[Fic] Seven Days -- Part 3/7: (Wednesday) Doctor Love
Title: Seven Days -- Part 3/7: (Wednesday) Doctor Love
Author: Lyricality (
lyricality)
Rating: M/NC-17 for graphic sparksex
Pairings: Eventual Bee/everyone. In this part, Ratchet/Bee with mention of Sam/Bee (and vague Ironhide/Ratchet).
Disclaimer: If Transformers still doesn't belong to me at the end of this sentence, I will weep.
Note/Summary: Two days late. *winces* I have a good excuse--this part is at least 1000 words longer than any of the previous parts, because Ratchet and Bee apparently have trouble SHUTTING UP. Again, blamenemi_chan and her marvelous prompt o' doom, in which Bumblebee is the resident pleasurebot of the Autobots. The title is still meant to be as porntastically cheesy as possible (jigsaws231, I loved your suggestion of "Naughty Nurse Ratchet," but saria_vo's "Doctor Love" just seemed to fit the mood a little better. I adore you both for your help. ♥) Welcome back to the Special Hell?
Part 1/7: (Monday) Prime Time can be found here.
Part 2/7: (Tuesday) Iron Ride can be found here.
Since the construction of their admittedly small base, Ratchet had only one place to be, and he had taken to his new medical bay with all the protective devotion of a badger defending its den. Stepping inside, Bee had a moment or two to observe him at work, watching with admiration as he brought wire upon wire together without a pause, every finger coming into play, his optics narrowed and almost distant with perfect concentration.
“You are early,” he remarked, while executing a particularly complicated turn of his wrist that sealed all the wiring together.
Bee shrugged, clasping his hands behind him and arranging himself against the door. Ratchet was in profile, and Bee had to endure a familiar tingle of jealousy. Among their kind, Optimus held the deserved title of most powerfully pleasing construction, but Ratchet had always been considered handsome, all of his machinery a melding of art and practicality. Bee had never ranked much more than cute in comparison.
Then Ratchet turned to face him, and all his previous concentration settled upon Bee in a deepening scowl. “I am not retained purely for the purpose of restoring you from Ironhide’s gentle ministrations.”
“I thought I could impose upon your good nature,” Bee chirped. Ratchet had assumed a pose of great severity, standing between Bee and the examination table, but Bee decided to ignore that. One of the advantages to smaller size was swifter movement, and with just a simple swerve under Ratchet’s arm, Bee hopped up onto the table edge. His feet didn’t reach the floor, and he felt smaller yet.
“I have none,” Ratchet said, but took hold of Bee’s wrist and twisted his arm sideways, examining the damage to his armor with a critical gaze. “Secondary circuitry scratched. Paint damage, of course. Hydraulics entirely overstressed, wiring scrapped, left tertiary gear stripped.” His tone turned sardonic. “I hope it was worthwhile.”
Suspicion coiled in his processors, but Bee simply shrugged.
“Be still, or this will be more than uncomfortable.” Having no doubt of that, Bee obediently froze, suppressing a shudder at the multitude of elegant tools that snapped and whirred from their usual positions under the armor of Ratchet’s forearms. A little spell of silence fell between them, professionalism at the forefront while the medical officer replaced wiring and welded armor. Bee gave a little hiss at the heat, and Ratchet rested steadying fingers against the join of his neck and shoulder, optics narrowing. “He still hasn’t the slightest self-control, I note.”
“More than you give him credit for.” Something about his tone must have given him away, because Ratchet cast him a sharp glance that seemed to reach past his circuits and directly probe his spark.
Bee wanted to push the issue, but kept his peace in the face of Ratchet’s expression and the broader ethics of confidentiality required by his duties.
“This is not how I’d planned on spending my time with you,” Ratchet muttered at some length.
He had his fingers buried in the delicate connections of Bee’s chest plates, preventing any movement, but Bee made a softly wanting sound. He could whisper without disturbing Ratchet’s work. “I have time.”
“Not so much of it as before.”
That stung, but Bee had expected a little lecturing, one way or another. “You’d better know that I don’t take any of my duties lightly,” he said, the edge to his voice promising argument, depending on the direction of this conversation.
“I should hope not.” Ratchet finished a connection, smoothing tubing and wire back into place with a lightly sensitive stroking that Bee knew was intentional. He couldn’t keep himself from quivering, nevertheless.
“I can’t help what I feel.”
“Of course you can.” Ratchet rewarded his sentimentality with a buzzing snort. “Logic programming. Calculation of cause and effect and probability. What is anything I’ve taught you worth, if you refuse to control what you feel?”
He had withdrawn his fingers, and Bee could move again, easing forward just enough to touch Ratchet’s chest with both hands, his fingers splayed. “Then that’s what I choose.” He thought of Sam--he never stopped thinking of Sam--with those warmly human palms pressed against his interior leather, his voice whispering a promise. No. He had no control at all, and he barely cared how his processors decided to deal with his disregard for logic.
“Then don’t pretend otherwise.” Turning, Ratchet chose a wrench from his extensive collection, removing the damaged gear and fitting another into place.
Bee tried not to wince. “It’s not simple. You make it seem... I don’t want to be alone.”
A pause, and he might have disregarded it, had he not known Ratchet so well. Something in the medic’s face twisted, more hurt than anger, but Bee felt the blunt force of both directed at him. “Neither did I,” Ratchet snapped. His expression shuttered, closing off, but not before Bee had reached out as much with energy as with fingers, little humming sparks jumping between them when he framed Ratchet’s face in both hands.
“Why, then?” he whispered. If he asked honestly, Ratchet would answer--the privilege of the student.
The medical officer never minced words. If he paused to think on a question, the answer would be important, so Bee kept silent when Ratchet took a seat beside him, turning the wrench over and over in profoundly dexterous hands before casting it aside. “The trust needed for our sort of work,” he said at last. His optics met Bee’s with uncomfortable force. “It never came so easily to me as it does to you. Not that I didn’t trust the others,” he clarified, and Bee tried to clear the surprise from his expression. “I did not--I do not--want to give others the opportunity to look into me.”
