If there’s one thing death has taught Bumblebee, it’s to take what he can get. Specifically, to take whatever entertainment he can get, because when you spend every astrosecond of every orn tethered to Starscream, unable to talk to anyone else, there’s little to do that doesn’t involve staring at the wall of Starscream’s office, staring at the walls of various meeting rooms, people watching, and staring at the walls of Starscream’s apartment.
Oh, and the arguing. There’s always the arguing.
When Starscream comes storming into his office after a meeting with Windblade and a delegation from Sanctuary Station, Bumblebee resigns himself to a long, loud night. “Oh, for the love of Primus,” he mutters to himself as Starscream stalks towards his desk. Louder, he says, “What is it this time?”
Starscream pings the lights on and kicks his chair back from the desk like it personally offended him. “Windblade.”
“Color me shocked.”
Starscream’s face is all twisted up in that way it gets when he’s angry. Once, Bumblebee told him it looked stupid. Starscream ignored him, but later, Bee had found him making faces in the bathroom mirror, wrinkling his nose this way and that like he was trying to find an attractive way to scowl. “Oh, don’t you start now,” Starscream snaps at him, slamming a datapad down onto the desk.
Bumblebee can’t resist needling him. The reactions are too entertaining. “Did that datapad do something to you?”
Sure enough, Starscream whips around, wings flared high and wide, and jabs a finger straight through Bee’s incorporeal chest. “ Enough! I’ve had enough of Pit-damned soft-sparked Autobot fools for one day.” He takes a vent like he’s going to launch into a rant, but then the datapad pings with an incoming message. “Arrgh!” He throws himself into the desk chair and begins typing out a reply with the sort of speed and force that might have frightened Bumblebee were he still alive to be hurt.
When he finishes, sending the message with a decisive click of talons on glass, Bee ventures back towards the desk and into Starscream’s line of sight. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The datapad pings with another message. Starscream’s optic twitches. “There’s nothing to talk about. Especially not to you,” he growls, already composing a response. Bee shrugs and turns to stare out the window while Starscream types. Less than five minutes later, he’s startled out of his traffic-watching by the ping of an incoming message, an enraged shriek, and the sound of a datapad meeting a wall at high speed, all in quick succession. He turns around in time to see Starscream shoot to his feet so quickly his chair nearly falls backwards. “Windblade,” he snarls, storming out from behind his desk to pace angrily around the room, “is impossible to work with.”
Bumblebee heaves a sigh. “Is she the one messaging you?”
“No! No, she doesn’t have to! I’m just cleaning up another one of her endless messes.” His wings are hiked up to their highest positions, trembling with tension. With any luck, this show of emotion means the tantrum will be explosive and short rather than the painfully long affairs the more subdued ones could be. Bee already has a processor ache. “She has no political sense whatsoever. The only reliable thing about her is her shocking ability to make the worst possible choice in any given situation. She crumples under the slightest pressure, she can’t take criticism, and she refuses to listen to any advice I give her. Her insolence verges on treason.”
Bee rolls his optics. “Oh, is that all?”
Starscream sneers at him. “And her taste in paintjobs is outdated at best.”
Bumblebee lets him pace for another minute or so before hazarding a piece of advice. “Look, Starscream, I’m just saying that maybe if you were a little easier on her…”
“Easier? You think being easier on her would solve this? She doesn’t need to be coddled, she needs to be taught. You wanted to know what happened today? She lost us the last of our advantage in the negotiations with Soundwave’s people. She went behind my back in order to ‘be kind’ and ‘do the right thing,’ apparently. Primus only knows what’s kind about wasting resources on a tiny, uncooperative satellite of hippies.”
Well, Bumblebee thinks, at least he tried. Once Starscream is this worked up, though, there’s little in the galaxy capable of stopping him, and Megatron’s currently otherwise occupied. He leans against a bookshelf and tries his best not to look too bored. Starscream doesn’t take that well.
“She’s too trusting,” he continues, gathering momentum. “She can’t possibly be so naive. Caminus would have chewed her up and spit her out long before coming here. She must be playing some sort of long con. That’s it! This is some sort of, of game, and she thinks she’s getting one over on me, tricking me into letting my guard down. Or she’s already up to something behind my back!”
