reprimanded. “Watch yourself.”

“Yes, yes, we know you can take care of yourself, Ratchet. I’m still the Prime of this team, and it’s still my duty to ensure the safety of my crew. So don’t stay out too late,” Optimus shot back, much to Ratchet’s chagrin. “Autobots, transform and head to the base.”

Barely a moment after the words had left Optimus’s mouth, Prowl disappeared in a cloud of dust. He was out of sight by the time the rest of the team began their drive home.

“What’s gotten into him?” Bulkhead muttered, his engine puttering with the strain of trying to keep up with the speeding motorcycle.

“Bumblebee, would you mind catching up with our ninja and reminding him about Detroit’s traffic laws?” Optimus sighed, visibly sagging on his wheels.

“On it, Bossbot!” Bumblebee responded, pulling ahead of the two slower vehicles and weaving between the lanes of early evening traffic. Without needing to keep pace with his teammates, the yellow subcompact had Prowl within his sight in the matter of a click. Gaining ground, he pulled up beside the erratically moving motorcycle.

“Yo, Prowl! You’re driving like you’ve never seen a steering wheel in your life,” Bumblebee joked, raising his voice to be heard above the sounds of the road. Prowl’s holoform driver gave Bumblebee nothing more than a cursory glance before pushing down hard on the handle, his front wheel leaping into the air as he rocketed forward.

A police siren whooped somewhere nearby.

“Scrap,” Bumblebee muttered. Coming off of a side street, a vehicle nearly identical to Bumblebee’s alt mode–albiet, in much worse repair and sporting a small spinning red light on its roof–pulled in front of him in hot pursuit of the rogue motorcycle.

“I don’t know what member of my police division thinks he can run the roads like he’s on a race track, but you better pull over and get off that bike immediately!” Chief Fanzone’s voice blared out of the yellow car.

At first, it almost seemed like Prowl intended to completely ignore the police captain, maintaining his speed as he cut into another lane. Then, when Fanzone continued to stay hot on his tail, he appeared to think better of it.

Without slowing down, Prowl transformed, his pedes throwing up sparks as he skillfully skated across the asphalt. Startled by the sudden movement, Chief Fanzone slammed on his brakes, dark streaks appearing on the road as his vehicle fishtailed under the change of momentum. Not trying to total Fanzone’s car, Bumblebee transformed on reflex, hopping over the vehicle and running a short distance to keep from falling flat on his face.

Chief Fanzone clamored out from his car, discarding his megaphone onto the passenger seat as he went.

“One of you owes me an explanation, and you better make it fast,” Fanzone accused, pointing a finger up at the Cybertronians.

“Well, uh, Prowl’s alive, as you can see, and we’re on our way back to base,” Bumblebee sputtered out, glancing nervously between Prowl’s stoic expression and the police captain. “Surprise.”

“Does your kind make a habit of coming back from the dead?” the man questioned, raising one of his bushy eyebrows in suspicion.

“No, just me,” Prowl replied. “It’s a long story.”

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, Prowl, but why are you making my job harder? It’s normally this one I have to worry about violating traffic laws,” Fanzone grumbled, gesturing towards Bumblebee, who squawked in offense.

“My apologies, Captain Fanzone. I’m simply eager to return to our Earth base,” Prowl stated. Fanzone deflated, seeming to come to the conclusion that that was the best explanation he was going to be receiving.

“I suppose I can let you off with a warning, but only because I know you’re one of the good ones,” he sighed. He reached into his back pocket, retrieving his phone and pressing the large side button. When all that came out of the speakers was a hiss of static, he smacked it in distaste. “This is why I hate machines…” he grumbled. Turning back to the Autobots, he waved them on. “Glad to see you’re still around and kicking. Just don’t do it again.”

And with that, the police chief climbed into his car and peeled away. Not wasting a single moment, Prowl transformed and drove in the opposite direction–at almost the exact same speed he had been travelling at before. Dragging a servo down his face, Bumblebee raced to keep up with his teammate and ensure he didn’t cause any more disruptions.

Going at such a blistering pace, they reached the base in record time. Prowl transformed inside the main assembly area, quickly scurrying over to the consoles stored at the other end that served as their communication hub. Bumblebee transformed as well, but he took a moment to look around.

Everything was exactly as they had left it—and for some reason, that shocked him. In total, they had probably been in this very room less than two Earth solar cycles ago, but so much had changed since then that it felt like another lifetime.

His controller was still resting on the Cybertronian-sized couch where he had left it, Sari’s human-sized one sitting closer to the TV. An empty can of oil leaned precariously on a side table, threatening to tumble to the ground at any moment. One of Bulkhead’s paintings leaned against the wall as it dried next to open buckets of paint that had been left to congeal when they were called off to confront Megatron and the clones. Those mechs who had left behind these things had no idea of the future which lay ahead of them—and the terrible loss they would have to endure.

Bumblebee was pulled out of his thoughts by the furious tapping of keys. Curiosity winning out, he drifted behind Prowl, glancing around the ninjabot (he would look over his shoulder, but unfortunately Bumblebee was too short to do so) and looking at whatever had him so worked up. On the screen, Bumblebee could make out some form of scanner sweeping across Detroit, blinking like an old-timey radar. Evidently, Prowl didn’t find whatever he was searching for—Bumblebee heard the frustrated rumbling of his engine as he slammed a fist into the desk.

“Woah, what’s the big deal?” Bumblebee chuckled, backing up slightly as tension visibly stiffened Prowl’s joints. Almost as if he had forgotten the yellow mech’s presence, he jerked to face his teammate, his deep scowl flattening into a soft frown.

“Are there any Allspark fragments left in our base, or any we know the location of but failed to retrieve?” Prowl asked. There was a minute undercurrent of desperation in his voice that Bumblebee couldn’t exactly place—why was he so interested in Allspark fragments all of a sudden? “I just want to ensure there are no more…accidents relating to them for the humans to deal with.”

“You pulled all of the remaining Allspark fragments from the city when you reformed the Allspark, remember?” Bumblebee paused. “You do remember that, right? Anything Allspark related would be back on Cybertron inside of the Matrix now.”

Two loud engines approached the abandoned factory. As if a flip had been switched, any and all previous emotions were wiped off of Prowl’s face, replaced by an eerie blankness.

“The Matrix, right,” he nodded, as if having suddenly recalled something important. “Let’s greet the others,” he suggested, abruptly walking back to where Bulkhead and Optimus were just pulling into the base. Bumblebee glanced back uneasily at the monitor Prowl had been using to scan the city, only to find that the screen was now devoid of any information, a black pit of empty pixels. He shook his head, reluctantly joining the rest of the crew.

“All went well getting here, I assume? Seeing as you saw it necessary to get here so quickly?” Optimus asked, his voice edged with sarcasm.

“We didn’t encounter any trouble,” Prowl responded mildly. Bumblebee cast him a look out of the corner of his optic. The ninjabot was holding onto his own wrist with the opposite servo, shifting subtly in a way that Bumblebee knew meant he was lying through his teeth. He had picked up on that particular ‘tell’ of his crewmate’s very early on during his stay on their ship–no one else had pointed it out so far.

No trouble, huh? he grumbled to himself, but kept his mouth shut. It would only mean a lecture for both of them if Optimus found out about Prowl’s reckless driving.

“Good, that’s good,” Optimus nodded. His gaze travelled around the room. “I guess there’s not much more to do other than relax here until Sentinel’s cooled off.”

“So, for the next fifty stellar cycles?” Bumblebee quipped, only to be faced down with a glare from Optimus.

Without so much as a word, Prowl began to walk towards the hallways which led to all of the Bots’ individual living quarters. He didn’t get so far as the doorway before one of Bulkhead’s large claws clamped down on his shoulder.

“Woah there, where do you think you’re going?” he questioned, forcibly turning Prowl around to face his teammates.

“Optimus said our task now is to relax. I was going to go to my room and meditate.”

“But we only just got back! Don’t you want to hang out a little?” the large green mech pouted. As Prowl opened his mouth to respond—probably to reject Bulkhead’s offer—he was cut off by the Prime.

“Not to delay your meditation, but I think we’d all appreciate your presence for a while. When Sari and Ratchet arrive, we can catch you up on a few things you’ve missed since…the battle,” Optimus suggested, stuttering over the last few words. But when Optimus suggested things, there was often an order laced within the request.

It almost seemed like Prowl was preparing to decline the Prime’s offer, but the small beep of a horn stopped him before he could. Sari rolled into the garage on her moped, transforming away her helmet as she hopped off and leaned the vehicle against the wall.

“I would’ve flown over, but the traffic actually wasn’t so bad,” she said, skipping over to stand next to Bumblebee. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We were all just about to sit down and enjoy each other’s company, like one big happy family. Right, Prowl?” Bulkhead asked, guiding his friend over to the couch and practically pushing him onto it.

“Yes,” Prowl said through grit teeth, sinking into the cushions as he crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms across his chest. Bumblebee couldn’t say he looked particularly happy, but at the very least he stayed put as the rest of the crew settled into their own spots. “What was so important that happened while I was offline that I must hear about?”

“There was a parade in your honor,” Optimus began. “Well, technically it was in honor of all of the returning heroes who had captured Megatron, but we never would’ve been able to do that without you.”

“We were on this huge float, and Sentinel was standing in front of us with Megatron in cuffs,” Sari butted in. “Everyone was cheering–I got to wave at so many ‘Bots, I felt like some kind of alien royalty. There were streamers and fireworks, and the Jettwins even did a flyover! I think they startled a lot of people in the crowd, but when they realized the jets were friendly, everyone went back to celebrating.”

“They were even passing out some premium oil–the good stuff from the planetary reserves,” Bulkhead added, staring off longingly into the distance at the thought.

“When we reached the end of the parade route, Sentinel gave a few remarks. He even made a brief announcement about a movement within the Council to get you inducted into the Hall of Heroes,” Optimus admitted.

“Did he now?” Prowl inquired, visibly perking up. “And are those movements still in action?”

“As long as I’ve been functioning, there’s never been a ‘Bot online to see their own induction into the Hall of Heroes,” came the raspy voice of Ratchet as he arrived at the abandoned factory, joining with the rest of his team. His joints creaked audibly as he sat down.

“Either way, after that announcement, there was a ceremony for the handing over of the Matrix of Leadership, with the remains of the Allspark seated at its core,” Optimus continued. “Cybertron was overjoyed to have one of its most prized relics returned safely to Iacon.”

“Then I presume the Matrix is being kept somewhere safe,” Prowl surmised. “Somewhere where any errant Decepticons might not steal it back as some sort of revenge.”

“They locked it up in the vault in the Hall of Heroes,” Bulkhead nodded.

“Under constant guard by Cybertron’s most elite warriors,” Bumblebee added hastily. Something about Prowl’s continued interest in the Matrix wasn’t sitting right with him.

“Good,” Prowl nodded sharply. “As it should be.”

“Once the parade was over, Sentinel allowed us a bit of privacy to conduct your funeral,” Optimus concluded, his expression much more somber than a few nanoclicks beforehand.

“He allowed you privacy? As if it weren’t your right to send off your friend and crewmate in peace?” Prowl bit back, an eyebrow raised dubiously.

“Careful, young bot. That’s the acting Magnus you’re badmouthing,” Ratchet warned, but there was mirth twinkling in his optics.

“Sentinel aside, this is a cause for celebration, right? The whole crew’s back together,” Optimus smiled infectiously. “Bulkhead, mind bringing out the goods?”

“Sure thing, Bossbot,” Bulkhead said eagerly, exiting the room and returning with five barrels of premium oil–plus a small can for Sari. “We’ve been saving these for a special occasion, and this occasion seems pretty special to me.”

Once the oil had been passed out, they raised their drinks together.

“Let’s dedicate this cheer to Prowl, and for our team–and family–being whole once more,” Optimus stated.

“Together!” the rest of them cheer, taking a large swig.

“Man, I forgot how weird that tastes,” Sari remarked, screwing up her face. “It’s not bad, just…different.”

“Hope that oil doesn’t stop that competitive spirit of yours,” Bumblebee winked, holding up a controller, which Sari promptly snatched out of his grip.

“Oh, you’re on!” she smirked.

Shockingly, the rest of the team stuck around for a few megacycles after that. While Sari and Bumblebee played, Ratchet, Bulkhead, and Optimus made conversation, Prowl listening in and adding his opinion every once in a while. All in all, it was surprisingly…normal, considering what all of them had gone through in the recent solar cycles. It warmed Bumblebee’s spark to be surrounded by those he considered friends doing something as mundane as talking to one another–something they had believed they would never be able to do again. At least, not in the way they had it now.

Eventually, it was Optimus who stood up, stretching out his cramped limbs.

“I don’t know about all of you, but it’s been a very eventful day. I’m off to indulge in some well-earned recharge,” he said, waving as he departed from the room. Slowly, the others followed suit–first Ratchet, then Prowl, and finally Bulkhead, leaving just Bumblebee and Sari in front of the television.

“One more round?” the yellow mech asked as Sari’s character fell to the ground on the screen, defeated. She covered a yawn with her hand, setting her controller on the table.

“Sorry, Bee, but it’s getting late,” she observed, glancing at the windows high up on the factory’s walls and beyond into the black sky. “I should head back home before my dad gets worried.”

“I could drive you?” he offers immediately, already standing and preparing to transform.

“Nah, I came here on my moped,” she reminded him, climbing onto said vehicle and activating her helmet and face mask. “Even in jetpack mode, it’s a tight fit in your trunk.” At Bumblebee’s worried look, she rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine , this isn’t my first time driving at night.”

“If you say so…but call me when you get to the tower or I’ll come and check myself,” Bumblebee threatened.

“Sure, scaredy bot,” she giggled, kicking the moped upright and puttering out of the garage and onto the street. Suddenly left to his own devices, he contemplated playing a few rounds against the game’s computer to hone his skills–after all, he hadn’t been able to play for a few days–but even he couldn’t ignore the exhaustion in his frame for much longer.

Turning off the TV, Bumblebee turned into the hallway with full intentions of retiring to his room, but a sound caught his audio receptors. It rose and fell in melodic waves, echoing eerily throughout the darkened base. But to Bumblebee, it was familiar.

Prowl’s not the type to take late nights, he mused, diverting from his path to instead climb a set of stairs to the third floor of the factory. He knew the ninjabot got up at ungodly times in the morning, but often that meant was the type to slip into recharge early.

The humming grew louder as Bumblebee approached the roll-down screen that obscured the entrance to Prowl’s room. He was about to announce his presence when a voice brought him to a halt.

“Why isn’t it working?” it hissed, frustration bleeding into the deep sound. It was Prowl, all right, but who was he talking to? Bumblebee sidled up to the doorway, standing just out of sight so there wasn’t a chance his shadow fell across the screen. The fact that Prowl hadn’t already pointed out his snooping meant that he was distracted by something else.

Snooping? I’m not snooping, he reassured himself. I’m just looking out for the wellbeing of a friend.

The humming resumed briefly, the noise no longer calming, but rather aggressive, like a swarm of bees. It cut off abruptly, followed by a bang loud enough to make Bumblebee jump. Prowl had either slammed his servo into something, or thrown something across the room.

“This isn’t my fault. Something changed,” he seethed. “Was it your doing?”

He paused, as if listening to another side of the conversation Bumblebee was not privy to.

“Don’t get on my case about that, you’ve gone on plenty of joyrides as well. I didn’t even hit anything,” Prowl continued. Evidently he had stood up at some point and was now pacing—Bumblebee could hear the rhythmic tapping of his pedes against the metal floor.

“He’s actually lost it,” Bumblebee whispered to himself, unable to fully comprehend what he was hearing.

“You had your fun with this frame, now let me have mine. I’m sick and tired of you constantly—“

In his effort to concentrate and fully absorb the words Prowl was speaking, Bumblebee had leaned too far forward, his center of gravity suddenly dragging him downwards. He managed to catch himself before he faceplanted against the ground, but his desperate shuffling had alerted Prowl to his presence. A deathly silence descended upon the hallway.

“Who’s there?” Prowl demanded, the telltale ringing of metal against metal informing Bumblebee that the ninjabot had his shurikens out and ready. Quickly, Bumblebee jumped out from behind the screen, waving his arms through the air.

“Just me, just me!” he shouted desperately. Prowl was in a defensive crouch, brandishing his signature golden throwing stars exactly as Bumblebee had assumed. However, seeing that the threat was nonexistent, his posture relaxed, and he reattached the weapons to his hubcaps.

“Bumblebee, you startled me,” he sighed. The initial shock having worn off, his expression hardened. “What are you doing up here?”

The idea to lie briefly flitted through Bumblebee’s processor, but he knew it wouldn’t do him much good—his best option was to tell the truth, and try to get to the bottom of whatever was going on with Prowl.

“Well, I heard you humming, and you’re not normally up this late, so I figured I’d check up on you. But when I got to your room…” Time to rip the bandaid off, as Sari would say. “Who were you talking to just now?”

If he weren’t looking so closely, he would have missed the minute stiffening of the cyberninja’s joints—the way his fingers curled ever so slightly, and the brief shimmer that passed over his visor as he tilted his head minutely. Eerily, his face remained completely still and serene.

“I was talking to myself,” he said easily with a shrug. “Just organizing my thoughts out loud.”

“Do you often argue with yourself out loud?” Bumblebee pushed. Bumblebee himself was often one to speak his thoughts aloud, for better or for worse, but never had he found himself holding an actual conversation.

“Sometimes it’s good to get the anger out of your system. I recommend it.”

Moonlight filtered through the gently waving leaves of the tree behind Prowl, highlighting his golden chevron in silver. His optics glowed blue against his visor—as opaque and unyielding as ever. Bumblebee couldn’t even begin to fathom what was going on in that processor of his and, seeing that he was fighting a losing battle, Bumblebee let the tension bleed out from his shoulders.

“It’s too late to be dealing with your weirdness. I’m going to recharge,” Bumblebee scoffed, walking out into the hallway.

“Good night to you, too,” came Prowl’s snarky reply as Bumblebee took the first few steps down towards the first floor.

When he lay down on his berth, Bumblebee found that recharge was evading him. The few snippets of argument that he had overheard raced laps around his processor, completely disjointed from one another but all painting a picture, like a puzzle he was missing pieces to.

“Something’s wrong. And not just weird wrong, but wrong wrong,” he said to the black ceiling. “But no one else seems to have noticed–or they have, and don’t care.”

He turned over, looking up at the single star that cut through the light pollution of Detroit and met his optics through the windows running along the high walls of his room.