Wordless, Bee stared back at him. He searched for something pleasant to say--clever or comforting was certainly out of the question.
Ratchet sensed his difficulty, countering it with something like a smile, terribly grim. “I enjoy touching others. I do not always enjoy being touched.”
“I’m sorry,” Bee murmured, lowering his head.
When the medic had taught him all the defenses at his disposal in this line of duty, he had never calculated this underlying motivation. Preserving the security of his systems--of his neutral and his interfacing processors--had seemed reason enough for fortification.
“It is not a comfortable subject,” Ratchet said, “and I am even less comfortable discussing it.”
He spoke gently, but Bee felt less than comfortable himself. “Do you want me to go?”
Ratchet emitted a surprisingly human snort. “Don’t be an idiot. I knew you would be coming, and I rearranged my schedule for it. Bumblebee.” The medic touched him with one sure hand, a deft stroke across his breastplate that left him shivering. Low warmth in Ratchet’s voice only increased the tremor. “Your company is something I always enjoy. As is your touch.” He caught Bee’s wrist, part of the same smooth motion, and Bee went willingly where he directed, stretching out across the table. “And I am not fool enough to think I can do without it,” Ratchet added, leaning over Bee and bracing himself on one arm. “Any more than could the others.”
His free hand traced along the center of Bee’s chest, skirting the newly repaired armor over his spark before dragging downward over his waist. Fingers played wires like the strings of an instrument, artistic expertise that felt so very good.
Shifting his weight, Ratchet straddled him, his knees settling to either side of Bee’s hips against the table, letting him bring both hands to bear. No one else could possibly know Bee’s body so well. No one else could make such thorough use of that knowledge, every wire and its connection so familiar, every caress sizzling through sensors already keen for stimulation. The slightest whisper of touch could make him shriek under the command of Ratchet’s incredible hands. Sometimes Bee anticipated their times together with as much apprehension as eagerness.
That touch moved at last to his chest plates, and Ratchet concentrated briefly to bring a low current of electricity into his fingertips. When he brushed the outer armor aside, Bee arched against him, a keen spilling from his vocal processors and finally shorting out into static when that current dismissed inner armor and sizzled over his spark casing.
Ratchet skimmed metal with just the tips of his fingers. Overwrought, Bee thought of Sam, making unexpected connections between that too-gentle touch and the unintentional stroking of small, warm hands. He made a broken sound, little buzzing clicks of need.
Maybe Ratchet read something unusual in that sound, or in Bee’s expression. His optics faintly narrowed.
“Do you think of the boy?” he murmured. Before Bee could protest the question, Ratchet grazed his fingers past the casing and directly into his spark, the pleasure sudden and so sharp that Bee could only cry out. “Do you think of him like this?”
Of course he did. He thought crazy, malfunctional, impossible things, with Sam at the center of all of them, but when he wordlessly shook his head, he was denying the question instead of the answer they both knew.
“Have you told him your responsibilities?”
Optics shuttering, Bee shook his head again with a little moan of distress, misery in the midst of so much ecstasy.
At that, Ratchet’s hands stilled, and Bee moaned again, fingers clenching at the edges of the table. “Bumblebee. You must explain it. Before he attempts to draw his own conclusions--”
“I know it--I know--” Bee could barely endure this, not when he couldn’t concentrate and his pleasure in this was blurring into his guilt over it. “Not now, Ratchet, not now.” He writhed, one hand fastening around the medical officer’s wrist, fingers delving into the sensitive circuitry above the joint.
With an electrical hiss, Ratchet surrendered, dropping the matter in favor of burying both hands in liquid light, stroking Bee’s spark until it flared into bright, beating rhythm. Torture, but the agony was blissful.
Bee fell into the sensation with almost unseemly relief. It could continue into infinity and he would be nothing but grateful. Electricity gathered in his circuits, crackling feedback along his wiring that made him shudder and squirm under Ratchet’s hands, a building surge of heat and light and energy that burst over him in a brilliant sonic wave. Those hands, he loved those hands, he loved those hands. And they didn’t stop, but kept touching him, fingers deep in his spark and caressing the casing beyond it, conducting power through wire upon wire until Bee felt himself burning, crying as the energy surged again.
“Ratch--Ratchet--”
He hated this, he loved it, he couldn’t take it, and he needed more. Ratchet’s hands trembled, a suppressed hint of how much this excited him, but he never paused. Power built again until it jolted through all of Bee’s processors, off-lining his optics for a flickering second of bright hot darkness.
“Ratchet...” His vocalizations deteriorated into inarticulate moans, partially Cybertronian and mostly desperation. “Please.”
Acquiescence, in action instead of words when Ratchet withdrew his unsteady fingers. Bee sprawled quivering against the table, his optics flicking back online in time to watch his mentor opening the armor over his chest, exterior defenses impressive but mild compared to interior armaments. Never before had he been so touched that Ratchet would disarm himself completely for him.
He held out both arms with a whimper. Groaning, Ratchet covered him in a doubled embrace.
Their sparks connected gradually, seamlessly with the ease of long practice. Immediate thoughts surfaced first, and Bee took his revenge by sending aftershocks of pleasure straight into Ratchet’s systems, targeting defenses weakened by desire. In only a moment the medical officer shuddered around him, and the uniting strands of energy between them ignited with a small but shared surge.
Tension eased in the aftermath. They could enjoy each other with a little more patience, now, and Bee made a luxurious mental stretch, something like spreading wings in the familiar shelter of Ratchet’s spark. Here they met more as equals. Bee had always thought that a courtesy, a part of Ratchet’s thoughtfulness during his training. Maybe it represented some vulnerability on Ratchet’s part, instead. Reaching out, he stroked against the consciousness touching his own, requesting and receiving deeper entry. Here, Ratchet had fewer walls, softer barriers than those he wore as a physical counterpart to disguise his emotions. Bee could sense the uncertainty he rarely displayed, could touch the guilt created by Jazz’s death but not yet eased by his resurrection. Soothing, he wrapped himself around both, offering his skilled touch back to the teacher.