Okay, Bumblebee thinks. This is taking a turn for the paranoid. He straightens, ready to intervene. “Starscream.”
“A terrible plan, really.” He barks a laugh. “Playing at incompetence. As if that would be enough to fool me. She can’t possibly believe I, Starscream, would—”
“Starscream!” Bumblebee steps into the middle of the room, hoping to intercept the pacing. “You’re being ridiculous.” And then he reaches out to put a hand on Starscream’s shoulder. He reaches out to touch, like he was still alive. Like he could still touch. Like Starscream was an Autobot, like he would tolerate Bumblebee touching him, take it as a grounding comfort.
Starscream startles, jerking back so hard he crashes into his desk and knocks a half-empty cube of energon to the ground. It trickles out onto the gleaming tile floor as Starscream stares at him, frame tense and optics wide. Bumblebee stares back, hand still outstretched. Neither of them move.
After a long, tense moment, Starscream cycles his optics twice and resettles his plating, sitting back down behind his desk. He grabs the first functional datapad he lays optics on and starts scrolling much too fast to actually be reading any of it. Bumblebee’s not even remotely sure what just happened, but he gets the feeling he’s fragged up.
“Starscream?”
Nothing. More scrolling. Some tapping.
“This is immature, you know. You’re acting like a sparkling.”
More nothing. More tapping. Some very serious-looking selecting.
“Frag.”
Sunrise doesn’t come naturally on Cybertron. Not anymore, at least. According to some of his older friends, the pollution wasn’t so bad a few million years ago, but now, the smog over Iacon is far too thick to see the actual sun through. No star rises in their sky. Instead, at 0700 hours every morning, the skylights and solar reflectors up in orbit start to power up, washing their sector in morning light.
In the earliest days of the rebuilding efforts, there was the faint hope that their atmosphere had recovered and the days of artificial lighting were behind them. It quickly became apparent that this was not the case. Whatever improvements had been made during the war were minimal, and Cybertron was still very much dependent on artificial light sources. Surprisingly, it was Starscream who’d made the decision to stick with sectored lighting, maintaining the time zones once dictated by the sun.
Now, at 0845, Iacon is fully lit. Millions of kilotonnes of glass and metal shine in the artificial light, leaving bright white afterimages in Bumblebee’s optics. Funny how the light can still touch him like this. When Starscream’s wing clips through his back for the third time in as many minutes, he’s glad light seems to be the only thing that can.
Starscream makes another sweeping turn back towards his desk and the tip of his wing actually comes out the front of Bumblebee’s helm. Bumblebee makes an offended noise which Starscream ignores. He’s far too absorbed in the unenviable task of getting Rodimus out of his office to pay attention to Bee.
Rodimus has been in Starscream’s office for nearly an hour, attempting to discuss the Lost Light’s anchoring at one of Iacon’s skyports. Bumblebee can’t believe he’s thinking it, but Rodimus has actually been focused. Well, at least compared to Starscream, who’s been in rare form all morning. He’s been keyed up since last night.
“Will that be all, Rodimus?”
Bumblebee turns around to watch what will be, if Primus has any mercy, the end of the meeting. Starscream’s standing behind his desk again, leaning on it in what might be a passable impression of calm were his wings not hiked up over his shoulders and trembling. He shoos Rodimus out of his chair, but Rodimus won’t go for the door.
“Wait—”
Starscream keeps waving him on. “If you have any further concerns, I urge you to forward them to my secretary.”
Rodimus stumbles back to avoid a finger to the chest. “Wait, Starscream—”
Starscream actually pushes him this time. “I trust you can see yourself out?” Before Rodimus can answer, he’s been herded through the door, which Starscream closes and locks behind him. Then, he engages the office-wide security system.
“Starscream?”
Starscream doesn’t even look at him. “Shush.” His optics are overbright and his wings are still held high and tense as he makes a slow, practiced circuit of the office. He’s looking for… something. Security check, Bumblebee realizes. He makes two laps of the office before dropping into his chair, apparently satisfied for the time being.