“They won’t listen to me…without evidence.” Without meaning to, Bumblebee found that he was grinning to himself, a plan beginning to take form in his tired processor. “I’ve been pushing your buttons for stellar cycles. Maybe if I find the right one, you’ll slip up enough to give me the secrets I need…”

Bumblebee was up bright and early the following morning. He earned a few odd glances for his chipper attitude, but he didn’t let that stop him. There was one mech in particular he was looking for.

“Hey, Bulkhead! Thought I’d find you here,” Bumblebee greeted, stepping into his friend’s room without waiting for permission. Said mech was currently preoccupied rearranging art pieces on his wall to fit in between the numerous road signs he had hung up as decoration.

“Oh, hey Bumblebee,” Bulkhead responded casually, slightly readjusting a canvas so that it sat level. “What’s up, little buddy?”

“Thought I told you not to call me that,” Bumblebee griped. No, he couldn’t get distracted. He was on a mission. “Besides that, has Prowl seemed a little down to you? A little uninterested in the crew?”

“Uh, he seems just the right amount of uninterested to me?” Bulkhead said, palpably confused. “I mean, the guy did die and come back to life. I can’t say that would be pleasant to experience.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Bumblebee forged ahead, flapping his servo as if to dispel Bulkhead’s concern. “I was thinking…why don’t you, me, and the old ninjabot take a trip to Dinobot Island? It might cheer him up.”

“Have you asked Prowl if he wants to go?” Bulkhead asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not…exactly,” Bumblebee chuckled sheepishly. “He’s probably more likely to say yes if you ask. That’s why I came here first.”

Bulkhead scratched at his chin, looking longingly at the canvases he had yet to hang.

“I guess visiting the Dinobots couldn’t hurt anything,” he mumbled to himself. “And Prowl did seem a bit more withdrawn than usual last night…”

“Right, yes! Let’s go find him now. It’s a megacycle’s journey acrossthe lake, we should start right away—not to mention we have to find a boat,” Bumblebee urged, pushing the larger mech towards the door.

“What’s the sudden rush?” Optimus questioned as Bumblebee all but shoved Bulkhead into the main assembly room of the factory.

“Seen Prowl around by any chance?” Bumblebee shot back, ignoring the Prime’s inquiry completely.

“Not yet, but he’s usually up by this time—“

“Someone said my name?”

As if out of thin air, Prowl appeared in the doorway behind Bumblebee, who tried to play off his startled jump by leaning against Bulkhead.

“Bumblebee was asking after you,” Optimus answered, returning to his warm mug of oil and Cybertronian-sized newspaper—who knew where he got that thing from.

“Yeah! I was just, uh— we were wondering if…” Bumblebee trailed off, jabbing Bulkhead sharply in the side when he failed to pick up the thread.

“Oh! We were wondering if you’d like to take a short trip to Dinobot Island with us.”

“Why would I do that?”

Bulkhead blinked.

“Well, we haven’t been for a while, and they don’t know about the whole battle thing that went down. Plus, I’m sure they’d be happy to see you,” the large green mech tried to persuade their friend, who was looking increasingly skeptical of the whole idea.

“I don’t know if—“

“I think that sounds like a great suggestion, Bulkhead,” Optimus piped up. “We don’t know how long we’ll be on Earth, and the Dinobots could always use a bit of guidance from someone they trust.”

“You were the one who was against their transfer to the island in the first place, and who was in favor of their scrapping,” Prowl sniped icily back at the Prime.

“That was before I knew they had sparks,” Optimus laughed nervously, taking a large sip from his mug. “Opinions change.”

“Let’s get going before we hit morning traffic,” Bulkhead suggested, not waiting for anyone to follow before transforming and speeding out of the garage.

“And before someone tears someone else’s head off,” Bumblebee shuddered, racing after his friend. A quick check of his rearview mirror proved that Prowl was accompanying them.

Maybe having Prime there was a good thing for once. Prowl would rather stick with us than have to sit and listen to Bossbot , he thought smugly.

Chapter Text

Traffic turned out to not be much of a problem at all—it was still early enough in the solar cycle that the streets were mostly devoid of life, both organic and mechanical. They reached the docks without any major delays.

“Aw, scrap. The next ferry doesn’t leave for another megacycle,” Bulkhead groaned, bending over to read a schedule posted to one of the dock pilings.

“Who says we need the ferry?”

Both Bulkhead and Bumblebee glanced over to where Prowl was already standing on a medium sized fishing vessel with an open deck, shuriken in servo, ready to slice through the rope keeping it tethered to the dock.

“Woah, woah! We can’t just steal a boat,” Bulkhead fretted.

“I’m not one to pass up opportunities for free stuff, but don’t all these floaty things belong to someone?” Bumblebee mused.

“Every time we come by the docks, this specific vessel is always here—I haven’t seen it out of place once. Additionally, these ropes are so soiled and frayed I’m shocked it hasn’t drifted away on its own. I doubt anyone will notice it’s gone, especially if we make our errand quick,” Prowl reasoned.

“I don’t know, Prowl. What would Prime say?” Bulkhead drawled. If the cyberninja weren’t wearing a visor, Bumblebee wouldn’t be shocked if one of his optics was twitching in annoyance.

“Optimus Prime isn’t here, is he, Bulkhead?” Prowl asked, his tone bordering on condescending. After Bulkhead gave a slow shake of his head, Prowl nodded decisively. “Then we’re taking the boat.”

Rude, Bumblebee thought to himself as he hopped aboard the ship, throwing out his arms to keep his balance as the deck dipped substantially with Bulkhead’s added weight. A large part of him was itching to defend his friend, but he needed someone else to see Prowl’s true colors–he couldn’t reveal his hand too soon.

The motor puttered and puffed as they crossed the calm waters of Lake Erie, Prowl nudging the rudder every once in a while to keep them on course. Soon enough, the green treetops adorning Dinobot Island poked above the horizon and grew steadily larger as they approached.

“Land ho!” Bulkhead called out only a nanoclick before the boat bumped harshly along the lakebed, a low groan resounding in the hull as they drove the vessel further into the sand. Bumblebee miraculously managed to keep his footing as they came to an abrupt halt.

“A little more warning would’ve been nice, big guy,” Bumblebee sighed, patting his friend’s arm sympathetically.

“Isn’t it the navigator’s job to make sure we don’t get beached?” Bulkhead asked. They both looked back towards the engine and rudder, only to find that Prowl had already disembarked and was wading through the shallow water towards the treeline. Bumblebee scrambled to follow after him, nearly toppled by the wave resulting from Bulkhead jumping in after him.

“Prowl, hey! Wait up!” Bumblebee shouted as he stumbled up onto the beach, small granules of sand sticking uncomfortably to his water-soaked pedes.

I’m taking a long shower in the washracks when we get back , he grumbled internally.

“We should find the Dinobots before they find us. They’re not well accustomed to unannounced visitors,” Prowl suggested.

“Don’t they usually hang out in that crater at the center of the island?” Bulkhead asked, scratching his head in thought.

“I thought that got blown up when Waspinator went nuclear,” Bumblebee remarked.

“True,” Prowl nodded. “But in all likelihood, the Dinobots have simply found another portion of the island to make their home. It’s not a large area–if we begin the search now, it shouldn’t be too long before we find them. Let’s start by heading towards the previous location of the crater, and then branch out from there.” he urged, turning onto a trodden pathway through the heavily wooded land.

“I wonder what they even get up to all day on the island? I mean, they don’t seem to need energon or oil because of the Allspark energy that created them, so they’re not looking for fuel—and they don’t exactly have comm reception,” Bulkhead chuckled.

“I don’t know, they seem more like the rugged outdoors types, being dinosaurs and all,” Bumblebee replied. “Hey Prowl, you remember that camping trip we—“

“Yes, of course I remember the camping trip, Bumblebee,” Prowl snapped, swatting a branch out of his face. “I may have been covered in space barnacles, but I certainly remember the lecture we received from Prime after the fact.”

“It wasn’t like it was exactly our fault, anyway,” Bumblebee huffed in agreement.

So far, everything has been pretty normal, except for the boat stealing, Bumblebee thought. Prowl seemed a bit irritated at the mention of the camping trip, but nothing out of his usual grouchiness yet. Maybe he needed to bring up the slumber party, or maybe even something from before their arrival on Earth—

“Slag, the path ends here,” Bulkhead groused.

“I thought you knew where you were going, Mr. Dinobot Island Expert,” Bumblebee said in mock offense.

“This trail was cleared to the crater last time I was here. It appears the explosion disrupted some of the landscape since I was last here,” Prowl hummed. “It’s not a problem for us.”

Before either Bulkhead or Bumblebee could react, the cyberninja had two shurikens in his servos, slicing through the dangling vines and grabbing thickets with ease. Bumblebee, although himself somewhat shocked, was satisfied to see that Bulkhead’s jaw was nearly on the floor.

“Uh, Prowl? Buddy?” Bulkhead stuttered, staring on in amazement as their friend continued to carve his own path through the jungle.

“Hm?” Prowl responded, barely sparing a cursory glance over his shoulder as he continued to hack away at the greenery.

“You’re…chopping up plants. And trees. And vines. And flowers.”

The pure bewilderment in Bulkhead’s voice drew Prowl away from his task. He looked down at his throwing stars, as if realizing for the first time he was holding them. Hastily, he stuck them back onto his hubcaps.

“Well, naturally the forest goes through periods of decline, and overgrowth can be detrimental to the ecosystem. Wildfires are actually quite beneficial for new growth and ridding the environment of decay–”

As his friends continued to simply stare at him, Prowl cleared his throat, pushing past them back down the path.

“We’ll find another way towards the crater,” he muttered as he brushed by. Bumblebee moved to follow after him, but he was stopped by a three-pronged pincer on his shoulder.

“That was weird, right?” Bulkhead whispered, even though Prowl was already out of sight and most likely couldn’t overhear them.

“Yeah. You thought so, too?” Bumblebee played along. “He’s been a little off since we got here, hasn’t he?”

“I don’t know, I thought he might still be touchy from the whole dying thing…” Bulkhead trailed off, the gears in his processor visibly spinning.

“Let’s make sure we don’t lose him in the jungle, weirdness or no weirdness,” Bumblebee said as he shoved Bulkhead into motion in order to catch up with the ninjabot.

“Prowl loves nature. He was so upset about that bird’s nest he knocked out of its tree while he was fighting alongside Lockdown. But just now, he probably decapitated at least…twenty baby birds,” Bulkhead mused as they walked.

“I didn’t see any baby birds,” Bumblebee raised an eyebrow.

“I was exaggerating,” Bulkhead waved him off. “What I mean is–”

“What took you two so long?”

As they rounded a corner, both of the Autobots were caught in the crosshairs of one of Prowl’s signature scowls.

“Uh, sightseeing?” Bumblebee replied sheepishly.

“It’s all green and brown, you’ve seen it before and you’ll see it again. Let’s move,” Prowl snapped. He began to make his way down a smaller, less traveled path, snaking through areas with less plant density. Bumblebee could just begin to make out blue sky in the gaps between branches above his head.

He and Bulkhead trailed behind Prowl, purposefully allowing distance to grow between them.

“That was weird, too,” Bulkhead pointed out in a low voice. “Prowl loves taking his time on Dinobot Island. Whenever we’ve visited, I’ve had to drag him away from an interesting flower or bug so that Bossbot wouldn’t miss us back at base.”

“Maybe we’re just being paranoid and it is a side effect of…y’know…coming back?” Bumblebee goaded further, trying to see how far he could push his buddy.

“I don’t know. It seems like more than that,” Bulkhead murmured thoughtfully.

Seed: planted , Bumblebee congratulated himself. If he managed to convince someone else about Prowl’s weirdness, maybe the others would be more likely to take his concerns seriously. So far, Bumblebee hadn’t seen much more than mild agitation from Prowl, but it was obvious that something was bothering the cyberninja. If there was a problem they could help fix, he wanted to see his teammate get better.

“Look! The trees are opening up,” Bumblebee pointed eagerly. Ample rays of sunlight trickled down to the forest floor as they crested the ridge at the edge of what was once a larger crater. Now, it was an even larger caldera, filled with the blue waters of Lake Erie, sunlight rippling across its surface.

Bumblebee took a glance around the edge of the water, but he saw no trace of large, reptilian robots.

“Well, I don’t see them around here,” Bulkhead voiced Bumblebee’s own assessment. “Where do we want to try next?”

“We can go left, or right. Because we don’t know where they could be, either way will give us the same odds of finding them,” Prowl stated. “Although, at the pace we’re going, I would almost suggest we head back to the mainland. It’s obvious the Dinobots don’t want to be found. They likely know we’re here already, thanks to the pterodon.”

“What, we’re not even gonna try?” Bulkhead scoffed. “We came all this way! It’s not like there’s many more interesting things happening back at base.”

“This was us trying,” Prowl sighed, gesturing at the water-filled crater. “But with their home destroyed, it’s significantly more difficult to find them.”

“Doing a circuit of the island wouldn’t take that long–you said so yourself,” Bulkhead argued.

“Just because it wouldn’t take long doesn’t mean I wish to spend my precious time on this dinosaur-infested island,” Prowl bit back with much more vitriol than Bumblebee had expected.

“And what else are you filling that time up with, huh? Holing yourself up in your room away from everyone else?” Bulkhead frowned, tapping a claw against his own armor in irritation.

A flicker of movement caught Bumblebee’s attention at the very edge of his vision. Just above the treeline on the opposite side of the expanse of water, he could barely make out the flapping of large wings. A haunting caw echoed across the forest—Bumblebee looked at his team for support, but Bulkhead and Prowl were too engaged in their bickering to notice.

“Uh, guys—“

“Intruders!”

The ground shook underneath Bumblebee’s pedes, nearly knocking him to the ground as Grimlock exploded out of the undergrowth, charging directly towards the three Autobots in his dino mode. He gnashed his teeth in excitement, his tail snapping branches as it whipped side to side behind him. His claws left deep gouges in the dirt, and sunlight glinted off of their sharpened edges as he drew nearer.

This is normally the part where Prowl steps up for us and calms Grimlock down before he steps on someone, Bumblebee thought frantically.

On cue, Prowl moved in front of himself and Bulkhead in a flash. A flicker of relief alighted in Bumblebee’s systems, but it was quickly extinguished when the telltale sound of a weapon being deployed graced his audio receptors, and Prowl had his laser scalpel leveled squarely with the space between Grimlock’s optics.

Reeling in surprise, the Dinobot stumbled over his own pedes in an attempt not to be skewered by the blade, hitting the ground with a solid thunk as his momentum carried him forward. He lay where he stopped without moving, temporarily stunned by the sudden display of force.

“Prowl!” Bulkhead shouted.

The cyberninja flinched— flinched!— at the sudden ruckus, retracting his sword modification and turning to face his teammates.

“What?” he grumbled defensively, crossing his arms over his chassis.

“You could’ve hurt Grimlock!” Bulkhead continued at a loud volume—enough so that even Bumblebee was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“He was charging at us—what was I supposed to do, let him run us off the cliff?” Prowl shot back.

“The Dinobots are territorial. You know that better than anyone. He’s just protecting his home,” Bulkhead admonished.

“Grimlock try to scare off intruders. Intruders not really intruders.” He paused, as if he were thinking hard about something. “Cyclebot Grimlock friend, but Cyclebot mean to Grimlock,” the Dinobot pouted as he pulled himself up off of the ground, shaking clumps of dirt from his plating.

“See, you hurt his feelings,” Bulkhead said accusingly. Prowl’s expression was rigid with tension, as if he were holding back a storm.

“Grimlock, you should know better than to attack your allies,” he seethed through grit teeth.

“Swoop saw intruders, me Grimlock attack intruders. Me Grimlock protect home,” Grimlock growled. Bulkhead motioned towards Grimlock, his expression very clearly reading as ‘ I told you so. ’

“Swoop should be able to tell the difference between invading forces and Autobots!” Prowl said in exasperation.

“Me Grimlock seeing less difference,” he sniffed. Bumblebee caught the low sound of what he swore was Prowl’s sword modification powering up again.

“Okay, okay, enough!” Bulkhead demanded, stepping between the two mechs. “Grimlock, we just wanted to see how you and the other Dinobots were doing. Now that we’ve seen that you’re okay, we’ll leave you alone. We’re sorry for trespassing,” the large bot said with utmost sincerity.

“Me Grimlock…sorry, too,” the Dinobot muttered, looking down as he shuffled his claws through the tall grass. “For attacking friends.”

A guttural caw far above their heads caused Bumblebee to jump as Swoop soared across the topmost tree branches. Grimlock let out a matching roar and charged after the other Dinobot, disappearing into the foliage, the intruders instantaneously forgotten.

The entire trek back to the fishing boat was filled with a cold silence. Prowl walked ahead of Bumblebee and Bulkhead once more to lead them back to the boat, and Bulkhead didn’t look in his direction once. Bumblebee wanted to pry into his friend’s thoughts, but he felt that if he asked at that moment, he would only end up getting his own head bitten off.

I’ll ask about it when we get back to base , he schemed, stepping carefully onto the rotting wood of the deck.

Bumblebee knew in his spark that Prowl would never actually hurt the Dinobots—he had spent far too much effort saving them from being scrapped in the first place to dispatch them now.

He did look pretty murdery at the end there, though, he mused to himself.

In the absence of idle chatter, the ride back to Detroit stretched infinitely long. Bumblebee went so far as to entertain himself by dipping his servo into the lake water and pulling it back out again, watching the droplets cascade from his plating. But even that didn’t last for long—he wouldn’t hear the end of it from Ratchet if he developed any sort of rust.

When they finally did get off of the boat, Prowl looked particularly smug. No one even spared them a glance as they climbed onto the dock, tying the vessel with a fresh length of rope. No dock managers, no frantic owners, no police—the boat really hadn’t been missed.

After another grueling, silent ride back to base, they received a warm greeting from their resident medic. Or, about as warm as Ratchet could manage.

“Is this what you young bots call a ‘quick errand?’” he griped from where he sat on the large couch. “You missed Sari coming over for a visit.”

“What? You should have commed us!” Bumblebee squawked. He had considered inviting Sari on their little escapade in Dinobot Island, but considering how things had went down, he was now glad he hadn’t. She had had to witness the incident at the dojo, and he was pretty sure she was still wary of Prowl after that stunt—he didn’t want to make it any more awkward for her.

“She just wanted to check in and make sure we were all settled on Earth again,” Optimus supplied from where he was standing at the central console. “Although, I think she was looking for someone in particular,” he said, his optics sliding towards Prowl. The cyberninja remained as stoic and unreadable as ever.