Surrendering, Ratchet welcomed him in and drew him even deeper, reaching out in return. Bee felt his own desires examined, dissected and finally accepted with reluctant concern. Acceptance meant a great deal--more than Bee had expected--and he couldn’t hide his gratitude, already fully open to their connection, offering pleasure again with enthusiasm.
Instead, Ratchet brought him closer, then closer yet, and Bee realized with minor misgivings that they had never before connected so deeply as this. He questioned it.
Something I must show you. To understand.
Ratchet presented Bee with something he barely comprehended and had no idea how to accept--the weight of his recorded memory, several thousand years of his career, unfiltered honesty. Shocked, Bee tried to hold that gift and felt himself slipping into it instead, sliding on the surface of recollected encounters, events, and emotions. They parted around him like plates of glass, reflecting a million images, and Bee reached out with hesitation and great care.
Ratchet went still, but stayed receptive, allowing the exploration of his thoughts.
Keeping his investigation thoroughly gentle, and as shallow as his curiosity could bear, Bee sifted through the offered memories, some familiar and some entirely foreign. So many partners. Bee knew most of the names only by reputation, but some he recognized by remembered touch alone. Optimus, again and again. Optimus had been the first partner they had taken together, when Ratchet began Bee’s training, and Bee’s nervousness had nearly undone him. Of course, Ratchet had known best. Optimus had been nothing but patient, and afterwards he had held Bee in those powerful but trembling arms, telling him that he had done well, so well.
He lingered in those memories for a cycle or more, appreciative of the opportunity to experience them through Ratchet’s perspective. Remembered pleasure quaked through him, still strong. How long had Ratchet been their Prime’s personal medical officer? Surely for centuries before Bee’s creation.
But Ratchet stirred him out of those recollections, urging him toward something connected, but very different. Bee sensed a darkness here, and it snared him when he stretched himself toward it, dragging him down into new memories. An introduction by Optimus. A question of confidentiality and skill. A touch. And a face that left him stricken and flailing in the sea of Ratchet’s remembered partners, struggling for purchase and denying what he was being shown.
No.
For the first time in his memory, Ratchet shied away from the connection of their thoughts, though he had initiated the contact. Bee’s sensors buzzed with the medic’s sound of purely mental distress. It was shame, it was certainty, it was affirmation. It was so deeply concealed in the web of Ratchet’s consciousness that he could never have discovered it on his own.
Yes.
Those lean, long claws. Bee knew the feeling of them now, tracing his circuitry and touching his spark, sensation transferred in horrible detail by the accuracy of Ratchet’s memory chips. But he had known those terrible hands before. They had done their best to rip him apart. They had torn his vocal processor out in shrieking strands of brittle wire and tossed him aside as so much worthless scrap.
Megatron.
The inward shuddering they shared confirmed it, and Bee could barely process past his shock. He’d known that Ratchet had cared for partners in the past who had chosen Decepticon ideology and insignias. Civil war had changed Cybertron forever, and so little from the distant past could still affect the present. But he had never once supposed...had never even imagined...
Ratchet was reaching out to him again; there was more. With a growing sense of dread, Bee didn’t hesitate, just reached out in return with acceptance, then keened faintly in discomfort when Ratchet flooded all his circuitry with the feeling of Megatron as he once had been. Before insanity, but not before ambition. Before sociopathy, but not before selfishness. The threads of Megatron’s spark swarmed through him, tendrils of concentration so intense they edged on obsession, barriers of labyrinthine strategic awareness that analyzed every individual and every event, shards of self-awareness keen enough to damage the innocent and unwary. Beneath such absolute strength of presence and purpose, Bee felt himself shrinking, reduced to a raft of nailed boards passing the unimaginable grace and glory of an aircraft carrier, trembling in its wake. Touching Optimus spark to spark had never made him feel so insignificant.
Once, Megatron had been more charismatic than cruel. His self-possession had twisted into arrogance, joined with a vindictive righteousness that served as justification for atrocities.
Bee quivered under the weight of knowledge he had never wanted, but Ratchet pressed him, strangely desperate for more than acceptance.
You can never really know them. You can’t predict or prevent--only watch and wonder why.
Comprehension sluiced over Bee like ice through all his wiring. It broke the spell, and he fought free of Megatron’s remembered spark with a relief like clearing the atmosphere, making planetfall.
This time, Ratchet let him loose, the connection slackening, but Bee had no intention of retreating. Now he understood reasoning long unclear--why Ratchet had chosen to train him, why he had abandoned his skills in emotional healing to concentrate on mechanical repair, why he built barriers now in the face of Ironhide’s attraction.
You never told me.
A murmur of discomfort in reply. Bee reached out with more of himself, their thoughts and energies weaving together like intertwining fingers. Only Optimus knows.
I might’ve helped.
He let Ratchet sense his regret.
Hesitant, Ratchet shared the emotion, and it was enough to make him reach out again. Bee caught him and gathered him close, arms and energy and spark combined in a secure hold. It isn’t what you think, he soothed. Megatron had been the exception to every rule, a dangerous and unstable being in an ordered world. It’s all right to trust us.
Now he understood the source of Ratchet’s resistance, and he could work to repair the disconnect. Ironhide’s attraction wasn’t obsession, and his single-mindedness in battle didn’t translate to carelessness or arrogance.
Bee asked wordlessly for trust, and received as much of it as Ratchet could give. This time, his offer of shared pleasure radiated undertones of safety and warmth.
Ratchet accepted him; they merged again.