He stays there, ignoring Bumblebee, for another half-hour, sending messages and making short, cryptic calls. Then, with no preamble, he shoots to his feet, opens the door to his balcony, and flies away. Bumblebee watches after him until he disappears from sight, then braces himself to be pulled along for the ride.
Bumblebee rematerializes in Starscream’s bedroom. It’s empty and dark and for a moment, he wonders if he’s somehow been separated from Starscream. Then, he sees the light spilling out from under the bathroom door. Starscream’s here, alright. Bumblebee can hear him crying. He thinks of leaving him to it, but it sounds pretty intense. Bumblebee hears him gag like he might purge his tanks and decides he needs to intervene.
“Starscream?” he calls. “You alright in there?”
A loud thump and a clatter like falling energon cubes. “Shut up!” Another gag, and then Bumblebee cringes as he listens to Starscream attempt to purge his tanks and sob at the same time.
Starscream’s always been… unstable. Since his death, Bumblebee has seen him break down plenty of times, and he’s getting pretty good at predicting his episodes. Unreasonable as they might seem, they’re not random. If Bumblebee’s right about this one’s trigger, it began late last night, when a notice from the Lost Light had come in announcing their intention to dock above Iacon and come to the surface for a short shore leave. Starscream had read the notice a few times before throwing the datapad at the wall with enough force to shatter it.
It had taken Bumblebee a few minutes of thinking and listening to Starscream’s frantic, paranoid muttering to realize what the problem was. Megatron.
Megatron was aboard the Lost Light, and now he was coming not just to Cybertron, but to Iacon. Starscream was a very prominent public figure. Should Megatron choose to disregard his orders to remain shipside, there would be no hiding.
In the bathroom, Starscream’s turned the solvent on. His sobs have turned to something a bit more like a cross between hyperventilation and screaming, and with all the banging, Bumblebee’s getting legitimately concerned for the integrity of the bathroom fixtures. “Starscream?” he calls. “I’m coming in there.”
Starscream shrieks something Bumblebee can’t understand. He’s sure it’s nothing pleasant, but he tries not to let it intimidate him. He’s a ghost, he reminds himself. He can’t be hurt. Starscream can throw things at him (which he does, often), but they’ll just pass right on through.
Starscream does indeed throw something at him when he phases through the door. A cleaning brush, Bumblebee’s pretty sure. It hits the still-closed door with a solid thunk, thrown surprisingly hard considering Starscream looks so terrible. He’s standing under the solvent spray looking extremely panicked and distinctly like he just threw up the energon on the shower floor.
“Get out! What part of privacy do you not understand?” he shrieks.
Bumblebee raises his hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to help!”
If Bumblebee wasn’t already dead, Starscream’s glare might have killed him. “Tell me how exactly a hallucination is supposed-supposed to help me right now,” he snarls, then leans over to spit more energon into the drain and suck in a few more labored, sobbing vents.
“I’m not—never mind.” Now isn’t the time for that debate. “Is there anything I can do?”
Starscream’s apparently back to ignoring him, or maybe he’s just too busy hyperventilating to hear him or answer. He’s just sinking further into the panic attack, sliding down the shower wall to sit in a puddle of solvent, muttering darkly to himself too quietly for Bumblebee to hear.
“Starscream?” A growl. That’s something, at least. “Star, you’re gonna overheat or something. You have to calm down.” He wishes he still had access to his HUD, if for no other reason than to be able to check Starscream’s internal temperature right now. With the way his vents are working, it can’t be healthy.
Starscream drops his helm into his hands. “Do you think I want to be doing this right now?”
“That’s not what I meant! I just mean, um. Maybe you could take your emergency meds now? The ones Hook prescribed you?”
“Ghh.” Starscream picks his head up again and Bumblebee cringes at the look on his face. His optics are bright and unfocused and if past panic attacks are any indication, he’s rapidly losing lucidity. Bumblebee doesn’t know where he goes when he’s like this, but considering it’s memories of Megatron that brought it on, it can’t be anywhere pretty. “That Pit-damned slagging… That CUNT! This is all his fault!”