Optimus looked as if he meant to say something more, but he was cut off by the dial tone of the communications terminal.

“You expecting a call, Bossbot?” Bumblebee asked, sidling over to stand beside the Prime.

“Not from Sentinel, no,” Optimus replied, confusion clearly written across his face.

“Ooo, someone’s in trouble,” Bumblebee snickered. The rest of the team drifted to stand in view of the camera. Optimus shook his head, pressing a button to receive the call.

“Optimus Prime!” Sentinel’s voice blasted from the speakers, nearly blowing Bumblebee’s audio receptors out.

“Yes, Sentinel?” Optimus sighed.

“It’s Sentinel Magnus ,” the blue mech reminded, his optics narrowed, “and you have some explaining to do. Why is it that the prize heroes of Cybertron are not even on the planet when I come looking for you? And why was I not informed of this sudden departure?”

“My apologies, Sentinel…sir, but we’ve returned to Earth for the time being. It’s only temporary, we just thought that—“

“You thought WRONG!” Sentinel exploded. “The populace of Cybertron is still all in a tizzy about the continued Decepticon menace, and they don’t have any reassurance from those who are meant to protect them. How do you think it looks to them that even the heroes of the planet are fleeing?”

“I thought you didn’t like that you had to rely on our names for the sake of image?” Optimus said, an eyebrow raised.

“I never said that. I never said anything of the sort. And I’m not relying on anyone’s name but my own, because I’m the Magnus. So, there,” the blue Autobot nodded in self satisfaction, having won whatever argument he had assumed he was having.

“But there aren’t even any Decepticons left to protect the planet from,” Ratchet spoke up. “With Megatron imprisoned, they’re about as dangerous as a brood of lost ducklings. Certainly not a threat to the powerful Elite Guard, I would assume?”

“Well, of course we would be able to handle any stragglers that try and release their leader—even though I don’t know what a duckling is,” Sentinel puffed, preening at the medic’s sarcastic compliment. “But it would still put the minds of the people at ease to know that the mechs responsible for Megatron’s capture were actually on Cybertron protecting them instead of gallivanting off on some backwater organic world.”

“I think our acting Magnus has a point,” Prowl spoke up. Four pairs of optics turned simultaneously in his direction with obvious confusion. “Keeping calm on Cybertron is always a priority. And our presence will act as a deterrent to further Decepticon activity.”

Bumblebee blinked in utter shock.

“I see your ninjabot has finally developed some sense,” Sentinel chuckled. “Although I assure you the Elite Guard is more than capable—“

“We’ll be back within the solar cycle,” Optimus cut Sentinel off before he could further pat himself on the back. “Just give us a few megacycles to get through the spacebridge.”

Optimus cut the transmission before Sentinel could reply.

“You heard the plan. Go and pack whatever you want to bring with us, and be ready to rendezvous with Omega Supreme in a megacycle,” the Prime announced before walking off himself towards his quarters.

Bumblebee grabbed a hold of Prowl’s arm before the mech could retreat to his own room.

“What kind of slag are you spewing? Did you drink some bad oil this morning?” Bumblebee laughed, the tiniest edge of nervousness in his voice. He couldn’t exactly be sure how Prowl would react to things now—the ninjabot had become unpredictable since his resurrection.

What a strange world he lived in.

“Hm?”

“That stuff about Sentinel? And ‘keeping calm on Cybertron is always a priority?’”

He was met with a blank stare. The smile dropped away from Bumblebee’s face.

“You were just squaring up with Sentinel yesterday for using our status as heroes to pad his own reputation. Why suddenly suck up to him? We both know you’re not that great with authority.”

“Perhaps I see reason in what Sentinel says. And perhaps I want to get off of this rock and back to Cybertron,” Prowl hummed, firmly extracting himself from Bumblebee’s grip and disappearing into the bowels of the base.

The entire megacycle it took for the team to prepare, and the entire ride to Omega Supreme, Bumblebee turned Prowl’s words over in his mind.

He’s up to something , he swore. I just can’t figure out what . And I can’t even talk to Bulkhead about the whole Dinobot Island situation now, not with the move back to Cybertron.

Why be so eager to leave Earth? As far as Bumblebee could tell, there wasn’t a whole lot on their home planet waiting for Prowl aside from the praise of the public, and the cyberninja was never a mech who much cared for public attention.

The five repair crew bots loaded onto Omega Supreme, taking their seats on the bridge. It was only when they were lifting into the air that a thought occurred to him.

“Scrap, we didn’t tell Sari we were leaving!” he exclaimed, already preparing to dial her number from his comm.

“We have to go through Sumdac Tower to access the spacebridge, anyway, and we need to notify Professor Sumdac for that. We’ll see her there,” Bulkhead reassured.

“Fine…I guess,” Bumblebee grumbled, moving his servo away from his comm link.

“Why are we heading back to Cybertron so soon, Ratchet? I thought we were here for an extended visit?” Omega’s disembodied voice asked as they piloted the ship towards Sumdac Tower.

“Political nonsense. Don’t worry about it, old friend, you’ll get us there safe and sound, and that’s all that matters,” was Ratchet’s disgruntled response.

“Let’s dock at Sumdac Tower to give our farewells to the Sumdacs and set up the trip through the spacebridge,” Optimus commanded. After a collective nod from the crew, they made it to the tower in record time. They didn’t exactly have to worry about the lunch rush two hundred feet in the air.

A strong feeling of deja vu swept over Bumblebee as he once again departed from Omega Supreme’s cargo bay onto the open roof of Sumdac Tower. This time, however, they had a much more receptive greeting.

“Bumblebee! What are you guys doing here? I’m just helping my dad fix a few bugs after our last jump.” Before Bumblebee could get a word in, she was already forging on. “How was Dinobot Island? How were the Dinobots? Are they doing okay? I know they weren’t all that friendly the last time I saw them, but that was only because of Prometheus Black–or, Meltdown, I guess. You should’ve told me, I would’ve come!”

“Sorry, Sari, it was really last minute—and early in the morning,” he apologized, crouching down to allow Sari to climb into his palm. “The Dinobots are doing fine…in their own way. As for why we’re here—“

“We’re heading back to Cybertron. Professor Sumdac, we would like to ask you if the spacebridge is operational,” Optimus broke in. Bumblebee watched as a crestfallen expression marred the previous cheerful smile adorning Sari’s face.

“You’re leaving already?” she pouted.

“Sentinel’s being his usual self—a complete aft,” Bumblebee said, sticking out his tongue. At the very least, this managed to pull a giggle from Sari. He hated to see her so down. But then he caught something. “Wait, ‘you’re leaving?’ Are you not coming with us?”

Sari glanced over her shoulder, down to the ground where her father stood twiddling his thumbs nervously. She returned her gaze to her friend, a tired grin pulling at her cheeks.

“Not that Cybertron wasn’t amazing to see, technically being my home planet and all, but I was looking forward to spending a bit more time with my dad. I’ve got the rest of my life to explore my origins, but he…doesn’t. And it’s nice to slow down every once in a while, y’know?” Sari paused, her expression souring. “Also, Cybertronians aren’t very friendly towards organics, and it was getting kinda annoying to always have to wear my helmet.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Bumblebee sighed.

“Chin up, bug bot,” Sari laughed, tapping a comforting hand against Bumblebee’s chassis. “It’s not like you’ll never see me again. We’ll only be a spacebridge apart.”

“But you have to promise to visit sometimes,” Bumblebee said with a pout of his own.

“Only if you visit, too.” She held up a pinky finger, which the yellow mech carefully interlinked with his own, giving her arm a good yank as they shook. “And that applies to the rest of you lugs, as well.”

Although Bulkhead and Optimus had moved to the spacebridge console to look over their destination coordinates, they tossed a friendly smile Sari’s way.

“As much as this backwater planet grinds my gears at times, I don’t think I could stay away for all that long,” Ratchet winked.

Prowl remained silently where he stood, leaning against the loading bay doors. Bumblebee wasn’t even sure he was looking in their direction. If Sari noticed his standoffishness, she didn’t let it phase her–with a quick wave in the ninjabot’s direction, she hopped back to the ground and dashed off to aid her father with the spacebridge operations.

It was only a few short clicks before the telltale whirr of the spacebridge echoed across the roofs of Detroit, and the Autobots were piling back onto their ship.

“I thought some of the bridges were still out because of Shockwave’s meddling?” Bumblebee commented, looking out the front windshield as the familiar blue vortex swirled to life before them.

“It appears Sentinel is eager to have us back on Cybertron as quickly as possible. He gave us priority clearance,” Optimus explained.

Against his better judgement–and many safety regulations–Bumblebee quickly unbuckled himself from his jump seat. He squished his face against the glass of the windshield, optics trained on the small figure of Sari. He knew she probably couldn’t see him, but he waved his goodbyes, anyway. He may not be leaving her behind forever, but they had been practically attached at the hip for stellar cycles.

A sudden servo tugged him back from the window, practically throwing him into his seat as Omega Supreme began to inch towards the spacebridge.

“You better sit down and strap in if you don’t want your circuits scrambled,” Ratchet chastised.

“More than they already are?” Prowl chuckled from across the bridge.

“Har, har, the ninjabot’s got jokes,” Bumblebee rolled his optics. He was jolted as they passed through the spacebridge, his tanks in turmoil from the sudden change of pressure and position. The Iaconian skyline splayed below them, its roads and walkways interconnected like a spider’s web.

“Off to the docks,” Ratchet instructed Omega Supreme. “Wouldn’t want to make the traffic any worse.”

Indeed, a line of ships stretched towards the horizon, each patiently waiting their turn to use the spacebridge. Smugness wormed its way onto Bumblebee’s face.

“I suppose that’s a perk of being the heroes of Cybertron–we get to cut the line,” he snarked, throwing his servos behind his head and propping his pedes up on the dashboard–which were quickly swatted off by Ratchet.

“Figures you would be one to so readily latch onto that title,” Prowl said haughtily. The ground was fast approaching–Bumblebee could make out individual bots as they scurried from place to place like ants in the bustling Iaconian port.

“Oh, yeah? And what was that big speech of yours to Sentinel, then? The one that had us high tailing it back to Earth?” Bumblebee shot back.

“If you two are going to bicker, please do it outside of my audio range,” Ratchet groused.

“What? Nope, no bickering here,” Bumblebee assured, already slipping out of the seat’s restraints before Omega Supreme had even finished docking. They hadn’t been on the ship for all that long, but he was eager to move—even stepping out onto the docks would be enough.

But someone else beat him to it. Something bumped into his shoulder, nearly sending him crashing into the doorway–he caught himself right before his face connected with the orange metal.

“Hey! Excuse you, ninjabot,” Bumblebee huffed.

“If you’re in such a rush, maybe you should move a bit faster. I thought that was your singular talent,” Prowl threw over his shoulder.

“Watch how quick I can be when I beat your aft,” the yellow bot muttered under his breath, earning him a glare from Optimus. As tempted as he was to stew in his own wounded pride, an idea formed at the back of his processor.

He managed to catch up to Prowl just as the mech was stepping off of Omega Supreme. What Bumblebee wasn’t expecting was a welcome party.

“Jazz! And…Arcee? What are you guys doing here?” Bumblebee inquired, skidding to a halt before he could plow into Prowl’s back.

“What? A mech can’t take some time out of his day to welcome a few friends home?” Jazz chuckled. It seemed any tension from their last encounter had been forgotten for the moment—he had that same relaxed smile as any other time Bumblebee had seen him.

“I did a few rounds through the circuits I used to frequent in Iacon, but it doesn’t seem like many Autobots I knew in my day are still around,” Arcee stated. Despite the somberness of her words, there was a lack of sadness in her tone. Bumblebee reveled in just how differently she spoke about the war than Ratchet—she wasn’t nearly so jaded.

Guess that comes with not having to be awake for the aftermath of everything, he mused.

“It appears Ratchet may be one of the only ones left,” Arcee continued. “Is he still with Omega Supreme?”

“Yeah, he’s probably doing some closing diagnostics before we head off to our accommodations. He’ll be in the bridge—I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some company,” Bumblebee said.

“Alright, thank you. Excuse me,” she said more quietly to Jazz as she slipped around Bumblebee, squeezing past Optimus and Bulkhead as they exited the cargo bay.

“Nice femme, that one. She and Ratchet seem happy as a pair,” Jazz commented.

“Wait, what—?”

“I would like to excuse myself, as well,” Prowl spoke up abruptly, cutting Bumblebee off.

“Woah, woah, wait a click. Don’t break the party up before it’s even started,” Jazz admonished, wrapping an arm around Prowl’s shoulders, to which the other cyberninja promptly shook him off.

“I have business to attend to,” he scowled.

“Oh? And how well did that go for you last time?” Bumblebee blurted out. Despite Prowl’s icy glare, he forged onward: “Everytime you run off claiming to have ‘business to attend to,’ everything goes to scrap! That little stunt with Lockdown, keeping the Dinobots a secret for so long, not to mention your whole episode in the dojo–”

“Bumblebee.”

Prowl’s voice was so cold that the yellow mech could practically feel frost forming at the seams of his armor. He resisted the urge to take a step back–no matter how angry Prowl got, he wouldn’t hurt him. And Bumblebee needed to use this opportunity to its fullest extent.

He had to use his single greatest asset: his obnoxious personality.

“No, Prowl, I think you need to hear this.” Bumblebee promptly ignored the increasingly severe expressions he was receiving from the rest of the gathered bots. “We’re your team. We’re here to help you–that’s why we took your sorry aft off of that meteor when we first found you. And I know I’m not the bot you want to hear it from, but even I have a spark. Believe it or not, I care! And I hope nobody has a holocorder on them because I’d rather take my chances with the Decepticons than ever have that used against me!” He paused to take a breath. “Whatever’s got you so worked up, it might help to talk about it for once. Primus knows you’re not the mech to do that, but it doesn’t even have to be me. It could be Bulkhead, Optimus, your old pal Jazz. If it’s about the protoforms, you can–”

Bumblebee wasn’t given the chance to finish his sentence. Constricting fingers latched around his throat–not hard enough to completely cut off the circulation of his vents, but with enough force to lift him to the tips of his pedes. He scrambled desperately at Prowl’s grip, his vocalizer only managing to squeak out a thin hiss of static.

“You don’t speak of that. Ever. ”

Bulkhead nearly wretched Prowl’s arm out of its socket as he pulled him away from Bumblebee–the cyberninja released his hold, allowing Bumblebee to desperately cycle air through his vents. Jazz stepped in between the two, likely to prevent any further altercations.

“What the SLAG is wrong with you?” Bulkhead shouted, his voice as shrill as Bumblebee had ever heard it as he kept Prowl locked in the confines of his large claw, despite the smaller mech’s attempts to wiggle free.

“What has gotten into you, Prowl?! I have never tolerated unnecessary violence, especially not against fellow Autobots,” Optimus scolded like he may a misbehaving sparkling, but nothing in his expression was playful. It was about as dour as the Prime could possibly get.

Bumblebee rubbed at his neck, still shaking off the shock of being nearly choked. Jazz looked torn between checking that his yellow friend was okay and helping Bulkhead subdue the still struggling Prowl. Turns out, he didn’t have to decide.

“What is all the ruckus out here?” Ratchet grouched from where he stood with Arcee at the end of Omega Supreme’s loading bay tunnel. Using Bulkhead’s momentary distraction, Prowl escaped the confines of his momentary prison, knocking shoulders with Jazz and not even giving Bumblebee a passing glance as he walked by. Instinctively, Bumblebee took a step back–if Prowl had seen the reaction, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“Do not follow me.”

“Prowl, I don’t think it’s the best idea–”

“I said ,” Prowl snarled, his head whipping around to glare at the Prime, “do not. Follow. Me.”

The sounds of a transformation filled the suddenly silent docks, and several workers had to stumble out of Prowl’s way as he sped by.

“Would anyone care to fill me in as to exactly what is going on here?” Ratchet demanded, taking Arcee’s servo in his own to help her down from the ship.

“Just…check Bumblebee over for any injuries,” Optimus sighed, rubbing between his optics in exhaustion.

“What? Why would I–”

“Don’t worry, Prime, I’ll catch up to him and talk some sense into the old shut in,” Jazz saluted, cutting Ratchet off and preparing to transform. Optimus held his servo up to stop him.

“I think some space will do Prowl good. He’s obviously not in the talking mood. Let’s leave him be for now and he’ll come to us at his own pace,” Optimus said firmly. Bumblebee could tell Jazz thought differently, but he backed down nonetheless.

Probably for the best, he thought ruefully as Ratchet approached him. He could still feel the imprints of each of Prowl’s fingers where he had squeezed.

“What’s this about injuries?” Ratchet asked, keeping his voice low.

“The slagger choked me out,” Bumblebee replied, rolling his optics. He wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

“Wh–what?!” Ratchet’s jaw dropped low enough that Bumblebee was concerned he’d scratch his paint on the rough ground below.

“Well, I say choked out, he just grabbed me by the neck and lifted me a few inches off the–”

“ Kid,” the medic said in exasperation. “What could you have possibly done to tick him off that badly?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Bumblebee squawked in indignation. “I pushed a few wrong buttons. It’s his problem if he goes ballistic over someone trying to help him with his stupid glitched processor.”

Ratchet gave him a long, calculating look as he pulled a scanner out from his subspace and ran the luminescence over Bumblebee’s dented neck cables.

“–better be back at the accommodations within three megacycles, or I’m going to have the Elite Guard on your tail. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Optimus clicked off his comm link, turning back towards his team, his shoulders sagging.

“What? Trying to negotiate with the crazy bot?” Bumblebee snarked.

“I left him a message. He didn’t pick up when I called,” Optimus said diplomatically.

“How is he, Ratchet?” Arcee inquired quietly, sliding up beside the medibot.

“Just a few dings, nothing a buffer and a night’s recharge won’t fix,” Ratchet grunted, storing his scanner away.

“Good. If he did any worse, I’d have to double the beat down he’s getting the next time I see him,” Bumblebee huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Come on, little buddy, you don’t mean that,” Bulkhead attempted to diffuse his friend’s anger to no avail, fidgeting nervously with his claws.

“Not that I don’t think Prowl was out of line, but you mentioned something that set him off. Something about protoforms…?” Optimus trailed off, looking expectantly at Bumblebee. When the yellow mech merely cast his optics downward, Jazz stepped in quickly.

“Not our story to tell, I’m afraid. And it doesn’t exactly seem like he wants it told, either,” the cyberninja said awkwardly.