Usually Bee had only himself to give, but now he had full access to thousands of Ratchet’s most sensual memories, instant stimulation at the reach of every thought. Even so, he took the time to carefully craft the connection between them, constructing it with emotional as much as physical sensations of security, anticipation and bliss. He chose the memory of Optimus’ incredible hands, the inventiveness of an Autobot he’d never known, his own respectful trust of Ratchet’s skill, and then he made a choice worthy of his professional reputation for subterfuge. He isolated the memory of how he felt in Ironhide’s arms, protected and wanted, powerful but safe, and he stripped it of all its identifying details to leave just the impressions. Weaving that strand into the rest, he pressed everything on Ratchet with such gradual care that both of them trembled, grasping at each other and sharing an echoed cry.
“Ah--Bumblebee,” Ratchet gasped, and he did something deep inside, a physical connection of intertwining wires that let energy pulse between them.
Bee trembled and arched, driving spark against spark with a wordless plea to be taught.
Like this--let me show you-- Ratchet slipped easily into instruction even during ecstasy. Here...and here. Bee followed him, too shaken at first but then succeeding, making the meld of wiring and circuitry on his own, electricity jolting through him and back into Ratchet. He was rewarded with a throb of praise sharp enough to send him reeling. Yes. Yes. Like that.
Bee clung to coherency when Ratchet began to shake, and he gave up that memory again, exhilaration but control, exhilaration in the loss of control, with someone strong enough for safety...
Ratchet quivered and gave out a sudden sob, energy snapping through him like lightning and grounding in Bee to make him keen in return, electricity escalating from spark to spark in an endless loop of crippling pleasure. System warnings flashed, and Bee made a tangled shriek of dismay and satisfaction before he couldn’t resist his own overloading components. He went abruptly offline, aftershocks following him into darkness.
When he returned to full awareness--more or less--Ratchet had disengaged their sparks, both their exterior armors back in place, though they stayed curled together.
The medic made a questioning sound, apparently all he could manage.
Bee chirped in return, working up to words again. Ratchet’s arms wrapped tight around him, familiar and comforting despite the unsettling truths the medic had shared, and Bee let the past rest with a final inward shiver. A few cycles passed, and then nimble fingers dipped into the gears of his back, stroking him into another moan.
“I may have trained you too well,” Ratchet mused with a quiver of his own.
Calling up a weak chuckle, Bee stretched against him, his hands resting against Ratchet’s hips. “That’s what he said.” With an inward wince, he realized he’d spoken without thinking, and had probably given himself away. But Ratchet said nothing, simply continued with touches more gentle than any Bee had ever experienced during his too-frequent repairs. Despite their contradictory nature, Bee still loved those hands.
Time clicked away by cycles, and they stayed quiet together until Ratchet’s mouth quirked at one edge. “You are late for your other commitment.”
For an instant, Bee gazed back at him in bewilderment, then dread dawned. He checked his interior clock with a squeak of shocked distress. Oh, Sam, Sam, and he’d never meant to take so long, but with the repairs and the care required by Ratchet’s revealed emotions... Oh, Sam. Panicked, Bee rolled off the table and onto his feet, stumbling once in haste and then again when Ratchet caught him by one wrist.
“Do not forget tomorrow,” the medical officer reminded him, stern, then more severe yet when he added, “And remember that I have no intention of repairing you again on a moment’s notice. Be careless, be scrapped, for all I care.”
Bee nodded, his thoughts all focused elsewhere, and he tried to pull away again.
“Wait, Bumblebee.” Ratchet’s fingers tightened, just a little too much. “Don’t you ever give me memories of him again.” A little tighter, metal grating together, components stressed just shy of damage before Ratchet released him. The medic paused, optics narrowed, something shaken in his expression. “Not even if I ask.”
*****
He was thoroughly late. So unforgivably late that when he pulled up to Tranquility High, Sam was sitting alone on the front steps, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped tight around them, the very picture of hurt abandonment.
Aching with guilt, Bee flung the door open even before he rolled to a stop.
For a long, long minute, Sam refused to look at him, even when Bee made a little desperate sound, not daring to speak. When Sam did look at his car, his eyes held such accusation that Bee couldn’t suppress a soft moan. Even the radio failed him; nothing sounded appropriate.
Still reproachful, Sam stood, but took his time descending the last few steps and walking over to the door. He stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, glaring at the driver’s seat and then off down the road, apparently weighing his options. “Sam,” Bee dared to whisper, then shut up when his boy finally flopped into the seat. This time he kept his hands in his lap, no incidental touches, no affection at all, and Bee had known how much those little caresses meant to him, but he hadn’t known how empty he would feel without them.
He eased the door shut. Silence swelled between them, so thick that Bee wanted to roll down his windows, wanted it out of him, but he stayed still.
“Take me home, Bee,” Sam finally asked.
Bee obeyed. He kept circumspectly to the speed limit, wanting to prolong their time together no matter how miserable it might be. Halfway back to the Witwicky house, Sam spoke again.
“Something’s going on, Bee. Something’s going down, and you won’t tell me what it is.” His hands clenched into fists. “How am I supposed to feel about that?”
“Sam...please...”
One hand came down hard against the edge of the steering wheel, nowhere near strong enough to cause him physical pain, but something inside Bee stung, nevertheless. “You’re my best friend. Best. I told you to tell me, and you didn’t, so if you won’t, then just don’t talk to me at all.” Sam’s hand unclenched, but reluctantly, and he curled his fingers hard against the rim of the wheel. “Don’t say anything. Zip it. Not unless it’s the truth.”
Timidly, Bee flipped on the radio, but only managed a note or two before Sam punched it off.
“Not even. No way.”
They pulled into the driveway. Bee steeled himself and locked the doors, letting Sam pull against the handle and swear at him for a minute or so before he offered up the only truth he knew how to say. “Tomorrow I...tomorrow I have to help Jazz. Please, Sam, I’ll explain everything but...I need time to decide how--”
“Yeah?” Sam slammed a fist so hard against the window that his knuckles cracked and started to bleed, and Bee made a keen of distress and flung open both doors. “I need time, too,” Sam muttered, and flung himself out of the Camaro before fleeing into the house, slamming the door behind him.