Bumblebee makes a vague noise of assent. Starscream keeps ranting, but all of Bee’s focus is now on what’s on the counter. Clearly, Starscream had some intention of taking his anti-anxiety medication, because the case is open next to the sink. They’re injectable, meant to take effect within minutes of being taken, and they’re right there.
Since he’s died, he’s spent a lot of time wishing to be tangible again. He wants to hug his friends, eat at his favorite restaurant, feel the Earth’s sun on his plating. It’s a deep, aching yearning. This, though? Watching Starscream suffer, knowing the solution is within his reach and being unable to help? This is torture.
In the shower, Starscream’s still ranting about Megatron. “—No clue what he was doing, so he ruined my LIFE for his idiotic crush on Optimus fucking Prime. And where am I left? Here! I’ll kill him! He wants to come planetside, then he can deal with the consequences. I’ll kill him! And—”
“Starscream,” Bumblebee interrupts. “Look, they’re right there. They’ll help. You’ve taken them before, remember?”
Starscream chokes out a hysterical laugh. His face is all streaked with solvent and tears, and his wings are tucked flat to his back. “Yes, Bumblebee, I do remember. What ever would I do without you?”
Okay, maybe that was a little patronizing, but now he’s got Starscream’s attention. “Look, I’m just. This is a panic attack, isn’t it? That’s what’s happening right now?” Starscream laughs again. Bumblebee’s still not sure how much of this conversation Starscream’s actually processing, but he forges ahead. “Okay, well, I’m pretty sure it’s a panic attack. And you have these meds specifically for panic attacks! And they’re right there on the counter!”
Starscream’s only response is to punch the wall and scream some more. Great. Bumblebee can’t believe the downstairs neighbors haven’t complained yet. He must have some pretty good soundproofing in this place.
Maybe a few thousand years ago, when the war was still in full swing, Bumblebee would have found this kind of Starscream-brand tantrum amusing. Actually, he can remember laughing at his battlefield behavior more than once. He’d regarded Starscream with a mixture of hatred, disgust, and fear. He seemed overdramatic, pathetic, hysterical. Now, though…
“Starscream, c’mon,” he pleads. “You’re gonna go into stasis or something.”
Another punch to the wall. Something cracks, and Bee can’t tell if it’s in his hand or the tile. “Leave me alone,” he sobs, and Bumblebee can’t tell anymore if Starscream’s talking to him or not.
He knows, logically, that Starscream’s overcome panic attacks on his own before. Hell, he’s probably gotten up from much worse than this and gone right back to work making the Autobots’ lives a living nightmare. He knows, also, that Starscream is not a good mech. If it was Bumblebee in this situation, Starscream would probably leave him to his misery. Bumblebee’s a different mech, though, and leaving a mech to suffer when he could have helped goes against everything he believes in. “Starscream, please.” He’s sparking all over, fans working so hard Bumblebee worries they’re going to fail soon. “Come on. It’s right there. Just a quick shot and then it’s done.”
When Starscream looks up and actually makes optic contact with him, Bumblebee almost starts crying, too. “And you would know, would you?”
“Well, according to you, I’m a part of your mind, so yeah, I would.”
Starscream considers this. For a moment, Bumblebee’s afraid he’s going to get even angrier. Then, wonder of wonders, he staggers to his feet and drags himself to the counter. Dripping wet, with shaking, well-practiced hands, he injects the meds into the side of his neck.
Bumblebee exvents sharply. “There you go! That’s great! Now maybe get dried off and have a cube?”
Starscream collapses to the floor, leaning heavily against the counter and panting. Already, his fans are starting to cycle down. He drops his head to his knees, defeated. “Just leave me alone.”
“...Okay. I’ll be, uh, out in the bedroom. When you’re ready.”
Starscream comes out of the bathroom an hour later, streaky with dried solvent and looking like he’d slept on the bathroom floor. He doesn’t meet Bumblebee’s optics as he clambers onto the berth and curls up against the headboard. He’s close enough to Bumblebee that they’re overlapping a bit at the edges. Starscream’s warm. Bumblebee wonders if he’s cold.