“I’m not…I’m not mad, okay?” Bumblebee spoke up eventually, shuffling his pedes below him. “Well, I am pretty mad, but it’s complicated. We’ve gotta do something to help Prowl. Something obviously isn’t right,” he explained, on the edge of pleading. A glance passed between the rest of the bots present–a glance Bumblebee really didn’t like.

“Sometimes you can only help those who wish to be helped,” Optimus recited, placing a comforting servo on Bumblebee’s shoulder.

“But Prowl’s part of the team!” Bumblebee protested, stepping away from the Prime, his servo dropping to his side. “We nearly lost him–actually, we did lose him–and he comes back and is pushing us away again.”

“Prowl’s a mech who’s used to dealing with things on his own,” Jazz piped up. “I met him a few times while he was still training under Master Yoketron–wasn’t the most cuddly of guys.”

“And he’s gone through something that none of us could possibly imagine. He may think that he doesn’t belong like he used to,” Optimus reasoned.

“Then we make him belong!” Bumblebee threw his servos into the air in frustration. “Wasn’t that the whole schtick of our team? Society’s rejects thrown onto a backwater organic planet who have to learn how to be a family? We’ve already been through this– all of this.”

Two large servos suddenly appeared beneath Bumblebee’s arms, hoisting him into the air with profound gentleness. He found himself deposited onto Bulkhead’s broad shoulder, towering over even the tallest of the stacked crates in the docking area.

“Sometimes there are things you just can’t control,” Bulkhead said mournfully as they moved together towards the shimmering towers of Iacon.

“So we’re giving up.”

“No, we’re taking our time,” Optimus corrected. “He’s always come back to us before. There’s no reason for that to change now.”

It turned out the Elite Guard had managed to score them some pretty cushy accommodations. Because none of them had been on Cybertron for tens of stellar cycles, they didn’t have any permanent residences left on the planet to shelter within. For some of the crew, they hadn’t had any even before they were shoved onto the spacebridge repair crew. 

So, naturally, the Elite Guard and Council of Cybertron, as thanks for the capture of Megatron, had put them up in a fancy highrise in the middle of Iacon. Bumblebee wasn’t sure he had ever stepped into a building this nice—and they had a whole floor to themselves!

His own room consisted of an open space, one wall covered in floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the state-of-the-art city, with an oil dispenser, a high-quality berth to rest on, and a large, private washracks. There was a bright overhead light that he had promptly turned off as soon as he stepped pede in his quarters to get a better look at the city. Because he hadn’t had anything to pack from Earth, that was all that occupied the room. He would have brought his game system, but Cybertron didn’t exactly have the infrastructure to support a human-produced gaming system.

Bumblebee reclined on his berth. Although his systems informed him he was at a low enough energy level that recharge was optimal, he had no real desire to power offline. It was at the later stages of Cybertron’s solar cycle—two of the orbiting moons were visible, and traffic was sparse below in the streets.

One of the rooms neighboring his own was occupied by Bulkhead. He had heard a few large bumps from that direction, but it had been quiet for longer than a megacycle. The big guy was probably snoozing in the best berth he had encountered in his life.

The other room had been reserved for Prowl, but it had been eerily silent. Not that Prowl made a habit of knocking on walls, but Bumblebee had a suspicion that he would have heard something by now if the room was actually in use. He checked his internal chronometer—Prime’s three megacycle warning was nearly up.

Just when Bumblebee was sure they’d be making a call to the Elite Guard for a search and rescue party (rescuing Prowl from himself , obviously), the soft chime of the elevator penetrated through Bumblebee’s room door. There was a click, and then the telltale noise of a door sliding shut.

Looks like he’s back, he shrugged to himself, not willing to interrupt his view.

For once, it may be in his best interest to listen to the advice of others. So far, it seemed his efforts to connect with his estranged teammate had proved completely successful…in driving Prowl further away.

A memory surfaced within his processor–shortly after Sari’s father had disappeared, when Bulkhead and himself had been trying to cheer the poor girl up. Prowl had advised them to give her space, and allow her the peace of mind to work through her own anxieties before they piled more on top.

Practice what you preach…or whatever the humans say, Bumblebee chuckled softly to himself. Or maybe it was ‘treat others how you want to be treated’…I guess that makes more sense .

Bumblebee stilled, the small smile slipping off of his face as hundreds of lights glittered in his vision—he could hardly tell the difference between the skyline and the stars beyond.

Since when have I ever listened to anyone’s advice, especially Prowl’s?

Pushing himself up from the berth, Bumblebee trekked towards the door. It swished open silently at his command, and closed right behind him as he tiptoed out into the hallway. Even the lights outside the room were dim–he glanced over his shoulder uncertainly, but nothing broke the stillness of the night.

He paused in front of Prowl’s door and stood for a few nanoclicks, gathering his wits. If this went badly, he only had himself to blame–but he wouldn’t know if he never tried.

“Hey, Prowl, could I come in for a sec?” Bumblebee started, keeping his voice low, but knowing it would project easily into the room. When several moments passed and there was no sign of movement from inside, Bumblebee tried again: “What I said at the docks…it wasn’t my place. You’ve gotta take things at your own pace, right? So I just wanted to…to apologize, and see if we couldn’t start over.”

If Bumblebee strained his audio receptors, he swore he could pick up the faint sound of scrapping–a teeth-chattering, goosebump-inducing scratching at the very edge of his hearing. Unable to quell his curiosity, he pressed his head against the cool metal surface of the door, focusing in on the unfamiliar noise.

Evidently, Prowl had not locked the door when he had entered. Sensing Bumblebee’s life signature, the panel swept aside, depositing Bumblebee face first onto the floor. He scrambled to pick himself up, already backpedaling towards the door.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to–”

The room before him was completely devoid of life. A light breeze feathered across Bumblebee’s plating from the carefully carved hole in one of the large windows–just the right size for a bot to slip out. Bumblebee raced to the opening, looking apprehensively towards the ground many stories below.

But to his exasperation, as well as a healthy dose of relief, he saw the blue flames of Prowl’s jet boosters as the mech carefully lowered himself along the side of the building.

“That slagger,” Bumblebee muttered, forcefully pushing himself away from the window and practically jumping into the waiting elevator. He didn’t have the slightest clue as to where the cyberninja may be sneaking off to, but something deep in his spark told him it wasn’t anything good.

He debated calling someone–Optimus, Ratchet, maybe even Bulkhead or Jazz–as he sprinted out of the elevator, blowing by the lone receptionist on duty.

They’re probably all in recharge , he thought, catching a glimpse of shimmering gold as it rounded a corner, and promptly running after it. None of them were nearly as fast as he was. If he waited for backup, he would lose Prowl entirely.

Besides, it’s nothing I can’t handle, he thought, nothing but ice cold determination pushing him onward.

Chapter Text

Bumblebee transformed into vehicle mode, revving his engine as he merged onto one of Iacon’s busiest freeways. He could just barely make out the shape of the motorcycle weaving in and out of lanes ahead of him, most definitely breaking many local speed laws. Maybe he’d get pulled over–-and then Bumblebee would get to laugh at him, and he could drag his teammate back to their accommodations.

But much to his disappointment, Prowl swerved onto an offramp–so suddenly that Bumblebee nearly missed the turn, receiving a number of irritated honks as he was forced to break and cut across two lanes. Although he was several car lengths behind Prowl, it was just the two of them on the ramp; it was nearly impossible that the ninjabot didn’t know he was being followed.

But whether he was aware or not, no incoming calls were made to Bumblebee as he continued his pursuit. They traveled down a few poorly lit alleyways filled with the unwanted refuse of the city, plenty of broken pieces of furniture, medical equipment, countless heaping piles of empty oil cans, and even some Autobots curled up and huddled in the darkest of corners. Bumblebee rolled past it all, keeping his engine at a low hum so as to be as unobtrusive as possible.

When they finally broke through into a more populous sector, Bumblebee immediately recognized where they were. A long, well-maintained promenade stretched before him, the buildings looming over the open road pristine and shining. And at the end of it all—

The Hall of Heroes? Bumblebee questioned as he puttered out into the street. Prowl’s alt mode was about halfway between himself and the grand structure, some half a mile ahead of him. The yellow subcompact stuck close to whatever shelter he could find, trying to mask his presence the best he could with awnings and lampposts as he trailed after his teammate.

Just before the motorcycle entered into the well-lit courtyard directly preceding the steps up to the Hall of Heroes, Prowl veered to the right down another dingy alley, forcing Bumblebee to follow. It was at this point that the cyberninja finally decided to do something about his tail–in a flicker of pixelated light, his vehicle mode disappeared from Bumblebee’s view.

Momentarily stumped, Bumblebee slowed to a halt, scanning the area ahead of him with his optical sensors carefully. He knew Prowl preferred to disguise himself as objects because of the logistical nightmare of attempting to cloak himself into invisibility with his holoprojector, but he had either been practicing the technique or was putting an extra amount of effort into hiding himself. Bumblebee couldn’t spy a single flicker of movement as he began to creep forward once more.

I may not be able to see you, but I can still follow you , he thought with determination. A quick ping from his internal scanner showed an energy signature–surprisingly weak–moving slowly down an intersecting street. Once again, Bumblebee was hot on the trail.

It wasn’t long before they returned to the Hall of Heroes, this time approaching from the wrong side. Bumblebee transformed and peeked around the corner. On either side of him, uninterrupted by windows or other decorations, stretched the white side paneling of the building. He’d been inside the Hall once or twice, but had never realized its scale–it looked absolutely massive and desolate from the outside.

And directly in front of Bumblebee was a small emergency exit door, left slightly ajar, with the wires connected to its motion sensor alarm expertly severed. Prowl’s energy signature had become untraceable once he entered the building, but there was no mistaking it–for whatever reason, he had broken into one of Cybertron’s most protected and sacred structures.

Is it still breaking and entering if I wasn’t the one to do the breaking? he wondered as he set a careful pede inside, letting his optics adjust to the dimness within. A corridor stretched away from him, so far that he was unable to make out the end–the floor was stained concrete, and the corrugated walls and ceiling were peppered with exposed pipes and wires. It seemed like this was part of the off-limits section of the Hall, where Cybertronian artifacts were stored for preservation and maintenance was performed on the rest of the building. Although it was late into the closed hours, weak lights still flickered overhead, hanging down between the rafters.

Bumblebee allowed the hallway to fully consume him, the emergency exit slid closed behind him. It shut with a definitive click–he knew it wasn’t locked, but he suddenly felt trapped within the maw of uncertainty.

“Prowl?” he called out, quietly at first. When he received no response, he risked a louder shout: “Prowl! I know you’re in here.”

“Unfortunate on your part,” a voice echoed through the gaping space. Bumblebee did a quick spin, optics flickering across the numerous shadows that threatened to jump out at him, but he couldn’t make out anything unordinary.

“And what’s that supposed to mean, ninjabot?” Bumblebee bit back. A blur of movement danced at the corner of his vision. He nearly stumbled over his own pedes trying to catch the movement in his sights, but all had settled by the time he focused.

“Simply that there happens to be a bug clinging to my plating, and it refuses to leave me alone. It’s your own fault that you ended up here,” the disembodied voice said haughtily.

There was the sound of an unsheathed blade, and suddenly the hallway was plunged into complete darkness.

I’m not dealing with this! he thought frantically, groping in the minimal blue light emitting from his optics for the emergency door. A whistle cut through the air, and Bumblebee suddenly found the control panel to the door sparking and unresponsive, a golden shuriken embedded in its circuitry. Despite his best effort to jam his fingers between the door and the doorway to try and pry it open and make his escape, it proved fruitless.

Left with no other option, Bumblebee took off at a sprint, flicking his headlights on so as to not run into any walls or unknown obstacles. The resulting bobbing of light created the illusion that every moving shadow was leaping out to grab him, but still he forged on, his spark spinning rapidly in his chest.

“What the slag is wrong with you?!” he shouted at his pursuer, taking a sudden sharp left through the seemingly endless hallways. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a streak of blue weaving through the pipes and rafters over his head. A second set of pedesteps echoed his own.

“I tried in every way possible to make sure I wouldn’t be interrupted tonight, and yet here we are. You’ve always been too headstrong for your own good,” Prowl replied, the only emotion in his voice a potent annoyance.

“What are you even doing here? Why break into the Hall of–ack!” Bumblebee ducked as a shuriken went whizzing by his head, skittering across the ground as he made another abrupt change in direction. He had completely lost track of where he was by this point–there wasn’t any hope of doubling back and trying to find another exit.

“That is for me to know, and for you to find out after I have achieved my goal and am far away from here,” came the response somewhere vaguely to Bumblebee’s right. Acting on instinct, he transformed out his stingers and fired several pulses in that same direction. By the slight grunt he heard, at least one of the shots had landed. He continued running.

“Did some Decepticon possess your frame when you died or something? Please don’t tell me I’ve been hanging out with Starscream for the past few solar cycles,” Bumblebee pleaded.

Another volley of throwing stars were aimed at Bumblebee’s pedes, but he was moving quickly enough that none connected with their target. Either Prowl had gotten sloppy with his throws, or he wasn’t trying very hard to make his mark. Just keeping his prey on the run…

In a sudden fit of panic, Bumblebee brought his servo to the side of his head, keying in to the repair crew’s comm frequency.

“Anyone who’s online, I need help! I’m in the maintenance area of the Hall of Heroes, I need immediate backup. Prowl’s totally lost it, he’s–”

His desperate call was cut off as Bumblebee glanced over his shoulder, trying to locate his assailant, when a heavy weight suddenly impacted his chassis. Knocked flat onto his back, he grit his teeth as paint was scraped off of his armor, his momentum carrying him across the floor a short distance. The sharp edge of a blade was placed against his throat.

“Cut the call. Now, ” Prowl demanded. He sat on Bumblebee’s chest, legs pinning Bumblebee’s arms to the ground. Bumblebee gulped–the action brought the cables of his throat close enough to the shuriken that it sliced cleanly through the dark mesh, a bead of oil bubbling through.

“It’s cut, it’s cut!” he said frantically, pulling his head as far away from the weapon as he physically could. The wheels on his pedes and shoulders spun uselessly against the floor, filling the area with the scent of burnt rubber–the cyberninja refused to budge.

“I suppose since you’re here already, I can’t exactly send you back…and with that distress call sent out, I won’t have the time to properly secure you anywhere…” the mech spoke aloud, a calculating look on his face.

“So what are you gonna do? Take me offline? My friends aren’t going to appreciate that–you’ll have the entire Elite Guard after your aft in no time,” Bumblebee snarked, trying his best to prop himself up behind a mask of confidence–a mask that quickly crumbled under the force of Prowl’s scowl.

“They’re my teammates, as well, and because of that I know they’re not quick enough to catch me,” he responded, almost petulantly. Bumblebee’s terror was momentarily muddled with confusion.

“Who…are you?” he asked with a tilt of his head, his processor not quick enough to keep his mouth shut.

“I’m Prowl,” the black mech said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Bumblebee had opened his mouth to offer a retort, but suddenly Prowl’s head snapped away, a frown etching itself even deeper onto his face as he stared at the wall.

“Yes, I am! And I’ve had enough of listening to your soft-sparked platitudes. The nanoclick I get my servos on the Matrix, I will search far and wide across the universe to find a way to purge myself of your endlessly irritating presence.”

He paused attentively.

“That’s never going to happen. You weren’t strong enough to stick around. It’s my turn to take the lead–and do what you never could.”

“Oh, great, the ninjabot’s even crazier,” Bumblebee sighed. Prowl looked back down at Bumblebee, almost as if he had forgotten the yellow mech was there altogether.

“I’ve wasted enough time. Goodnight, Bumblebee.”

Prowl drew back the servo holding his shuriken, preparing to strike. Bumblebee shuttered his optics tightly, fully expecting to feel the bite of the blade against his neck, fading into the release of death. Instead, there was the screech of metal against metal, and a sharp burning sensation spread from the lower portion of his chassis.

I’ve felt this before , he realized, air hitching in his vents. When Sari stabbed me .

As he peeled his optics open, Bumblebee was shocked and disturbed to find that one of the prongs of Prowl’s throwing star had been lodged deeply into his plating, and was actively being held there by Prowl. Bumblebee could tell the cyberninja was watching him closely as he struggled to clear the numerous system errors that were clouding his vision.

Energy drained away from Bumblebee’s limbs, and he found it more and more difficult to focus on the mech in front of him. The next message to pop up made his energon run cold.

Energy Circulation Efficiency: 10%

Stasis Lock: Imminent

No matter how much effort he put behind keeping his optics online, Bumblebee found them slipping closed against his will. With the last of his strength, the small yellow bot sent his most scathing glare towards the cyberninja above him before he was dragged down into darkness.

“B………ble………e………..”

“Bum………lebee…….”

“Bumblebee………”

“Bumblebee!”

Bumblebee jerked up with a gasp, clutching at his chest as his spark spun relentlessly. Images flooded through his processor as he tried to understand what was happening–images of crowded freeways, dark alleys, an unending maze of hallways and pipes, and…

Prowl’s face swam into focus, creased with evident concern as he leaned over his downed comrade. Before his systems had even fully rebooted, Bumblebee’s fist slammed full force into the ninjabot’s nose, sending him reeling backwards.

“SLAGGER!” Bumblebee shrieked, fully ready to pounce on the other mech and rain down punches until whatever was wrong with his friend had been beaten out of him, but something gave Bumblebee pause.

Prowl sat on the ground, propping himself up with one servo while the other was clutched around his face, his expression a mixture of pain and shock. But what caught Bumblebee’s optic was the fact that he was entirely blue . An ethereal cyan light wavered at the edges of his frame, and Bumblebee found that he could make out the shapes of the hallway perfectly through his visage.

Bumblebee slowly looked down at his own servo. It was much the same–glowing blue and transparent. And beyond that…

“Don’t freak out!” Prowl said somewhat desperately, gripping onto Bumblebee’s still extended arm.

“You can’t tell me to NOT freak out! I’m sitting on top of my OWN SLAGGING BODY!” he shouted. As if he were submerged in a shallow puddle, the bottom half of Bumblebee’s frame disappeared into what appeared to be his own offline body. He was lying exactly where Prowl had left him, his optics dark and the shuriken still sticking up grotesquely from his chest.

Bumblebee shuffled away as quickly as physically possible, snatching his wrist from Prowl’s grasp and transforming out his stingers–at least he still had them–bringing his knees up to his chest defensively.

“I can explain,” Prowl placated, holding up his free servo in a gesture of surrender.