*****
Author: Lyricality (
lyricality)Rating: M/NC-17 for graphic sparksex
Pairings: Eventual Bee/everyone. In this part, Ratchet/Bee with mention of Sam/Bee (and vague Ironhide/Ratchet).
Disclaimer: If Transformers still doesn't belong to me at the end of this sentence, I will weep.
Note/Summary: Two days late. *winces* I have a good excuse--this part is at least 1000 words longer than any of the previous parts, because Ratchet and Bee apparently have trouble SHUTTING UP. Again, blame
nemi_chan and her marvelous prompt o' doom, in which Bumblebee is the resident pleasurebot of the Autobots. The title is still meant to be as porntastically cheesy as possible (jigsaws231, I loved your suggestion of "Naughty Nurse Ratchet," but saria_vo's "Doctor Love" just seemed to fit the mood a little better. I adore you both for your help. ♥) Welcome back to the Special Hell?Part 1/7: (Monday) Prime Time can be found here.
Part 2/7: (Tuesday) Iron Ride can be found here.
Since the construction of their admittedly small base, Ratchet had only one place to be, and he had taken to his new medical bay with all the protective devotion of a badger defending its den. Stepping inside, Bee had a moment or two to observe him at work, watching with admiration as he brought wire upon wire together without a pause, every finger coming into play, his optics narrowed and almost distant with perfect concentration.
“You are early,” he remarked, while executing a particularly complicated turn of his wrist that sealed all the wiring together.
Bee shrugged, clasping his hands behind him and arranging himself against the door. Ratchet was in profile, and Bee had to endure a familiar tingle of jealousy. Among their kind, Optimus held the deserved title of most powerfully pleasing construction, but Ratchet had always been considered handsome, all of his machinery a melding of art and practicality. Bee had never ranked much more than cute in comparison.
Then Ratchet turned to face him, and all his previous concentration settled upon Bee in a deepening scowl. “I am not retained purely for the purpose of restoring you from Ironhide’s gentle ministrations.”
“I thought I could impose upon your good nature,” Bee chirped. Ratchet had assumed a pose of great severity, standing between Bee and the examination table, but Bee decided to ignore that. One of the advantages to smaller size was swifter movement, and with just a simple swerve under Ratchet’s arm, Bee hopped up onto the table edge. His feet didn’t reach the floor, and he felt smaller yet.
“I have none,” Ratchet said, but took hold of Bee’s wrist and twisted his arm sideways, examining the damage to his armor with a critical gaze. “Secondary circuitry scratched. Paint damage, of course. Hydraulics entirely overstressed, wiring scrapped, left tertiary gear stripped.” His tone turned sardonic. “I hope it was worthwhile.”
Suspicion coiled in his processors, but Bee simply shrugged.
“Be still, or this will be more than uncomfortable.” Having no doubt of that, Bee obediently froze, suppressing a shudder at the multitude of elegant tools that snapped and whirred from their usual positions under the armor of Ratchet’s forearms. A little spell of silence fell between them, professionalism at the forefront while the medical officer replaced wiring and welded armor. Bee gave a little hiss at the heat, and Ratchet rested steadying fingers against the join of his neck and shoulder, optics narrowing. “He still hasn’t the slightest self-control, I note.”
“More than you give him credit for.” Something about his tone must have given him away, because Ratchet cast him a sharp glance that seemed to reach past his circuits and directly probe his spark.
Bee wanted to push the issue, but kept his peace in the face of Ratchet’s expression and the broader ethics of confidentiality required by his duties.
“This is not how I’d planned on spending my time with you,” Ratchet muttered at some length.
He had his fingers buried in the delicate connections of Bee’s chest plates, preventing any movement, but Bee made a softly wanting sound. He could whisper without disturbing Ratchet’s work. “I have time.”
“Not so much of it as before.”
That stung, but Bee had expected a little lecturing, one way or another. “You’d better know that I don’t take any of my duties lightly,” he said, the edge to his voice promising argument, depending on the direction of this conversation.
“I should hope not.” Ratchet finished a connection, smoothing tubing and wire back into place with a lightly sensitive stroking that Bee knew was intentional. He couldn’t keep himself from quivering, nevertheless.
“I can’t help what I feel.”
“Of course you can.” Ratchet rewarded his sentimentality with a buzzing snort. “Logic programming. Calculation of cause and effect and probability. What is anything I’ve taught you worth, if you refuse to control what you feel?”
He had withdrawn his fingers, and Bee could move again, easing forward just enough to touch Ratchet’s chest with both hands, his fingers splayed. “Then that’s what I choose.” He thought of Sam--he never stopped thinking of Sam--with those warmly human palms pressed against his interior leather, his voice whispering a promise. No. He had no control at all, and he barely cared how his processors decided to deal with his disregard for logic.
“Then don’t pretend otherwise.” Turning, Ratchet chose a wrench from his extensive collection, removing the damaged gear and fitting another into place.
Bee tried not to wince. “It’s not simple. You make it seem... I don’t want to be alone.”
A pause, and he might have disregarded it, had he not known Ratchet so well. Something in the medic’s face twisted, more hurt than anger, but Bee felt the blunt force of both directed at him. “Neither did I,” Ratchet snapped. His expression shuttered, closing off, but not before Bee had reached out as much with energy as with fingers, little humming sparks jumping between them when he framed Ratchet’s face in both hands.
“Why, then?” he whispered. If he asked honestly, Ratchet would answer--the privilege of the student.
The medical officer never minced words. If he paused to think on a question, the answer would be important, so Bee kept silent when Ratchet took a seat beside him, turning the wrench over and over in profoundly dexterous hands before casting it aside. “The trust needed for our sort of work,” he said at last. His optics met Bee’s with uncomfortable force. “It never came so easily to me as it does to you. Not that I didn’t trust the others,” he clarified, and Bee tried to clear the surprise from his expression. “I did not--I do not--want to give others the opportunity to look into me.”