For a long time, they’re quiet, just sitting together looking out at the midday traffic. Then, quietly, Starscream says, “I didn’t even see him. I don’t even know if he’s on-planet. This is all because of the idea that he might be in orbit in that Primus-forsaken ship.”
Bumblebee makes a small noise of acknowledgement.
“It’s stupid. It’s pathetic. What’s become of me?”
Bumblebee frowns and looks up at him. He’s crying again, silently. “It’s not stupid. He hurt you.”
There’s a soft rattle of plating as Starscream bristles. “I know that.”
“I know you do. I’m just… I don’t know. Trying to help.”
There’s another minute of quiet. Then, somehow softer than the silence, Starscream murmurs, “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate him.” Starscream’s voice breaks.
“Me, too.”
Starscream glances down and meets his optics, then looks away again. “...Stay? Just until my next meeting?”
Bumblebee smiles sadly. “Of course.”
Bumblebee wants to go back in time and smack his past self. Could he even do that? He can touch himself, but what about past versions of himself? Other ghosts? Would he count as another ghost if he time traveled and saw himself?
This is what he’s been reduced to. He can’t believe he complained about boredom before (hence the smacking). He’s so bored that contemplating ghost physics (metaphysics? Is that what metaphysics is?) and walking circles around this Primus-forsaken cell is the best entertainment he can come up with, at least until Starscream wakes up. He’s been sleeping a lot lately, more than he really should, and Bumblebee doesn’t need to sleep, so he’s been on his own in Starscream’s cell, which really feels unfair. If Starscream was going to drag him everywhere, the least he could have done was not get arrested and drag Bumblebee to prison. Now he can’t even watch traffic. All he can watch is the guard rotation and Starscream, and he likes watching Starscream, but these days Starscream isn’t looking so good. Prison isn’t kind to him. It’s not supposed to be, Bumblebee knows that, but this seems excessive. Does no one notice Starscream’s increasing depression, or do they just not care? It’s obvious to Bumblebee. His plating and optics are dull, he sleeps over half the day, he doesn’t fuel more than once a day and most concerning, he hasn’t snarked at the guards in a week. He’s fading.
The guards are done with their midday shift change before Bumblebee hears Starscream shift on the berth behind him. “Mm, Bee?” His voice is even raspier than usual when he first wakes up. Bumblebee loves it, and it’s a relief to be able to love it, love him, openly. That had been a difficult conversation, but he’s more than glad for it. “C’mere?”
Bumblebee can’t resist him like this, still half-asleep, wings fluttering slowly and arms outstretched. He drifts over and kneels by the side of the berth. It’s a bit small for both of them (really, it’s a bit small for Starscream by himself), but when Starscream beckons him closer, he goes willingly, settling in the small space Starscream makes for him between him and the wall. Bumblebee knows what the guards think of this, of Starscream talking to and cuddling empty air. The way they refer to Starscream and his mental health is… not kind. It makes Bumblebee sick with rage, but he keeps talking to Starscream. It would be much worse, he knows, to be ignored than to be thought of as insane. Much, much worse. Starscream can’t stand to be alone right now. He’s not, Bumblebee reminds himself, and he won’t be. They’re stuck with each other.
Bumblebee gets comfortable on his side, doorwings phasing through the wall and forehead positioned to rest against Starscream’s, were he solid. “Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi.” Starscream’s voice is hushed and hoarse. He hasn’t been talking much, fading in and out of a strange pseudo-catatonia. Even when he’s lucid, he’s distant, dissociated. Bumblebee’s worried one day soon he’ll leave and he won’t come back. He presses closer, letting their edges overlap with a tingling warmth. It feels cold to Starscream, apparently, so Bee doesn’t do it much, but he just can’t help himself. He needs to touch him, needs to feel him close and know that he’s real, here and physical even if Bumblebee can’t be.
“Clingy,” Starscream chides.
“You’re one to talk,” he retorts, and Starscream laughs vaguely. “How are you feeling?”
Starscream’s optics flicker offline. “Tired.”
You just woke up, Bumblebee wants to say. I’m worried about you. Instead, he kisses the tip of Starscream’s nose and says, “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“I know you will.”