“Oh, sure, I’d love to hear your excuses for stabbing me ,” Bumblebee laughed, his optics narrowed suspiciously.

“It’s…it’s complicated,” the cyberninja defended himself.

Bumblebee scrutinized the mech sitting before him more closely. Everything from his words to his tone to his body language seemed sincere–and painfully familiar. Figuring he didn’t have much left to lose, he sighed as he folded his stingers away.

“Talk.”

Prowl removed the servo covering his face, appearing deep in thought. Bumblebee’s punch hadn’t left behind any lasting damage–no dents and no leaks. But maybe that had something to do with the current state they were in…what that meant for Bumblebee’s offline frame, he couldn’t say.

“I suppose you would appreciate it if I started from the beginning?” he surmised.

Bumblebee’s only response was a nod and a wave of his servo–an invitation for Prowl to continue.

“Very well. As you know, my spark was extinguished when I combined it with the Allspark in order to stop Omega Supreme’s clone from detonating in Detroit.” He said it in such a detached way that Bumblebee would have assumed he were reading off of a datapad if he hadn’t seen his friend’s grayed frame with his own optics. “It was actually quite peaceful–I didn’t feel any pain as I passed on. But instead of the Well of Allsparks, I found that I was still in Detroit, only…like this.” He gestured to himself.

“My first thought was of my team. I raced across the city in time to pull Optimus away from the blast he would have no doubt gotten caught in. For whatever reason, I was able to pull him out from the forcefield that I had created using the power of the Allspark. But upon exiting that bubble, I found that I was a mere ghost–unable to be seen, heard, or interacted with by anyone in the living world.

“At first, I was confused. In our Cybertronian beliefs, it’s understood that just as every spark is born from the Allspark, every spark must also eventually return and be one with the Allspark. Why I was now stuck in this strange in-between with no one to keep me company…I couldn’t begin to fathom what had brought me there.

“But, once I had learned that the rest of my friends had made it through the battle relatively unscathed and were returning to Cybertron, I thought I would make the best of my circumstances. I had planned to stay on Earth, enjoy the peace and quiet of nature, and use my sudden position as a spirit to study the natural world with a newfound ease. Because none of the creatures could see me, I was able to get close in a way I never could when I was online.” He looked wistfully down at his servos, folded neatly in his lap.

“Wait, wait, if you’re still offline, then who’s running around with your frame? And does that mean I’m–”

“I’m not finished,” Prowl shushed him harshly. “You wanted an explanation. This is what you get.”

“Then please, continue, oh great teller of longwinded stories,” Bumblebee rolled his optics. Prowl frowned briefly, but didn’t allow the interruption to phase him.

“I was content to continue marvelling at the beauty of Earth, but something prevented me from doing so. It was like something was forcefully tugging at my spark–or, what would have been my spark–and physically dragging me away from my solitude.

“This was when you all had returned to Cybertron. In some way, I’m still tethered to my physical body–I am unable to travel a long distance away from it without being pulled back. So, instead of my birdwatching, I resolved to do my best to watch over all of you.” At this, he smiled. “I saw the parade, the speeches, all of you together and happy. It brought me comfort.”

“And you saw your funeral,” Bumblebee said, for once somber.

“Yes, I did,” Prowl agreed. “But believe me, I was relieved. I thought that if my frame was taken through the proper rights, I would finally be able to enter the Well.” His expression soured significantly. “Of course, that’s not what happened.

“For one reason or another, I believe that a miniscule portion of my spark has remained within my frame. I suppose it was the stubborn part of me refusing to accept that I was dead. It remained dormant in my chassis throughout all of the speeches and ceremonies, but I suppose the threat of being barbequed was what finally gave it enough energy to revive my frame.

“He wasn’t lying earlier when he claimed to be me. The mech in possession of my frame is me–all of my arrogance, all of my selfishness, all of my grudges, all of my impulsiveness, without any of the regulation or guidance I had in life to hold it back. It’s like all of my worst traits have been shoved into a neat package and let loose to wreak havoc on the universe,” he finished ruefully.

Bumblebee took a few moments to allow this new deluge of information to properly settle within his processor.

“So, by that logic, you could have stabbed my spark out at any time you wanted…and were just choosing not to? ” he scoffed, mildly offended by Prowl’s implications.

“Oh, there were many occasions I thought about it, believe me,” Prowl responded smugly, nearly earning him another smack from Bumblebee. “But, look–you’re not fully offline.”

Bumblebee’s gaze drifted back to his own inert frame. He was still creeped out by the fact that he was looking at his own body from outside of it, doubled by the shuriken poking up from his chestplate like a daisy, but Prowl’s observation was correct. His armor was the same striking yellow as always, no sign of the gray that would declare his termination.

“If I had to guess, he probably severed your main electrical conduit–not fatal, and even an easy fix with the right tools, but completely incapacitating. He even left the blade in to prevent excess oil leakage. It wasn’t a blow intended to kill,” Prowl surmised.

“What, they teach you that in ninja school?”

“Not exactly–he had been researching Cybertronian anatomy in his limited spare time,” Prowl responded sheepishly. “I was suspicious of it, but he assured me it was for medical purposes only. Something about not having a medic around when he left.”

So that’s who Prowl had been talking to that night in his room , Bumblebee thought with realization, which quickly changed into exasperation. I guess he was telling the truth–he had been talking to himself .

“If I’m not offline, then why am I currently a blue glowing ghost talking to the dead bot?” he questioned. Prowl’s expression once again turned towards embarrassment.

“I may or may not have used some processor over matter to temporarily pull your consciousness out of your frame,” he admitted. When it seemed as if Bumblebee was going to protest, he quickly added: “But it’s only because I have very important information that I need to share with someone from the living world. With your frame incapacitated, your connection to your body was weaker, and easier to…stretch.”

“It better be a matter of life and death,” Bumblebee rolled his optics. Upon seeing Prowl’s glare, he chuckled nervously. “It is, isn’t it?”

“From the moment that fragment of my spark reignited itself, he–or rather, that part of me–has been living off of borrowed time. There isn’t enough energy inside the fragment itself to sustain him for very long, so he has been looking for alternative sources of power.”

“Wait a nanoclick…the dojo. The protoforms!” Bumblebee gasped. “He was there to try and jump to a new body! And when he saw there weren’t any left…”

Prowl shifted uncomfortably, his frame rigid with tension.

“Yes, I believe those were his intentions.” His vents cycled audibly, bordering on a sigh. “I…truly, I never wanted anyone to know of my failure to protect the protoforms, or to save Master Yoketron. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Jazz, because I was…ashamed.” His expression hardened considerably. “My spark fragment only revealed the truth in order to spite me. He feels the sting of failure, yes, but he does not feel regret. He only wishes to exact revenge on the guilty parties for the sake of proving his own strength, not for the dignity of righting a wrong.”

“But it wasn’t your fault, it was that glitch Lockdown! There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop it,” Bumblebee argued, frowning. Prowl gave Bumblebee a long, searching look, before dropping his gaze to his lap, a hollow smile pulling at his lips.

“That may be true, and in my processor I know I shouldn’t blame myself. But…the spark is not logical, and doesn’t always agree with the processor. I could have kept a closer watch on the dojo, or convinced my master to put up better defenses, or–”

“It stays between me, Sari, and Jazz. You don’t have to worry about it,” Bumblebee cut into his friend’s rambling. When Prowl looked at him again, Bumblebee put as much effort into his grin as he physically could. “You can trust this face, can’t you?”

Although Prowl still seemed shaky, he let out a huff of air.

“About as far as I can throw you.” If the mech weren’t wearing a visor, Bumblebee was nearly positive he would’ve seen him roll his optics.

“Hey, I’ve been told I’m a bit of a lightweight,” Bumblebee joked.

“Besides that, and on to more pressing topics,” Prowl said, any humor wiped off of his face, “there is a reason my spark fragment came here tonight. Unable to locate any Allspark shards on Earth, he figured that the only power source left for him that would be powerful enough to sustain his frame is the Matrix of Leadership, and the remnants of the Allspark stored within it.”

“And he didn’t want any witnesses. Go figure,” Bumblebee sighed.

“There is a strong likelihood that should he obtain the Matrix and integrate it into his body, I will be stuck in this in-between for as long as he remains online, forced to be dragged along on his whims throughout the universe. I won’t be able to join with the Well of Allsparks,” Prowl admitted.

“But he can see you, right? You can’t just make him give up and return the spark fragment?” Bumblebee pondered.

“He may be able to see and speak with me, but I am unable to interact in any capacity with the physical world,” Prowl shook his head. “I don’t wish for you or the team to be put through any more pain, but as you can imagine, I also don’t want to spend an eternity trapped as a ghost.”

“Instead of dragging your spark fragment out of your frame, is it possible for you to join back with it? I mean, he’s basically done all of the hard work for you already–keeping your frame running and all that. Shouldn’t you be able to come back to life?” Bumblebee asked, on the verge of desperation. He was sitting here talking to a dead mech. Surely it couldn’t be that much of a stretch to stage a resurrection?

Prowl smiled at him sadly. There was so much sympathy in his expression, bordering on pity, that it nearly wrenched Bumblebee’s spark out of his chest.

“My time was up when I decided to give my life to protect Detroit. I can feel the pull of the Well calling to my spark, and I think I’ve earned a bit of rest. Someone once told me that I would understand when my time came, and I believe this is what he meant.”

Bumblebee bowed his head, trying to wrap his processor around Prowl’s words. He didn’t want to accept it. He couldn’t accept that he was this close to having his friend back, only to have it all ripped away from him once again.

With his optics lowered, Bumblebee caught sight of Prowl’s servos folded in his lap, one wrapped around the opposite wrist with enough force to leave dents.

“You’re lying,” Bumblebee whispered, his optics widening in realization.

“What?”

“You’re lying,” he said at a louder volume, almost excitedly. A smile formed on his lips. “You’re lying right to my face, and you don’t even seem guilty about it!”

“I am not lying,” Prowl scowled, but he still held his wrist in a death grip. A laugh bubbled up from Bumblebee’s stomach.

“Are you in denial right now? You are possibly the worst liar I know, and my best friend is Bulkhead!”

“You’re not making this any easier, Bumblebee. I pulled you here so you could help me, not accuse me of spewing falsities,” he seethed, throwing his servoes up in exasperation.

“Well, I am here to help, and if part of that involves pulling my friend out of some noble delusion of the permanence of death, then I’ll have done my job well,” Bumblebee nodded to himself smugly. Prowl stared at him, completely deadpan.

“This is not helping.”

“Trust me, it is.”

“What–what are you even trying to accomplish right now? My spark fragment is probably already in the chamber with the Matrix, and you’re here–”

“I want you to admit that you don’t want to die,” Bumblebee cut Prowl off firmly, holding optic contact. A brief flash of sorrow passed across Prowl’s face, but it was quickly replaced by familiar annoyance.

“This is not helping. What I need from you is to stop pursuing this weak attempt at emotional intelligence and listen to what I am telling you. I am not able to come back to the world of the living–I can feel that there is a gap unable to be bridged between me and you. I made a decision, and death is the consequence I must face. All I’m trying to do is help you accept that fact so I can get out of this place faster, and give you the closure you need in order to move on.”

“So you’re trying to convince yourself for my sake? That’s nice, Prowl, but we don’t need sugarcoating,” Bumblebee shook his head sagely. Prowl dragged a servo down his face.

“I’m not–we’re wasting time! You are wasting time.”

“I need you to say it.”

“Say what , Bumblebee? Because I think I’ve said about all I want to say to you, and I’m very tempted to unwillingly shove you back into your unconscious body if you refuse to leave and stop the spark fragment.”

“I need you to say that you didn’t want to die,” Bumblebee demanded. “Because if you try and tell me that it was all the will of the universe or some other spiritual scrap, and that you accepted it without a single ounce of regret, then you’re telling me that it didn’t matter to you. That nothing you went through with the team, with Sari, with me , meant anything. That you couldn’t wait to get rid of us and dissolve into nothing in the Well and leave the life you had worked so hard to build behind. And I know it may be selfish to try and rekindle any ember of will in that cold, dead spark of yours when I know, deep down, that you can’t come back, but I never let you live in peace, and I can’t just let you die in peace either. I can’t–”

Words caught in Bumblebee’s throat, choking him as comforting arms enveloped him in an embrace, his face pressed against a cool black and gold shoulder. There was a burning sensation behind his optics, as if something were fighting to break free, and he bit down on his tongue as his lips wobbled dangerously. He clung on to Prowl, convinced that at any moment this mirage would disappear.

“Of course I don’t want to leave,” Prowl said softly. “There’s still so much I want to do. I want to cultivate a garden to populate my room and accompany my tree–although I’m sure Optimus wouldn’t appreciate the extra animals I had planned to invite into the base. I want to aid the Dinobots in regrowing their home and to nurture their curiosity. I want to help Sari learn about her Cybertronian heritage. I want to revive the dojo with Jazz and foster a new generation of cyberninjas.”

Prowl pulled away, holding Bumblebee by his shoulders at arms length. He may have been trying to smile, but any attempt was instantly washed away by the waves of pain and grief crashing over him.

“I knew what I was giving up when I fused my life force with the Allspark. It’s not that I wanted to–I had to, if there was any hope for the rest of you to live out your own dreams. There are some things that cannot be reversed, and this is one of them. I wanted to leave you with the memory that I was at peace passing on to the Well, that I wasn’t upset, but I see why that never would have been enough for you. I can’t ever be at peace with you around.”

Bumblebee shook Prowl’s servos off of his shoulders, taking a steadying breath and waiting until he could trust his voicebox not to fail him.

“You better watch your back in the Well. Even the power of Primus himself can’t erase all of the obnoxiousness from my spark, and you’re the first one I’m hunting down when I get there,” Bumblebee grinned shakily.

“Then for both of our sakes, I sincerely hope that isn’t for a very long while yet,” Prowl chuckled back. “But there is still the matter of getting myself to the Well in the first place.”

“Right, right, your evil side doing evil things…which I would be more than psyched to help you out with, but I think you’re forgetting something, ninjabot,” Bumblebee said, wiping away the last bits of melancholy from his processor.

“And that is?”

“I’m still outside of my frame. Nothing’s rebooted.”

Prowl brought a servo to his chin in thought.

“You managed to send out a distress signal before your systems crashed, correct?” he questioned.

“Yeah, but it’s the middle of the night,” Bumblebee pointed out. “I doubt anyone would–”

“Bumblebee?”

A distant voice reached the two spirits. Bumblebee abruptly stood up, looking both ways down the hallway. Prowl followed his lead and leapt up, keeping himself poised in a defensive crouch.

“Who was that?” the black and gold mech asked.

“It was too far away for me to make out,” Bumblebee responded. He desperately wanted to go running off and look for the new mech, but in his current state, he didn’t see how much help that would be. That didn’t stop the restless energy from coursing through his limbs as his engine let out low rumbles of excitement.

“Perhaps it was–”

“Kid?” The mysterious voice was closer now, its gravelly tenor clear. Bumblebee and Prowl looked at one another in sudden realization.

“Ratchet!” they exclaimed together. Almost at the same moment, the red and white medic rounded the corner at the end of the hall. They saw as his expression morphed quickly from confusion to horror upon catching sight of the prone frame of the yellow minibot.

He rushed as quickly as his old joints would allow him to Bumblebee’s side, his armor creaking as he knelt down to assess his unconscious teammate.

“What did you get yourself into, kid?” Ratchet muttered to himself as he examined Prowl’s shuriken with his optical enhancement.

“If only he knew the half of it,” Bumblebee sighed from where he crouched next to the unknowing medic.

Acting on a sudden, unignorable impulse, the yellow mech stuck his arm straight through Ratchet’s wide chassis. There was absolutely no reaction from the ambulance. Bumblebee waved his servo back and forth multiple times.

“You gotta admit, this is kinda cool,” Bumblebee remarked, bringing his arm back to his side.

“Try it out for a few decacycles and it gets old pretty quickly,” Prowl grumbled.

By then, Ratchet had managed to carefully remove Bumblebee’s chestplate from his chassis, shuriken and all. He grumbled as a spurt of dark oil nearly splashed into his face from a severed line, but was quickly able to staunch the flow with a clamp.

“Main electrical conduit is severed. Doesn’t look like much else, aside from a few scrapes and dents…” he muttered to himself, his welder already held up to the damaged circuitry. As the medic worked, Bumblebee’s vision suddenly flickered. In tandem, he saw the tiniest flash of blue light appear in the offline optics of his body.

“Uh, Prowl?”

“Hm?” His crewmate turned to him with a questioning glance.

“So, how exactly are you going to take back your runaway spark fragment? And how am I meant to help? Cause we’re kinda running out of time, and we didn’t really go over that part of the plan.”

Even as he spoke, Bumblebee found he could see more and more of the floor through his own servos. A dizziness had wormed its way into his processor, making him want to close his optics and lie down to make it go away, but he resisted.

“You and Ratchet must figure out a way for me to become perceptible in the physical world,” Prowl said quickly.

“How the slag are we meant to do that? You said yourself that you hadn’t figured it out!” Bumblebee protested.

“I trust my crew. You’ll manage.”

“You better hope so,” Bumblebee mumbled. He felt tired and full of energy all at once, like the floor was about to open up and suck him through into unknown bottomless depths. Darkness was pressing unyieldingly at the edge of his consciousness.

“I know so.”

In the next blink, the phantom world was gone.

Bumblebee was back in his own body, shuttering fuzzy optics at the ceiling, crisscrossed with pipes and wires, as Ratchet hastily reattached his chest armor.

“Kid? Kid, can you hear me?” he asked worriedly, leaning closer to Bumblebee’s face as he struggled to clear the haze from his vision.

“Yeah, yeah. It was my electrical conduit that got scrapped, not my audio receptors,” Bumblebee snarked, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Ratchet backed away, allowing him space as his systems fully recalibrated.

Bumblebee glanced around the shadow-filled hallway. It was just him and the medic.

Was it a dream? he briefly wondered. Already, his time in that strange inbetween seemed far away in his memory banks, quickly replaced by the relief of a fully functioning frame.

He shook his head, clearing those nagging doubts. It was too real to be fake, he assured himself. Besides, I can prove that it was real…if only I can fulfill Prowl’s request.

“What exactly happened that you got one of Prowl’s throwing stars lodged into your chassis? And would you also mind informing me as to why you are in a restricted section of the Hall of Heroes well past normal hours of operation?” Ratchet interrogated.

“Hey, so, Ratchet…do you remember that conversation we had before we got back to Earth? About how I thought Prowl was acting a little weird?” Bumblebee began, grinning nervously.