Wordless, Bee stared back at him. He searched for something pleasant to say--clever or comforting was certainly out of the question.
Ratchet sensed his difficulty, countering it with something like a smile, terribly grim. “I enjoy touching others. I do not always enjoy being touched.”
“I’m sorry,” Bee murmured, lowering his head.
When the medic had taught him all the defenses at his disposal in this line of duty, he had never calculated this underlying motivation. Preserving the security of his systems--of his neutral and his interfacing processors--had seemed reason enough for fortification.
“It is not a comfortable subject,” Ratchet said, “and I am even less comfortable discussing it.”
He spoke gently, but Bee felt less than comfortable himself. “Do you want me to go?”
Ratchet emitted a surprisingly human snort. “Don’t be an idiot. I knew you would be coming, and I rearranged my schedule for it. Bumblebee.” The medic touched him with one sure hand, a deft stroke across his breastplate that left him shivering. Low warmth in Ratchet’s voice only increased the tremor. “Your company is something I always enjoy. As is your touch.” He caught Bee’s wrist, part of the same smooth motion, and Bee went willingly where he directed, stretching out across the table. “And I am not fool enough to think I can do without it,” Ratchet added, leaning over Bee and bracing himself on one arm. “Any more than could the others.”
His free hand traced along the center of Bee’s chest, skirting the newly repaired armor over his spark before dragging downward over his waist. Fingers played wires like the strings of an instrument, artistic expertise that felt so very good.
Shifting his weight, Ratchet straddled him, his knees settling to either side of Bee’s hips against the table, letting him bring both hands to bear. No one else could possibly know Bee’s body so well. No one else could make such thorough use of that knowledge, every wire and its connection so familiar, every caress sizzling through sensors already keen for stimulation. The slightest whisper of touch could make him shriek under the command of Ratchet’s incredible hands. Sometimes Bee anticipated their times together with as much apprehension as eagerness.
That touch moved at last to his chest plates, and Ratchet concentrated briefly to bring a low current of electricity into his fingertips. When he brushed the outer armor aside, Bee arched against him, a keen spilling from his vocal processors and finally shorting out into static when that current dismissed inner armor and sizzled over his spark casing.
Ratchet skimmed metal with just the tips of his fingers. Overwrought, Bee thought of Sam, making unexpected connections between that too-gentle touch and the unintentional stroking of small, warm hands. He made a broken sound, little buzzing clicks of need.
Maybe Ratchet read something unusual in that sound, or in Bee’s expression. His optics faintly narrowed.
“Do you think of the boy?” he murmured. Before Bee could protest the question, Ratchet grazed his fingers past the casing and directly into his spark, the pleasure sudden and so sharp that Bee could only cry out. “Do you think of him like this?”
Of course he did. He thought crazy, malfunctional, impossible things, with Sam at the center of all of them, but when he wordlessly shook his head, he was denying the question instead of the answer they both knew.
“Have you told him your responsibilities?”
Optics shuttering, Bee shook his head again with a little moan of distress, misery in the midst of so much ecstasy.
At that, Ratchet’s hands stilled, and Bee moaned again, fingers clenching at the edges of the table. “Bumblebee. You must explain it. Before he attempts to draw his own conclusions--”
“I know it--I know--” Bee could barely endure this, not when he couldn’t concentrate and his pleasure in this was blurring into his guilt over it. “Not now, Ratchet, not now.” He writhed, one hand fastening around the medical officer’s wrist, fingers delving into the sensitive circuitry above the joint.
With an electrical hiss, Ratchet surrendered, dropping the matter in favor of burying both hands in liquid light, stroking Bee’s spark until it flared into bright, beating rhythm. Torture, but the agony was blissful.
Bee fell into the sensation with almost unseemly relief. It could continue into infinity and he would be nothing but grateful. Electricity gathered in his circuits, crackling feedback along his wiring that made him shudder and squirm under Ratchet’s hands, a building surge of heat and light and energy that burst over him in a brilliant sonic wave. Those hands, he loved those hands, he loved those hands. And they didn’t stop, but kept touching him, fingers deep in his spark and caressing the casing beyond it, conducting power through wire upon wire until Bee felt himself burning, crying as the energy surged again.
“Ratch--Ratchet--”
He hated this, he loved it, he couldn’t take it, and he needed more. Ratchet’s hands trembled, a suppressed hint of how much this excited him, but he never paused. Power built again until it jolted through all of Bee’s processors, off-lining his optics for a flickering second of bright hot darkness.
“Ratchet...” His vocalizations deteriorated into inarticulate moans, partially Cybertronian and mostly desperation. “Please.”
Acquiescence, in action instead of words when Ratchet withdrew his unsteady fingers. Bee sprawled quivering against the table, his optics flicking back online in time to watch his mentor opening the armor over his chest, exterior defenses impressive but mild compared to interior armaments. Never before had he been so touched that Ratchet would disarm himself completely for him.
He held out both arms with a whimper. Groaning, Ratchet covered him in a doubled embrace.
Their sparks connected gradually, seamlessly with the ease of long practice. Immediate thoughts surfaced first, and Bee took his revenge by sending aftershocks of pleasure straight into Ratchet’s systems, targeting defenses weakened by desire. In only a moment the medical officer shuddered around him, and the uniting strands of energy between them ignited with a small but shared surge.
Tension eased in the aftermath. They could enjoy each other with a little more patience, now, and Bee made a luxurious mental stretch, something like spreading wings in the familiar shelter of Ratchet’s spark. Here they met more as equals. Bee had always thought that a courtesy, a part of Ratchet’s thoughtfulness during his training. Maybe it represented some vulnerability on Ratchet’s part, instead. Reaching out, he stroked against the consciousness touching his own, requesting and receiving deeper entry. Here, Ratchet had fewer walls, softer barriers than those he wore as a physical counterpart to disguise his emotions. Bee could sense the uncertainty he rarely displayed, could touch the guilt created by Jazz’s death but not yet eased by his resurrection. Soothing, he wrapped himself around both, offering his skilled touch back to the teacher.