“You’re avoiding my question, but yes, I remember that conversation well. And I remember how you did not take the advice I offered,” Ratchet grunted, optics narrowed.

“What would you say if I told you the reason Prowl has been acting oddly ever since he woke up is because when Prowl went offline, the portion of his spark containing his negative traits broke off and remained inside his frame. And what if I also told you that the whole Prowl, the Prowl we knew, is currently stuck in some kind of ghost dimension and will remain trapped there if we don’t stop his spark fragment from getting to the Matrix and its Allspark fragments, which he is attempting to do right now?”

Ratchet stared at him for several moments, blinking owlishly.

“I would say that I should probably do a scan of your processor because it sounds like you may have shorted a few circuits when the conduit was severed,” he said slowly.

“Well, whether we believe me or not, he told me to figure out a way for him to speak with us here in the living world,” Bumblebee pressed.

“Kid, ghosts aren’t real. Especially not Cybertronian ghosts. Are you sure it wasn’t just yer processor playing tricks on you? I know you’ve got your reservations about Prowl at the moment, but–”

“Come on, Ratchet, you admitted yourself that something was off, and now I’ve finally got an explanation! Would Prowl ever willingly stab his teammates?”

“Maybe not, but to me it seemed he’s been tempted quite a few times,” Ratchet rolled his optics. “And I can’t say I blame him.”

“You’re no help,” Bumblebee sighed. “Give me a nanoclick to think.”

“You? Thinking? Something definitely got fried up in that processor of yours. I’m marking you down for a full-frame scan when we get back to the ship.”

“No! I just…” Bumblebee was tempted to shout out his frustration, but knowing he was running on limited time, settled for a few disquieted rumbles of his engine. “Prowl said that the only time he had been able to touch anything in the physical world was when he pulled Bossbot out of the forcefield before Starscream’s Omega Supreme clone blew up.”

“A forcefield, you say?” Ratchet pondered, scratching at his chin. “The one created by the Allspark?”

“We could try recreating it, but all of the fragments are either in bots back on Earth or stored within the Matrix,” Bumblebee lamented. “And we’ve gotta talk to him now –we don’t have time to go looking for any. You woke me up before Prowl and I could make any actual plans.”

“Oh, well excuse me for saving your sorry tailpipe,” Ratchet scoffed without any real heat. “It may not have been the Allspark specifically that bridged the gap between his plane of existence and ours, but rather properties of the forcefield itself.”

Bumblebee stared at the medic blankly.

“I don’t get it.”

Ratchet grumbled something under his breath that Bumblebee was unable to catch. Two prongs transformed out from Ratchet’s forearm, which he held up for Bumblebee to see clearly.

“Forcefields work by manipulating magnetic fields. My magnetic enhancements are much the same–they generate a magnetic field that I am able to control. If we could find something with a similar field and frequency as the forcefield generated by the Allspark’s forcefield, then we may be able to see this ghost you are oh-so confident is real,” he explained.

“Do you think your magnetics might be able to create the same effect?” Bumblebee asked eagerly. His systems were functional enough to allow him to stand–with Ratchet’s help. He wobbled a step or two, but quickly righted himself.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try,” Ratchet shrugged. Bumblebee could tell Ratchet was just humoring him, but for once he didn’t care about the patronization. All he needed was for something to work, and he could make fun of Ratchet all he liked later for doubting him.

Ratchet aimed one pronged arm forward, the modification lighting up pink as a wavering bubble appeared in front of them.

“Can your ghost hear us?” Ratchet inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“I could hear you when I was there with him, so yeah. Prowl! Step into the field if you’re here,” Bumblebee ordered eagerly, his optics searching through the magnetic pulse for any glimpse of blue light.

When several nanoclicks had passed and there was no such appearance, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Ratchet powered his magnet down.

“Where else could we get something to generate a forcefield? By the time we went and got a device, or had someone bring one to us, the spark fragment will already have the Matrix. Not to mention I still don’t know how Prowl is going to reunite with the fragment…” Bumblebee thought aloud.

“Maybe we don’t need something entirely separate. Perhaps we can use something to boost my magnets instead,” Ratchet proposed reluctantly.

“Like my stingers?” Bumblebee gasped. “An electro magnetic field!”

“Although that’s something that’s normally destructive towards other electronic wavelengths, I guess it’s still worth a try,” Ratchet shrugged.

“Ready when you are,” Bumblebee said, transforming out his stingers. Ratchet sent out another wave of magnetism, which Bumblebee quickly met with a steady stream of low voltage from his own stingers. The two collided, undulating and warping through the air where they met.

If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what to try next , he thought apprehensively, his optics glued to the electromagnetic field. I’m not someone who fails! It’s not in my programming.

Then, suddenly, he caught sight of an unusual flicker. It was small at first, and Bumblebee blinked his optics rapidly to make sure it wasn’t a glitch. But there, again, a wisp of cyan blue, and then all at once Prowl’s ghostly form appeared.

Bumblebee snuck a glance at Ratchet, wishing he had a holocorder just to preserve the gobsmacked look on his face.

“Well I’ll be,” the medic whispered.

“Hello, Ratchet,” Prowl said meekly.

“Hello, Prowl,” Ratchet responded, seemingly on autopilot. “I would like to ask for an explanation as to exactly what is going on here, but something tells me I won’t receive a satisfactory answer.”

“Unfortunately not. It’s likely my spark fragment has already reached the chamber containing the remnants of the Allspark within the Matrix of Leadership. Now that you have successfully discovered a way for me to appear to you, I will need your help to prevent him from succeeding in his goal.”

At Ratchet’s skeptical look, Prowl took a step forward, bringing himself as close to them as the field would allow.

“I know I am asking a lot, and I know this situation is…unprecedented. But please, for an old friend, could you offer a servo? All of your questions will be answered in time, I’m sure.” Bumblebee caught his gaze flicker towards himself at that statement.

“You know that’s not something I can refuse,” the medic sighed, his shoulders slumped. “What do you need us to do, kid?”

“All that is required of you is that you keep my spark fragment from reaching the Matrix, and trap my frame in an electromagnetic field such as the one you are generating now. From there, I will be able to do the rest.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Bumblebee shrugged.

“Says the bot who just got skewered by the cyberninja we’re supposed to keep in one spot,” Ratchet shook his head.

“Hey! I was holding back on him, for your information,” Bumblebee retorted.

“Oh, and one last request,” Prowl cut through their bickering. “If anything of my frame remains after this ordeal, I’d appreciate it if you would take it back to Earth–somewhere quiet and green, preferably. Cybertron was where I was sparked, but I haven’t had anything to return to here for millenia. I would like some part of me to remain in my real home.”

“Well, you’ve gotten us to agree to this crazy plan so far. I don’t see how much harder it would be to fulfill your last wish,” Bumblebee sighed dramatically.

“We’ll treat you with care, just like we did the first time. You’re a part of the family, Prowl,” Ratchet promised.

“Then that settles it,” Prowl nodded with an air of finality. “Go, quickly. He has a large enough headstart as it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guards have already been taken care of. I’ll be right beside you,” he urged.

“You heard the mech,” Ratchet grunted, the magnetic pulse from his prongs fizzling down to nothing. In the last moments that Prowl was visible, Bumblebee tried to capture every detail of his friend’s face–his real friend, not whatever slaghead had possession of his frame.

But before he could get much saved into his memory banks, the apparition was gone. Bumblebee transformed away his stingers as Ratchet did the same with his magnets.

“Seems like I’m in need of a full processor diagnostic when we get back as well,” the medic remarked as they both began to jog down the corridor. Bumblebee knew he could dart ahead easily, but with Ratchet’s old joints, the ambulance would have a hard time keeping up. Besides, they didn’t want to tire themselves out before even arriving at the scene of the fight.

“Still don’t believe in ghosts?”

“I’m not sure what I believe.”

“Well, do you at least believe you know where we’re going?”

“Not a clue, kid.”

Chapter Text

Bumblebee followed behind Ratchet. They rounded a corner, then two, but every hallway looked almost identical. The overhead lights were still out, leaving the Autobots to navigate by the meager glow of their headlights.

After the third corner with no progress, Bumblebee skidded to a stop. Ratchet did the same a few steps ahead of him, looking back at the yellow mech questioningly.

“This isn’t working!” Bumblebee exclaimed in frustration.

“The building is big, but it isn’t infinite. If we keep going, we’re bound to find an exit eventually–or better yet, a way into the actual Hall of Heroes. If we stand still, then nothing will happen,” Ratchet pointed out gruffly.

“But there’s gotta be some way to do things quicker. If we follow directions through our nav centers, then maybe–”

“It’ll take too long. We have to keep moving, or Prowl’s spark fragment will get to the Matrix before we even step pede inside the Hall.”

“I know, but–”

The light clink of metal boomed like thunder in the relative silence of the hallway. Ratchet and Bumblebee froze instantly, their optics locked on the opposite end of the corridor where the sound had come from. Either Prowl’s evil twin had come back to finish the job, or they were about to be arrested for breaking and entering.

Bumblebee’s processor raced, trying to find a way out of their predicament as the sound of light pedefalls matched up with the rapid beat of his spark. I can probably outrun a guard or cop, but Ratchet can’t, and neither of us are much of a match against Prowl in a confined space like this, he thought.

Seeing no way out, Bumblebee equipped his stingers, dropping into a defensive crouch in preparation for whoever might spring out at them from around the corner. The pedesteps stopped. Bumblebee’s stingers primed with electricity, sparks leaping off of the pointed tips.

A blue visor attached to a long, gray face popped out from the cover of the metal walls.

“What’s up, my mechs?”

“It’s only Jazz,” Ratchet sighed with relief, transforming away his magnets, prompting Bumblebee to do the same. “A sight for sore optics, I’ll say.”

“I kind of forgot we had added you to the team’s frequency,” Bumblebee chuckled sheepishly as the white cyberninja approached them.

“What’s all this I heard about Prowl losing it? And how can I help?” he questioned.

“It’s a long story for another time, but we gotta stop Prowl from getting to the Matrix or any pieces of the Allspark,” Bumblebee said hurriedly, waving his servos through the air emphatically.

“Only problem is we’re a bit…lost at the moment,” Ratchet begrudgingly added.

“No sweat. I remember the way back to where I came in,” Jazz nodded.

“Great, let’s go!” Bumblebee urged eagerly, practically pushing Jazz back the way he had come. As the three of them set off following the guidance of the cyberninja, Jazz turned questioningly to the other two Autobots.

“So, I know you said it’s a long story, but mind filling a mech in on where the record skipped? Why is Prowl after the Matrix?”

Same as he had done for Ratchet, Bumblebee gave an abridged version of Prowl’s story to Jazz.

“Wicked,” Jazz eventually whispered, having allowed Bumblebee to finish his retelling. “His vibes have been off, sure, but I never would’ve dreamed up some crazy thing like that. A spark fragment?” He thought for another moment. “I wonder if that didn’t have anything to do with his use of processor over matter. Or even Yoketron’s armor. It’s specially forged to protect the spark of its user from outside mystical forces.”

“Well, whatever it is, he asked us to help him out. So how close are we to this exit, exactly?” Bumblebee inquired.

“Just around the corner,” Jazz responded easily. As the cyberninja had promised, an open door awaited them at the next intersection. At Jazz’s signal, they slowed to a walk. He stuck his head through the doorway and, evidently confirming that all was well, motioned for the other two to follow him through.

Bumblebee found himself standing directly in the middle of the Hall of Heroes. A large, domed roof made entirely of glass towered above his head, allowing the weak light of Cybertron’s moons to illuminate the hall in cold silver. All around them, the holograms of Cybertron’s past greats stood idly. Each image was a perfect replica of the Autobot they commemorated—the Hall boasted that it did maintenance checks on these specific holograms every solar cycle to ensure complete accuracy. Where the dozens of empty optics of the fallen heroes may have once sparked a feeling of awe inside Bumblebee, now, in the dead of night, it was thoroughly unnerving.

“How in the name of the Allspark did you manage to weasel your way into the back hallways through the Hall itself? There’s enough security to make the Elite Guard jealous,” Ratchet interrogated.

“I have my ways. Cyberninja ways, to be exact,” Jazz said cheekily. He gestured towards the far side of the gaping room and towards the large, reinforced door that took up the majority of the wall. “After you.”

“Is that the vault?” Bumblebee asked as they began their approach.

“Never been to the Hall of Heroes?” Ratchet grunted, his eyebrow raised either in surprise or suspicion—Bumblebee couldn’t say.

“I didn’t go out much as a protoform, alright? And I practically threw myself into Autobot bootcamp the nanoclick they allowed me to enlist. Sentinel wasn’t exactly the most lenient drill sergeant," Bumblebee grumbled.

Jazz let out a low whistle. “You’ve got a tougher spark than me. I would’ve been out of there within the first solar cycle,” he shook his head sympathetically.

“Quit the chatter, you two,” Ratchet scolded. “We’ve got to figure out how to get this door open. By design, it’s the only way in or out of the vault.”

Distantly, Bumblebee could make out solid thumps from the other side of the door, as well as the firing of plasma blasters. The commotion was extreme enough that he could feel the floor vibrate underneath his pedes with every hit.

“You sure about that, Docbot? Cause this door doesn’t seem very open, and I have a strong hunch that Prowl is already in there,” Bumblebee pointed out.

The three stood in silence for a moment as fighting continued in the vault, thoroughly stumped as to what to do next. As thick as tension had already settled over their shoulders hearing erroneous shouts, their worries skyrocketed when the voices of the guards fell silent.

“Maybe if we guess the combo on the keypad?” Bumblebee suggested, bending down to inspect the small console stationed next to the door. To his disappointment, it was not, in fact, a keypad, but one of those state-of-the-art energy signature readers which would only unlock for specific, pre-approved mechs. “Or maybe I just fry it with my stingers! That should force it to open, right?”

“No, electrifying the systems will likely put the whole building into lockdown. If it’s meant to be impenetrable, common sense says that damaging the controls won’t do anything,” Ratchet dismissed.

“Think there may be any kind of override?”

“Unlikely that we would have any chance of activating it,” the medic shook his head forlornly.

Jazz had been quiet, deep in thought while his companions threw ideas between themselves. Suddenly, he gasped, snapping his fingers.

“The roof!” he exclaimed. Bumblebee glanced up at the glass planeling above their heads.

“Uh…yeah. The stars are pretty and all, but they’re not doing much good for us right now,” Bunblebee said, at a loss.

“No, no, that’s how Prowl got in. The ceiling is also glass in the vault.”

“Oh, and whose brilliant idea was that?” Ratchet scoffed.

“Hey, they said it’s reinforced. Although it does make me question exactly what ‘reinforced’ meant,” Jazz replied.

“Alright, that’s how Prowl got in. But there’s a problem for us: we can’t fly,” Bumblebee frowned, already feeling the growing tug of defeat in his spark.

“Maybe not, but…do you mechs mind if I try something?” Jazz asked.

“I don’t see how anything we do now could hurt. We’re on our last resort, and the clock’s ticking down,” Ratchet shrugged.

“I can’t promise it will work, but I’ve been practicing,” Jazz said vaguely, positioning himself in front of the control panel.

“Practicing?” Bumblebee parroted, sharing a confused glance with Ratchet. They watched together as their friend went through a series of precise movements, a low, even humming emitting from his voice synthesizer.

Processor over matter, Bumblebee realized belatedly. Jazz had said himself he had never been particularly good at the sacred cyberninja technique–but it brought Bumblebee hope. This could very well be their last chance to help Prowl. If they failed here, there was no fixing things.

Several nanoclicks of humming passed with little outward change to the control panel. Jazz changed the pitch and tone of his humming, even tried moving to a different focusing position, but that fleeting hope was already evaporating from Bumblebee’s chest.

Come on, Bumblebee mentally cheered, not wanting to distract Jazz by speaking his support aloud. Come on, come on, come on, come–

With a lighthearted beep, the red access panel turned green, and the audible sound of the locking mechanisms within the armored door uncoupling greeted their audio receptors. Jazz rushed to push the door open, quickly aided by Bumblebee and Ratchet as they burst into the vault.

Although miniscule compared to the main section of the Hall of Heroes, the vault itself was still a rather large space–its ceiling towered into another glass dome, one of its panels notably broken. Circular gray walls enclosed a number of artifacts scattered about in protective cases and boxes. Shattered glass twinkled like stars in the moonlight on the floor, next to the unconscious–but still online–frames of two Elite Guard warriors.

At the center of the vault, a small platform had been raised several steps above the floor, stairs carved out of expensive metals leading up to it. On the platform sat a reinforced pedestal, the Matrix of Leadership and its portion of the Allspark sitting innocently inside a glass shield.

And standing next to that same pedestal was–

“Prowl!” Jazz shouted, drawing his nunchucks. “Step away from the Matrix.”

Bumblebee readied his stingers, and Ratchet deployed his magnets.

Prowl had his back turned to them. Whatever method he had been attempting to remove the Matrix from its casing had evidently proved fruitless—Bumblebee could easily make out the slashes and scars marring the crystalline surface. Luckily, none had breached its protection.

Prowl whipped around, his shurikens armed and ready. He glowered at the intruders. If looks could kill, all three of the Autobots standing there would be offline in an instant. His gaze locked onto Bumblebee.

“You,” he said slowly. “It is remarkable just how annoyingly persistent you continue to be. I had put so much effort into ensuring you were out of my way, but no–” his attention slid to Ratchet, “–I had forgotten one of our team members is a bit too good at his job.”

“I offered to pass my knowledge on to you, but you declined,” Ratchet recalled heatedly. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you’ve taken matters into your own servos. That was a very precise strike—almost as if you had planned for company on this little escapade of yours.”

“One can never be too cautious, and it appears I was right to be so,” Prowl shrugged. “Now if you wouldn’t mind—“

Bumblebee realized too late that their best opportunity to trap Prowl had already passed. He fired a barrage of sparks at the same time Ratchet absorbed the Matrix in magnetic energy, but the spot they had been aiming for was suddenly empty.

A golden rain of spinning blades fell upon them. Each Autobot was forced to dive for cover—Bumblebee and Jazz together behind a large metal storage container, and Ratchet somewhere in the maze of boxes on the other side of the room.

Risking a peek, Bumblebee saw Prowl hovering several feet off of the ground like a waiting bird of prey. Evidently, he had spotted Bumblebee’s movement—a few more shurikens skimmed by his head, promptly sending him ducking back down into safety.

“Something about this isn’t sitting right with me,” Jazz shook his head in confusion, tucking his nunchucks back into their casing as he hunkered down.

“Oh, which part? Cause I’m pretty sure everything isn’t sitting right with me,” Bumblebee rolled his optics.

“No, no, I mean–Prowl should have been able to get the Matrix the nanoclick he stepped pede in here. Protective glass or no, that’s not going to stop his processor over matter. If he wanted to, he could rip the Matrix clean through the podium without so much as breaking a sweat, but he hasn’t. And on that thought, he could have us all crumpled into little balls of scrap metal right now. But as you can clearly tell, we’re not,” Jazz thought aloud.

The cyberninja’s words brought Bumblebee back to that night at the Autobot’s base in the abandoned warehouse. Gears ticked slowly in his processor as a hazy picture formed in his mind.

“I think…this fragment of Prowl’s spark may not be able to use processor over matter,” Bumblebee said slowly.

“That would explain why we’re not on our way to the junk heap already, but what makes you say that?”

“When we were on Earth, I heard the humming he usually does when he focuses on the technique, but he seemed really frustrated. He was talking to himself–like, literally himself, he was talking to the real Prowl–and complaining that something wasn’t working. He blamed whatever it was on Prowl, but what if he was talking about not being able to perform processor over matter?”

Jazz took a moment to process this information, then gave a slow, assenting nod.

“Without a complete spark, it’s definitely possible that he’s been locked out of using his frame’s technique. Not to mention that I don’t think that mech will have much luck using any kind of focus training–he doesn’t strike me as the patient type,” Jazz added.

“Well, at least we seem to have one advantage. Can’t you take him down with your own processor over matter?”

“What? Me? Not in a million stellar cycles!” Jazz protested. At Bumblebee’s look, he continued, albeit more quietly. “Okay, maybe in a million stellar cycles, and with the right training, but I barely managed to open that door back there. I’d be lucky to even chip his armor at this point.”

“I guess we’ll stick to the original plan, then,” Bumblebee conceded.

Ratchet needs a clear shot if this is going to work, Bumblebee thought calculatingly, trying to locate the medic. Evidently, Ratchet was a bit too good at hiding, because Bumblebee didn’t spot so much as a flicker of red or white.

Without the medibot, their plan to create the electromagnetic field wouldn’t work. They had to make their move precisely—if Prowl figured out their goal before they could execute it, he would allow them to succeed.

We need time to regroup, he figured. And I know a great way to buy time.

“Finally given in to that latent Decepticon programming, huh, Prowl? I always knew this day would come. The black paint, the overuse of mods, the prickly attitude, all the signs were there. I’m surprised you haven’t already called in your buddy Lockdown to come and whisk you off into the sunset,” Bumblebee jeered.

Jazz, crouching next to him, gave Bumblebee an odd look, to which Bumblebee merely held a finger to his lips and winked.

“I’m not a Decepticon and you know that!” Prowl squawked, temper obviously flaring. There was a pause—presumably the black and gold mech getting himself back under control. “I would never stoop so low as to partner with Lockdown.”

“Oh, yeah? And what about these noble Elite Guard warriors you have so graciously incapacitated? Seems pretty Decepticon-like to me. What about your defacing of a sacred Autobot relic?” Bumblebee shot back.

“I may not be a Decepticon, but that doesn’t mean I’m all that happy being an Autobot, either. There was a reason I didn’t join the war, and that reason is laying right in front of me. Their hierarchy, this Elite Guard, this whole planet! It is stifling. It beats down and breaks the few sparks who dare to try and escape its endless madness.”

“Is that what you think of our team, then? And Earth? Is it stifling? What about your sacred cyberninja traditions? Are those constricting your poor, freedom-weary spark?”

The whine of Prowl’s jet boosters became a warbling melody—he was on the move, drifting around the room.

As long as he didn’t make another grab for the Matrix, it was fine by Bumblebee.

“I bided my time on Earth. I suppose it wasn’t all bad—it certainly had better scenery than all of those asteroids I sat on for a million stellar cycles,” Prowl sniffed. “But I’m ready for further horizons. If Lockdown weren’t responsible for shattering the spark of my master, I may have even considered joining up with him. Even still, the bounty hunting business doesn’t sound all that bad–it would allow me to further hone my skills without having to align myself with any of these accursed factions.”

“What exactly are you planning to do with this second life? Bounty hunting doesn’t really sound like your kind of tune,” Jazz piped up, Bumblebee silently urging him to speak.

“What I didn't do before, of course. All that time spent meditating when I could have been exploring. All that time chasing principles and obligations when I could have been enjoying the freedom of my own will.”

Bumblebee shuffled closer to the floor, peeking around the corner of the storage unit. A blue optic and half of a red chevron stared back at him, buried in the shadows of numerous padded boxes. They locked optics—Bumblebee knew it was too risky to try and connect a comm link. He lifted his stinger and tapped against the yellow casing, then pointed to himself. The medic nodded back, preparing his own magnets.

“Sure, I may have some fond memories of our haphazard maintenance crew,” Prowl continued, oblivious to the plotting of those below, “but I’ve always preferred solitude. Once I can assure that my spark won’t sputter out again, I can go anywhere I wish, following any whim I may have. And that style of freethinking isn’t very conducive with a Prime in the picture.” Bumblebee heard the grimace in his voice. “I do wish you wouldn’t be so eager to stop me—“

As Prowl continued to drone on, Bumblebee held up a servo, easy for Ratchet to see, but invisible to the mech hovering above. On that servo, he held up three fingers.

“—it’s not as if I’m truly harming anyone—“

Then two.

“—I was the one to pull the Allspark back together in the first place—“

Then one.

“You want to know something, Prowl?” Bumblebee shouted suddenly, cutting off the cyberninja midsentence.

Never thought I’d get to say this, he thought giddily as he crushed his free servo into a fist.

“You talk too much!”

Bumblebee and Ratchet leapt up from their respective hiding spots, weapons primed. Sparks poured off of Bumblebee’s armor as he took a fraction of a nanoclick to find his target and fire.

But that nanoclick was all Prowl needed. Seeing yellow lightning and a magnetic pulse charging at him, he abruptly cut the power to his jet boosters, plummeting like a stone just out of reach of the wavering electromagnetic field.

Bumblebee saw a flicker of blue within the field before Ratchet’s magnet field pulled away, accompanied by the medic’s loud cursing. Bumblebee quickly cut the power to his stinger upon seeing Prowl’s angry glare directed his way.

“That’s ironic coming from you.”

Before Bumblebee could even react, servos slipped themselves underneath his arms, hoisting him into the air. He was flying across the room without so much as a yelp, Prowl having thrown him like a bag of loose garbage. The only thing that kept him from colliding headfirst with the opposite wall was Ratchet’s quick thinking and a carefully placed cushion of magnetism.

The sounds of weapons clashing reached his audio receptors as he righted himself, brushing off his dusty plating.

“That could’ve gone better,” he sighed to Ratchet, who was briefly scanning him for any injuries.

“We didn’t have a very good chance to begin with,” Ratchet shook his head. “It’s nearly impossible to hit a cyberninja like that, especially Prowl—or a being with Prowl’s abilities. I hate to say it, but our friend’s final request may have been a pipe dream.”

“We can’t think like that!” Bumblebee said frantically. Jazz and Prowl had moved back into the open center of the vault away from the numerous stacks of boxes, carefully dancing around each other’s attacks as well as the still frames of the Elite Guard soldiers. “We can start by keeping Jazz from getting his aft kicked, but we’ll think of something! We have to.”

“I’m just not looking to get your hopes up too high,” Ratchet huffed, but Bumblebee had already turned away from him.

Vaulting over a box, he fired a volley of high powered bolts at Prowl, who had managed to back Jazz against one of the storage crates. The ninjabot stumbled at the jolts, keeping his position as he moved his head to glower at his opponent.

Bumblebee took satisfaction in the brief flicker of surprise that passed over his features as he rammed his shoulder into the black mech’s abdomen, sending him soaring into a dark corner of the vault.

“Thanks for the help, my mech,” Jazz smiled, accepting Bumblebee’s offered servo to stand from where he had fallen to one knee.

“You’re not the only one with a few fighting moves,” Bumblebee quipped back. A golden shuriken came whizzing by Bumblebee—he involuntarily ducked, watching as Prowl extracted himself from the pile of old organic artifacts he had fallen into. “We’ve gotta figure out how to keep him still long enough for us to get the field up,” he whispered to Jazz.

The white mech looked behind him, and pulled something off of the box he had propped himself against. Holding out his servo, Bumblebee saw the neatly coiled loops of a long, black cable.

“Think this might do the trick?” Jazz asked.

“It’s worth a shot,” Bumblebee nodded. He took the cable from Jazz, testing its strength–he couldn’t break it even if he wanted to. Perfect.

Ratchet had been keeping Prowl occupied for the last few moments, a continuous barrage of magnetic pulses attempting to trap their target within their confines. Unfortunately, Prowl was as swift and slippery as usual, dodging each blast only nanoclicks before impact. A series of shurikens were thrown Ratchet’s way, one of them embedding itself inches-deep in the medic’s shoulder pauldron. He grunted in pain and ducked into cover once more, leaving Prowl to finish the job.

But as had been proven many times, in the battle of speed, Bumblebee won every time.

When he was sure Prowl was fully turned and attentive only to the wounded Ratchet, he leapt forward, wheels transforming out from his pedes and burning rubber against the floor. The ugly screeching attracted Prowl’s focus, but Bumblebee was already nearly on top of him by the time he had any ability to react.

The yellow mech snagged an end of the cable on the edge of one of Prowl’s jet boosters, pulling it taut as he drove circles around the other bot. His servos trapped against his chest, the cyberninja was unable to do more than shout in indignity as he was wrapped up like a Christmas present.

When Bumblebee only had a few more feet of cable left, he skidded to a stop, standing back on the sturdy bottoms of his pedes, and kept tension on the cable with one servo to ensure his captive wouldn’t escape. He deployed his stinger with his other servo.

“Ratchet, quick! Do it now!”

However, his teammate was still preoccupied trying to tend to his shoulder, and did not immediately respond to Bumblebee’s call. In the moments it took for him to recover and transform out his magnets, evenly sliced chunks of black cable were falling to the floor, severed by the glowing blue sword modifications on Prowl’s arms.

“I, uh, guess I forgot about that,” Bumblebee grinned nervously, already hastily backing away as Prowl rushed towards him, swords still drawn.

Two white pedes connected with Prowl’s helm, throwing him to the floor roughly, laser scalpels cutting into the metal ground as he skidded across it. Jazz gave Bumblebee a winning smile, spinning his nunchucks lazily around his servos.

“Let’s call it even, yeah?”

“More than even.”

A black blur barreled full force into Jazz, knocking him to the ground flat on his back. Prowl, oil dripping from his mouth and a hairline crack running through his visor, rained down punches with a feverish fury.

Jazz blocked a majority of the blows, but a few managed to clock him squarely in the jaw, paint scratched off to reveal the light gray underneath.

Bumblebee was preparing himself to jump into the brawl, but Jazz managed to get the upper servo first. With a carefully orchestrated twist, it was suddenly Prowl who was pinned against the floor, struggling to free himself from the weight of his fellow cyberninja. His efforts carried none of their previous grace—both mechs were locked in a combat of sheer power.

Figuring Jazz could handle the situation for a little while longer, Bumblebee ducked into the boxes once more in search of Ratchet. He found the medic still where he had sought cover, his injured pauldron removed as he did a hasty patch job to the damaged wiring underneath.

Upon hearing pedesteps approaching, he wielded his portable welder at his perceived enemy, but seeing that it was only Bumblebee, he quickly returned to his task.

“Sorry about that, kid. He got a lucky hit on my arm and severed a hydraulic line—I couldn’t do much with one arm out of commission. I’ve sealed the broken line, but it appears I’ve lost most of the fluid already. I can’t transform my magnet out, or do much else besides bend my elbow,” he shook his head in disappointment.

“That’s alright. We only need one of your magnets to make this work,” Bumblebee said cheerfully, trying to project as much optimism into his voice as possible. “We should probably do it soon, though, before Jazz gets beat to slag.”

Ratchet accepted Bumblebee’s offered servo with his own functioning one, joints creaking as he hoisted himself up. True to his assessment, his left arm hung limply at his side. He reattached the pauldron carefully.

“Maybe if you run that motormouth of yours a little more, you’ll short out his circuits enough that we can get him to stay in one place,” Ratchet mused, only half serious.

“Hey! Who’s motormouth? Cause he ain’t me,” Bumblebee shot back.

The cyberninjas were still wrestling when Bumblebee and Ratchet returned, but a quick strike from Prowl’s shield modification, as well as a boost from his rocket jets, put distance between them. He landed neatly on the platform containing the Matrix of Leadership, looking considerably worse for wear—there were dents across his frame, and a portion of his armor was damaged enough that it was throwing yellow sparks into the air.

“Why won’t you just let me live?” Prowl snarled in frustration, his servos already equipped with two more shurikens.

“Why won’t you go back to the Well peacefully?” Bumblebee shouted. “If you live, that means the real Prowl is stuck in purgatory for who knows how many stellar cycles. If you were anything like him, you would have given this whole mission up ages ago.”

“But I am him. I am Prowl. Why can’t you get that through your thick helmets?” Punctuating the end of each sentence, Prowl flung his throwing stars seemingly at random, cutting through empty air and embedding their blades into the wall across the room. “I am doing everything I was too weak-willed to do before. I will be content–” another shuriken went spinning towards the same spot, ”–when I have the assurance that the remains of my spark won’t fizzle out at a moment’s notice. And I will be happy–” one more throw, “–when this sniveling ghost gets out of my head!”

“Bumblebee, now!” A pink magnetic pulse shot towards Prowl.

“Ratchet, wait–!”

The magnetic field enveloped Prowl’s frame, trapping him inside an invisible barrier–but with him, it also captured the Matrix of Leadership. An audible groan of warping metal filled the room as Prowl was pressed against the protective casing, which in of itself was buckling under the force of the magnetism.

“What’re you waiting for, kid? Complete the field,” Ratchet snapped.

“But what if it interacts negatively with the Allspark fragments? We could blow this whole building sky-high!” Bumblebee exclaimed. He looked down at his stingers numbly, his body frozen with indecision.

“There’s no time, mech! Just do it now,” Jazz urged, his steadying presence appearing beside Bumblebee.

A final, rending screech split the air, Prowl letting out his own cry of pain as glass shattered against his back, bringing the shards of the Allspark into direct contact with his armor. A brilliant flash of blue-light white enveloped the standing Autobots, knocking them onto the floor as a searing heat washed over them, just as quickly as it faded away.

When Bumblebee’s optics had fully recalibrated, he saw Prowl standing motionless, his previously damaged plating now gleaming like new, cradling the Matrix in his servos. He looked so at peace, so normal, that for just a single nanoclick, Bumblebee let hope flood into his spark.

Was that enough to reunite his soul with the rest of his frame? he wondered distantly, his audio receptors ringing as his comrades slowly drew themselves off of the floor into sitting positions.

A grin split Prowl’s face, and Bumblebee felt as if all of the oil in his frame had suddenly frozen. This smile wasn’t welcoming, or gentle, or even lightly amused–it was smug, self-satisfied, and mocking. The black cyberninja turned the artifact over in his servos, slowly, as if physically weighing its power.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he said aloud, plucking the fragmented Allspark from its nest in the Matrix, discarding the relic at his pedes with a hollow clunk. He held the Allspark carefully, its blue glow illuminating his face and glinting off of his visor.

“Come on, mech. This isn’t what our master would have wanted. The Allspark is sacred–”

“And has already been defaced by both the Decepticons and the Autobots,” Prowl interrupted Jazz’s last-ditch effort at negotiation. “It has been shattered–irreperably so. Whatever I do with it now can be no worse than that. And besides, I’m not looking to undo all of the hard work I’ve done to pull these shards together in the first place. I only need a fragment.”

He plucked a single shard from the Allspark, placing the remainder of the artifact on the crumpled podium behind him. The shard lay innocently in his palm as his expression sobered.

“I will forever regret my failure to protect Master Yoketron. But with this shard, I can rectify that failure. Everything I was too soft-sparked to do before can be done now. I can prove that I am strong.”

“But–but you’re already strong!” Bumblebee blurted out, his optics flickering desperately between the servo containing the Allspark fragment and Prowl’s unmoving expression. He hadn’t absorbed the shard yet–they still had a chance to make this work. “Everyone on the team knows it. The whole of Cybertron knows it. Who’s left to prove that to?”

Prowl paused for a moment, thinking.

“There are still mechs who look down on me. The Elite Guard, for one, and especially Cybertron’s acting Magnus. And there are those who took advantage of my good will, once, who still have yet to meet their reckoning. I need to prove them wrong. I need to solidify my freedom.”

“But what’s the point? You’ve got everything you could ever need, right here, with your team,” Bumblebee shot back. “Bossbot dropped everything, every regulation in the books, to help you out when you were stranded. Bulkhead has covered for you more times than I want to say, and Ratchet has been there to patch you up every time you do something stupid and reckless. Jazz helped you continue with your ninja training when your master couldn’t. And I…never had many connections back before I joined the Elite Guard’s bootcamp and got tacked onto a ragtag spacebridge repair crew. This team has been the closest thing to a family I’ve ever had, and I even started to think of you–” Bumblebee stopped, seeming to have a hard time forming the words, “–this annoying, self-righteous afthole who we picked up like a stray cat off of a random rock at the edge of the universe–as a brother. So why isn’t that enough for you?!”

Prowl said nothing, turning his head away as his face was carved into a deep frown.

Bingo.

In that single moment where Prowl was not focused on his opponents, Bumblebee raised his stingers, Ratchet doing the same with his single working arm. They fired together, the yellow stream of electricity wrapping itself around the magnetic pulse, forming a potent electromagnetic field.

The field struck Prowl at its full force, pulling a gasp from him as his systems abruptly shorted out. Under the pressure, he dropped the Allspark shard he had been holding–it plinked delicately against the floor, rolling to a stop next to the depleted Matrix.

“Stop that. Now!” he shouted, unable to escape the constrictive grasp of the field as his pedes were lifted from the floor. His fingers twitched, and Bumblebee could hear the cyberninja trying to power up his modifications, but everything was locked out of his control.

A blur of cyan blue darted into the field suddenly, leaping upwards to latch onto the mech’s shoulders. The visage of Prowl–the real, whole Prowl–caught his frame in a headlock, wrapping his pedes around the spark fragment’s arms to keep his thrashing to a minimum.