Surrendering, Ratchet welcomed him in and drew him even deeper, reaching out in return. Bee felt his own desires examined, dissected and finally accepted with reluctant concern. Acceptance meant a great deal--more than Bee had expected--and he couldn’t hide his gratitude, already fully open to their connection, offering pleasure again with enthusiasm.
Instead, Ratchet brought him closer, then closer yet, and Bee realized with minor misgivings that they had never before connected so deeply as this. He questioned it.
Something I must show you. To understand.
Ratchet presented Bee with something he barely comprehended and had no idea how to accept--the weight of his recorded memory, several thousand years of his career, unfiltered honesty. Shocked, Bee tried to hold that gift and felt himself slipping into it instead, sliding on the surface of recollected encounters, events, and emotions. They parted around him like plates of glass, reflecting a million images, and Bee reached out with hesitation and great care.
Ratchet went still, but stayed receptive, allowing the exploration of his thoughts.
Keeping his investigation thoroughly gentle, and as shallow as his curiosity could bear, Bee sifted through the offered memories, some familiar and some entirely foreign. So many partners. Bee knew most of the names only by reputation, but some he recognized by remembered touch alone. Optimus, again and again. Optimus had been the first partner they had taken together, when Ratchet began Bee’s training, and Bee’s nervousness had nearly undone him. Of course, Ratchet had known best. Optimus had been nothing but patient, and afterwards he had held Bee in those powerful but trembling arms, telling him that he had done well, so well.
He lingered in those memories for a cycle or more, appreciative of the opportunity to experience them through Ratchet’s perspective. Remembered pleasure quaked through him, still strong. How long had Ratchet been their Prime’s personal medical officer? Surely for centuries before Bee’s creation.
But Ratchet stirred him out of those recollections, urging him toward something connected, but very different. Bee sensed a darkness here, and it snared him when he stretched himself toward it, dragging him down into new memories. An introduction by Optimus. A question of confidentiality and skill. A touch. And a face that left him stricken and flailing in the sea of Ratchet’s remembered partners, struggling for purchase and denying what he was being shown.
No.
For the first time in his memory, Ratchet shied away from the connection of their thoughts, though he had initiated the contact. Bee’s sensors buzzed with the medic’s sound of purely mental distress. It was shame, it was certainty, it was affirmation. It was so deeply concealed in the web of Ratchet’s consciousness that he could never have discovered it on his own.
Yes.
Those lean, long claws. Bee knew the feeling of them now, tracing his circuitry and touching his spark, sensation transferred in horrible detail by the accuracy of Ratchet’s memory chips. But he had known those terrible hands before. They had done their best to rip him apart. They had torn his vocal processor out in shrieking strands of brittle wire and tossed him aside as so much worthless scrap.
Megatron.
The inward shuddering they shared confirmed it, and Bee could barely process past his shock. He’d known that Ratchet had cared for partners in the past who had chosen Decepticon ideology and insignias. Civil war had changed Cybertron forever, and so little from the distant past could still affect the present. But he had never once supposed...had never even imagined...
Ratchet was reaching out to him again; there was more. With a growing sense of dread, Bee didn’t hesitate, just reached out in return with acceptance, then keened faintly in discomfort when Ratchet flooded all his circuitry with the feeling of Megatron as he once had been. Before insanity, but not before ambition. Before sociopathy, but not before selfishness. The threads of Megatron’s spark swarmed through him, tendrils of concentration so intense they edged on obsession, barriers of labyrinthine strategic awareness that analyzed every individual and every event, shards of self-awareness keen enough to damage the innocent and unwary. Beneath such absolute strength of presence and purpose, Bee felt himself shrinking, reduced to a raft of nailed boards passing the unimaginable grace and glory of an aircraft carrier, trembling in its wake. Touching Optimus spark to spark had never made him feel so insignificant.
Once, Megatron had been more charismatic than cruel. His self-possession had twisted into arrogance, joined with a vindictive righteousness that served as justification for atrocities.
Bee quivered under the weight of knowledge he had never wanted, but Ratchet pressed him, strangely desperate for more than acceptance.
You can never really know them. You can’t predict or prevent--only watch and wonder why.
Comprehension sluiced over Bee like ice through all his wiring. It broke the spell, and he fought free of Megatron’s remembered spark with a relief like clearing the atmosphere, making planetfall.
This time, Ratchet let him loose, the connection slackening, but Bee had no intention of retreating. Now he understood reasoning long unclear--why Ratchet had chosen to train him, why he had abandoned his skills in emotional healing to concentrate on mechanical repair, why he built barriers now in the face of Ironhide’s attraction.
You never told me.
A murmur of discomfort in reply. Bee reached out with more of himself, their thoughts and energies weaving together like intertwining fingers. Only Optimus knows.
I might’ve helped.
He let Ratchet sense his regret.
Hesitant, Ratchet shared the emotion, and it was enough to make him reach out again. Bee caught him and gathered him close, arms and energy and spark combined in a secure hold. It isn’t what you think, he soothed. Megatron had been the exception to every rule, a dangerous and unstable being in an ordered world. It’s all right to trust us.
Now he understood the source of Ratchet’s resistance, and he could work to repair the disconnect. Ironhide’s attraction wasn’t obsession, and his single-mindedness in battle didn’t translate to carelessness or arrogance.
Bee asked wordlessly for trust, and received as much of it as Ratchet could give. This time, his offer of shared pleasure radiated undertones of safety and warmth.
Ratchet accepted him; they merged again.