“Is that–?” Jazz whispered in awe, unable to finish his thought as his jaw hung loosely in amazement.

“Sure is,” Bumblebee grinned.

As Prowl and his spark fragment continued to rise higher above the ground, Prowl’s spark fragment seemed to regain some of his fight. He wriggled viciously against Prowl’s grasp, managing to free a servo and aggressively push the spirit away from him. Undeterred, Prowl trapped his frame in another fierce hug, keeping the mech’s arms pinned against his side.

“He never told us what to do from here,” Ratchet remarked, the slightest hint of worry leaking into his tone.

“I think we’ve just gotta trust him on this one, and keep the field steady,” Bumblebee replied, completely fixated on the action above.

There was a gradual change coming over Prowl’s physical frame. Like a virus, blue pixels were creeping across his sleek black armor from the points where Prowl’s ghost was keeping him still. It was slow at first, but gradually increased in speed. His frame began to glow with an ethereal light.

“I…want…to live. Why is that so much to ask for?” the spark fragment asked, seemingly to no one. His resistance had shrivelled to nothing more than a few weak tugs at Prowl’s arms as the blue crept up his neck and down towards the tips of his pedes.

Prowl made no effort to respond. Although his face was mostly obscured from where Bumblebee stood, he could see the determined set of his jaw.

When only the top of his helmet and his chevron remained black and gold, the spark fragment’s visor dimmed, as if offlining his optics. His limbs were completely limp at his sides. His lips moved, whispering a few final words too quietly for anyone on the ground to hear.

Bumblebee watched as the two transparent bodies seemed to morph into one another, their silhouettes blurred before emerging as a single visage. Prowl floated in the air, looking down at his servos as he flexed his fingers, before returning his gaze to the Autobots on the ground.

“Thank you,” he said.

And he smiled.

Bumblebee lowered his stinger, the electromagnetic field dissipating as Ratchet followed him–but still, Prowl remained.

And before Bumblebee could utter any kind of response, be it a heartfelt goodbye or some kind of clever quip as a parting gift, he saw small pixels of Prowl’s armor detach and drift away from his frame, swept away towards the stars far above their heads. One by one, the flecks of light fell away faster and faster, taking the last piece of Prowl with them.

The image burned itself into Bumblebee’s processor as his friend’s face finally disappeared in a torrent of blue, creating a Milky Way of crystalline fragments above their heads.

And when Bumblebee had finally accepted that this was all he would have left of Prowl, this memory, his teammate surprised him one last time. Instead of dissolving into flickering light like the rest of him, the blue translucence peeled off of Prowl’s helmet–Master Yoketron’s helmet–leaving it pristine, black and gold glittering in the final silver rays of the moon.

Without even thinking about it, Bumblebee ran forward, leaping up several steps at a time as the helmet began to plummet towards the ground. He caught it, cradling it carefully against his chest as the swarm of light above escaped through the broken pane in the glass dome, dancing out into the night sky.

Dead silence reigned–silence so loud Bumblebee could hear nothing but the spinning of his own spark. He stared blankly at the helmet in his hold, trying to ignore the faint shaking of his servos as he turned it around so that it faced him properly.

“Kid?”

Bumblebee hadn’t even noticed Ratchet walk up beside him. It was difficult, but he tore his gaze away from the helmet to meet the medic’s optics.

“I’ll be alright,” Bumblebee said, a tiny smile tugging at the edges of his lips. And, strangely enough, he knew it was true.

The serene moment was broken by the loud thud of running pedesteps in the main hall. Optimus Prime and Bulkhead smashed through the partially ajar vault door, weapons drawn and ready for battle. But upon taking in the scene–Elite Guard soldiers prone on the floor, Jazz stopped midstep up to the podium where Bumblebee and Ratchet stood bunched together–they paused, reluctantly lowering their weapons.

“What happened? Why did you send out a distress call, Bumblebee? Are you alright?” Optimus asked hurriedly, tucking his axe away and striding across the room purposefully. “Why are these guards offline? And where is Prowl?”

As the two got closer, Bumblebee turned fully to face them. They simultaneously stopped in their tracks, optics locked on to the helmet in his servos.

“Why are you holding…Prowl’s helmet…?” Bulkhead asked slowly, his gaze flickering around the room as if he expected the cyberninja to leap out from the shadows and surprise him. When this didn’t happen, a pained look crept across his face.

“I think there’s a lot we need to talk about,” Bumblebee sighed. “And we will–eventually. But right now, I just need some time.”

Chapter Text

Bumblebee stepped through the spacebridge–or rather, stumbled after falling several feet through the vortex–glad to have his pedes on solid ground. Typically, spacebridges were reserved for the departure of ships alone, but the technicians had made an exception for him. They had rigged up a temporary platform so he could access the bridge, but the same structure had not been erected on the other side of the portal. After all, the only information they had given the Sumdacs was that they would be having a Cybertronian visitor.

Luckily, he stuck the landing, managing not to faceplant onto the roof of Sumdac Tower. He relished the warm Earth sun on his armor. That was one thing he found he didn’t like about Cybertron: the lack of a close parent star meant that the surface was perpetually cold. Frigid temperatures didn’t impact the systems of Cybertronians the way they did organics, but after spending so long on Earth, going back to his home planet had felt like walking into a freezer.

To Bumblebee’s surprise, there were three occupants standing on the platform containing the controls to the spacebridge. Professor Sumdac and Sari, as expected, were monitoring the progress of the spacebridge as it powered down, ensuring that there weren’t any unusual spikes in energy.

The third person, however…

“Captain Fanzone? What are you doing here?” Bumblebee asked, walking over to join the humans. Standing on the platform, they were practically level with Bumblebee’s head.

“Making sure there ain’t any more trouble in my city,” the police captain huffed, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he leaned against the railing. “Where’re the rest of your pals? And your ship?”

“Just me today,” Bumblebee replied easily. “The others were occupied, but there was something that needed to be taken care of on Earth, and they decided I was the best candidate to do it.”

“Don’t tell me there’s more alien nonsense for my force to deal with,” Fanzone sighed.

“Nah, any Decepticons still on your planet don’t seem very interested in showing themselves–which is a great thing,” Bumblebee added upon Fanzone’s suspicious look. “And trust me, even if no Autobots are here on Earth, we’re still monitoring their activity closely. And I’m sure Sari is doing the same. If we pick up anything unusual, we’ll be the first on scene to help…assuming Sentinel gets over himself and lets us come back.”

Fanzone waved a hand through the air.

“I don’t really care about your planet’s politics, or any politics for that matter, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my men doing their job.”

“Right…sure,” Bumblebee said dubiously. The police captain seemed satisfied enough with that answer.

With the spacebridge fully set into stasis mode, the Sumdacs turned to greet their visitor.

“What’s with the sudden appearance? I thought Sentinel had you guys running his PR campaign,” Sari commented.

“He still does, but circumstances, uh, changed,” Bumblebee said, his lips pressed into something between a strained smile and a grimace. “And I guess I don’t have a better way to break this news than to just show you.”

Very carefully, Bumblebee reached behind his head, popping open his trunk and retrieving the item from inside. It had been a tight fit, and he had even had Bulkhead help him strategically wedge the thing in there, just to make sure it wasn’t damaged during his journey through the spacebridge.

Bumblebee held out Prowl’s helmet for the humans to see.

Almost instantly, both Professor Sumdac’s and Chief Fanzone’s faces fell with realization. Sari, on the other hand, glanced behind Bumblebee at the towering form of the spacebridge.

“Prowl’s helmet? Is he coming, too?” she asked distractedly. “I was a little worried about him when you guys left.”

“No, Sari, uh–” Bumblebee freed a servo in order to scratch at the back of his head.

Sheesh, I’m bad at this, he thought dejectedly.

“What Bumblebee is trying to say, I believe,” Sari’s father jumped in, “is that your friend has…how do you robots say it…joined the Well of Allsparks. Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” Bumblebee nodded, avoiding looking at Sari. He wasn’t sure he could take another one of her crestfallen expressions.

“Wait, he’s–he’s dead? But we just got him back!” she exclaimed. “This is a joke, right? You’re pranking me. And it’s not a very funny prank, either.”

“No, Sari, I’m being serious. Prowl’s gone…for good this time,” he stated firmly. His optics flickered back to the gathered humans–Sari was leaning heavily against the railing.

“But…how?” she asked weakly.

“It’s a bit of a long story, and I thought I could explain it to you while we look for a place to put this,” Bumblebee said, gesturing to the helmet. “If your dad and the Chief wouldn’t mind, I’d like to fill you in first.”

“Of course, of course,” Professor Sumdac agreed readily, pushing Sari towards the lift down to the ground level. “Take all the time you need.”

“But–what…?” Sari seemed at a loss for words as she was lowered to the surface of the roof and promptly scooped up into Bumblebee’s servo. He moved quickly towards the robot-sized elevator occupying the other end of the workspace.

“Oh, Bumblebee!” Professor Sumdac called after him. The yellow mech turned with a questioning look. “I just wanted to say that I am sorry for your loss–again. I did not know Prowl all that well, but he seemed like a wonderful person.”

The questioning look turned to one of confusion on Bumblebee’s face.

“Why would you be sorry? You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“We’re expressing our condolences, you box of bolts. Prowl was a good guy–would’ve been an excellent addition to my police force, but I’m not sure I ever could’ve convinced him to join. Besides, we’ve got enough machines around as it is.” As if realizing how his words may have sounded, Fanzone was quick to tack on: “But of course, you bots are the best machines I know. I’ll miss him.”

“Thanks, Fanzone. Professor,” Bumblebee smiled tiredly. They meant well, obviously, but he had business to attend to before he was missed on Cybertron.

Sari and Bumblebee reached the ground floor in silence. Stepping outside, Bumblebee transformed into his vehicle mode, taking off down familiar Detroit streets.

“So? When’s the explaining going to start?” Sari asked bitterly, sitting with her arms crossed in his driver’s seat. She had been allowed to switch over from the passenger seat when she had received her upgrade and would no longer receive odd glances from other motorists who looked in the window and saw an eight year old driving a car. Bumblebee’s only rule was that she was not allowed to touch anything besides the seat, the door, and the radio.

“I’m trying to decide exactly where I want to begin,” Bumblebee replied. He was stalling, and Sari knew it, but she allowed him to stew in his own nerves.

Bumblebee sighed.

“Do you know exactly how a Cybertronian’s spark works?” he asked. If Sari was put off at all by this question, she didn’t show it.

“Kind of. It’s like a heart in that it’s necessary for your body to work, but it’s also a little like a soul? Because it’s placed inside the frame, it kind of contains your guys' personalities and memories and stuff…I think. But you can’t live without it,” she said.

“That’s a pretty good starting point. Even I’m not all that sure on how it works,” Bumblebee admitted. He paused for a moment, considering his words. “When our sparks fade completely from our frames, the ancient Cybertronian belief is that they return to the Well of Allsparks–where all sparks originate, and eventually where all sparks will return once the frame goes offline. I don’t know if I believe in all that spiritual junk, though.”

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Sari griped irritably. “Get to the point.”

“When Prowl transferred the energy of his spark into the fragmented Allspark to give it a power boost, that should have completely snuffed his spark. A spark can’t sustain itself outside of its parent frame, especially not in a crazy environment like the Allspark itself. He was basically transferring his spark directly into the Well,” Bumblebee went on. “But in the process, something…fractured, and a piece of his spark stayed behind in his frame. Jazz thinks it could have been because of Yoketron’s armor. I say it’s because Prowl’s a stubborn glitchhead, but either way, a little piece of him remained in a kind of stasis. But when that fragment came out of stasis, Prowl was…different.”

“Because it was only a portion of his spark?” Sari guessed.

“Yes and no. There are rare cases where mechs can live just fine with only partial sparks–take the Jettwins, for instance. They each have half of the same spark, and they’re…relatively normal.

“Anyway, the problem with Prowl’s spark was that everything that was left was all the bad parts of him with none of the good.”

“And you know this…how?” Sari questioned dubiously.

“He told me.”

“So the evil version of Prowl told you he was evil,” she deadpanned.

“Hey, I never said anything about evil! Just…bad. And I also told you this was complicated,” Bumblebee huffed. “Prowl may or may not have stabbed me and knocked me out, and the real Prowl–who was a ghost–just so happened to be able to converse with me while I was offline.”

Sari remained silent for several moments.

“Run that by me again.”

They went back and forth throughout the car ride, Bumblebee trying his best to run through the series of events which eventually led to their altercation in the Hall of Heroes relics vault, with Sari occasionally butting in with questions of her own.

By the time they pulled into the abandoned lot of the Autobot’s base, they had thoroughly exhausted the topic.

“But why are you the one carrying out his last wish?” Sari inquired, stepping out of the yellow car to allow him to transform.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bumblebee shot back, opening the large garage door as they both stepped inside. The plant was dark, and eerily quiet. Even in the middle of the day, the claws of the assembly machinery cast wild shadows across the concrete floor. Not even a single beep came from the communications center, and the TV was powered down. It was as if no one had lived here in the first place.

“Sorry, Bee, but you’re not the most trustworthy mech I’ve met. Why not Optimus or…or Jazz? Cause he would know the rights and stuff,” Sari continued.

“Prowl trusted me enough to talk to me in the first place!” Bumblebee retorted. He led the way through the hallway that contained the bots’ personal quarters.

“Because you were unconscious and easy to talk to,“ Sari rebuked.

“Okay, fine,” Bumblebee rolled his optics. “This whole situation has Sentinel on edge–he’s keeping the others on Cybertron in order to help save face from having the Hall of Heroes broken into and the Matrix of Leadership nearly stolen. He was only gonna allow one of us to come back, and both Optimus and Jazz are too high profile, and therefore too valuable, for Sentinel to let out of his sight. Ratchet and Bulkhead both agreed it would probably be easier for me to slip away.”

“The next time I see that slagger I’m gonna get as much organic goo on his armor as I possibly can,” Sari pouted. “He deserves everything that he gets.”

“Tell me about it. But maybe don’t say that the next time we’re on Cybertron–I don’t want to be cleaning up Sari bits off of the ground.”

“Ew, Bee! That’s so gross,” Sari giggled, pushing against his pede as Bumblebee opened the door into Prowl’s room. It looked the same as he remembered: the same green tree sending rippling sunlight across the floor, although now, leaves were scattered across the space with no one around to clean them up. A few birds sang sweetly in the higher branches.

Bumblebee wandered over to Prowl’s desk. The ninja never had a berth installed in his room–he insisted it took up too much space, and he preferred to recharge in his tree anyway. Bumblebee stole the small, plush cushion off of his desk chair.

“You sure this is where you want to put him?” Sari asked offhandedly, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

“It’s green and leafy, isn’t it? That’s what he asked for. And without us around, it’s quiet, too.”

“What about Dinobot Island?” Sari suggested. Bumblebee knelt down, nestling the cushion amongst the roots of the tree, then carefully placing the helmet on top. The golden prongs gleamed in the sunlight.

“If I could barely explain the situation to you in a way that made sense, I’m not gonna try and explain death to the Dinobots,” he scoffed, leaning back and taking a seat on the floor. “Besides, I don’t want some random animal running off with it. Putting it here, we know where it is–and we can come visit easily, too. He spent so much time in his room anyway, you think he would like his helmet being here.”

“I guess,” Sari nodded reluctantly, moving to sit down beside Bumblebee. She rested her head against his side. There they remained for several minutes, in silence.

Bumblebee glanced down at his companion. Her eyes were distant, as if her mind were somewhere else.

“You’re not gonna start leaking, are you?” he questioned. At least that managed to pull a small smile out of her.

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, we’re already gone through this once, right? I’ve already mourned him, and he never really came back in the first place. I’m upset, of course, but it’s not as crushing as it was the first time. I wish it could’ve gone differently, but Prowl knew he couldn’t come back, and I’m glad that at least in some way he got the peace he wanted.”

Bumblebee let out a long, heavy sigh.

“What’s eating at me is that he didn’t want to go, but he knew he couldn’t come back, and between those two options–of being stuck as a ghost, or of joining the Well–there was really only one right answer. If we could have found a way to get his spark back into his frame…”

“And what, let him become a science experiment?” Sari scoffed. “You know the only way you could have done that was to turn to the Council for help, and something tells me they wouldn’t have been that gentle with someone they view as a criminal. Besides, you know Prowl never would have wanted that.”

“But maybe if Jazz could have–”

“Prowl’s processor over matter was strong, but he never could have revived a spark, and Jazz is nowhere near his level. The only thing that could have brought Prowl back was the Allspark, and without the key as a conduit, it’s pretty much useless for something like that. And as Prowl said, all the Allspark would have done was reinforce his spark fragment–it wouldn’t have brought him back.” Sari finally raised her gaze to meet his optics, concern evident. “What’s with all this ‘what if’ talk? You’re never this…speculative.”

“I don’t know,” was all Bumblebee responded with. Because he didn’t know. All he knew was that there was a deep pit in his stomach that told him that could have done better, tried harder to get his friend back. If he thought about it too much, the pit threatened to expand into a yawning hole, consuming every last bit of him until he was nothing but an empty husk.

But what Sari said also made sense, logically–there wasn’t any more he could have done.

He diverted his optics back to the helmet. A leaf had fallen onto the cushion, and he was tempted to brush it away, but decided against it.

“I think this is a pretty good time to quote a wise old mech I once knew, who said that we ‘have to be grateful for the things we have,’” Sari said, poorly mimicking Prowl’s voice.

Bumblebee grinned slightly. “Like family?” he parroted, throwing Sari’s own words back at her.

“Like family,” Sari smiled. And with that smile, a tiny portion of the pit was filled in.

His spark buzzing warmly, Bumblebee stood swiftly, taking Sari with him despite her surprised yelp as she sat on his palm.

“So, I saw Burgerbot had a new item on their menu. Something about a strawberry shake? Want to give it a try?” Bumblebee asked playfully, striding towards the door.

“I don’t see why not. But didn’t you say you were expected back on Cybertron?” Sari replied.

“Eh, they won’t miss me,” he shrugged. “Besides, I have more important matters to attend to than Sentinel’s political posturing.”

Before Bumblebee took his final step out of the room, he risked a glance back at the base of the tree. Perched on one of the long prongs of Prowl’s helmet was a yellow songbird. It tilted its head at Bumblebee questioningly, a series of notes reverberating in the air as it twittered cheerfully.

Grinning to himself, Bumblebee closed the door behind him, chattering idly with Sari as they left the helmet in its resting place, placidly waiting in the dappled sunlight.