Usually Bee had only himself to give, but now he had full access to thousands of Ratchet’s most sensual memories, instant stimulation at the reach of every thought. Even so, he took the time to carefully craft the connection between them, constructing it with emotional as much as physical sensations of security, anticipation and bliss. He chose the memory of Optimus’ incredible hands, the inventiveness of an Autobot he’d never known, his own respectful trust of Ratchet’s skill, and then he made a choice worthy of his professional reputation for subterfuge. He isolated the memory of how he felt in Ironhide’s arms, protected and wanted, powerful but safe, and he stripped it of all its identifying details to leave just the impressions. Weaving that strand into the rest, he pressed everything on Ratchet with such gradual care that both of them trembled, grasping at each other and sharing an echoed cry.
“Ah--Bumblebee,” Ratchet gasped, and he did something deep inside, a physical connection of intertwining wires that let energy pulse between them.
Bee trembled and arched, driving spark against spark with a wordless plea to be taught.
Like this--let me show you-- Ratchet slipped easily into instruction even during ecstasy. Here...and here. Bee followed him, too shaken at first but then succeeding, making the meld of wiring and circuitry on his own, electricity jolting through him and back into Ratchet. He was rewarded with a throb of praise sharp enough to send him reeling. Yes. Yes. Like that.
Bee clung to coherency when Ratchet began to shake, and he gave up that memory again, exhilaration but control, exhilaration in the loss of control, with someone strong enough for safety...
Ratchet quivered and gave out a sudden sob, energy snapping through him like lightning and grounding in Bee to make him keen in return, electricity escalating from spark to spark in an endless loop of crippling pleasure. System warnings flashed, and Bee made a tangled shriek of dismay and satisfaction before he couldn’t resist his own overloading components. He went abruptly offline, aftershocks following him into darkness.
When he returned to full awareness--more or less--Ratchet had disengaged their sparks, both their exterior armors back in place, though they stayed curled together.
The medic made a questioning sound, apparently all he could manage.
Bee chirped in return, working up to words again. Ratchet’s arms wrapped tight around him, familiar and comforting despite the unsettling truths the medic had shared, and Bee let the past rest with a final inward shiver. A few cycles passed, and then nimble fingers dipped into the gears of his back, stroking him into another moan.
“I may have trained you too well,” Ratchet mused with a quiver of his own.
Calling up a weak chuckle, Bee stretched against him, his hands resting against Ratchet’s hips. “That’s what he said.” With an inward wince, he realized he’d spoken without thinking, and had probably given himself away. But Ratchet said nothing, simply continued with touches more gentle than any Bee had ever experienced during his too-frequent repairs. Despite their contradictory nature, Bee still loved those hands.
Time clicked away by cycles, and they stayed quiet together until Ratchet’s mouth quirked at one edge. “You are late for your other commitment.”
For an instant, Bee gazed back at him in bewilderment, then dread dawned. He checked his interior clock with a squeak of shocked distress. Oh, Sam, Sam, and he’d never meant to take so long, but with the repairs and the care required by Ratchet’s revealed emotions... Oh, Sam. Panicked, Bee rolled off the table and onto his feet, stumbling once in haste and then again when Ratchet caught him by one wrist.
“Do not forget tomorrow,” the medical officer reminded him, stern, then more severe yet when he added, “And remember that I have no intention of repairing you again on a moment’s notice. Be careless, be scrapped, for all I care.”
Bee nodded, his thoughts all focused elsewhere, and he tried to pull away again.
“Wait, Bumblebee.” Ratchet’s fingers tightened, just a little too much. “Don’t you ever give me memories of him again.” A little tighter, metal grating together, components stressed just shy of damage before Ratchet released him. The medic paused, optics narrowed, something shaken in his expression. “Not even if I ask.”
*****
He was thoroughly late. So unforgivably late that when he pulled up to Tranquility High, Sam was sitting alone on the front steps, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped tight around them, the very picture of hurt abandonment.
Aching with guilt, Bee flung the door open even before he rolled to a stop.
For a long, long minute, Sam refused to look at him, even when Bee made a little desperate sound, not daring to speak. When Sam did look at his car, his eyes held such accusation that Bee couldn’t suppress a soft moan. Even the radio failed him; nothing sounded appropriate.
Still reproachful, Sam stood, but took his time descending the last few steps and walking over to the door. He stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, glaring at the driver’s seat and then off down the road, apparently weighing his options. “Sam,” Bee dared to whisper, then shut up when his boy finally flopped into the seat. This time he kept his hands in his lap, no incidental touches, no affection at all, and Bee had known how much those little caresses meant to him, but he hadn’t known how empty he would feel without them.
He eased the door shut. Silence swelled between them, so thick that Bee wanted to roll down his windows, wanted it out of him, but he stayed still.
“Take me home, Bee,” Sam finally asked.
Bee obeyed. He kept circumspectly to the speed limit, wanting to prolong their time together no matter how miserable it might be. Halfway back to the Witwicky house, Sam spoke again.
“Something’s going on, Bee. Something’s going down, and you won’t tell me what it is.” His hands clenched into fists. “How am I supposed to feel about that?”
“Sam...please...”
One hand came down hard against the edge of the steering wheel, nowhere near strong enough to cause him physical pain, but something inside Bee stung, nevertheless. “You’re my best friend. Best. I told you to tell me, and you didn’t, so if you won’t, then just don’t talk to me at all.” Sam’s hand unclenched, but reluctantly, and he curled his fingers hard against the rim of the wheel. “Don’t say anything. Zip it. Not unless it’s the truth.”
Timidly, Bee flipped on the radio, but only managed a note or two before Sam punched it off.
“Not even. No way.”
They pulled into the driveway. Bee steeled himself and locked the doors, letting Sam pull against the handle and swear at him for a minute or so before he offered up the only truth he knew how to say. “Tomorrow I...tomorrow I have to help Jazz. Please, Sam, I’ll explain everything but...I need time to decide how--”
“Yeah?” Sam slammed a fist so hard against the window that his knuckles cracked and started to bleed, and Bee made a keen of distress and flung open both doors. “I need time, too,” Sam muttered, and flung himself out of the Camaro before fleeing into the house, slamming the door behind him.
*****