Pawn

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse, mid-Defiance
Thundercracker, Bumblebee, Soundwave
Tentacles? And I so suck at Autobots, esp Bumblebee, so…yeah. Apologies in advance.
For prompt ‘caught snooping’ Bumblebee/Soundwave by eerian_sadow   (*s-sob* She made me write Beeeeeeee!)

A/N This is set while Megatron is still consolidating his Decepticons, presuming that there is a lot of time between the attempted arrest of Optimus Prime and the sending of the Allspark into space. And in-canon, Bumblebee was a guard at the Simfur Temple, and not really in the defense forces.

 

Thundercracker threw the yellow Autobot to the deck plating of the Nemesis.  “Traitor,” he spat, pressing his heel between Bumblebee’s shoulder plating, driving his face into the ground.  Bumblebee hissed, his HUD clogged with redline alarms.

Bumblebee thrashed weakly, sparks and hydraulic fluid spurting fitfully from a re-opened wound in his shoulder.  Thundercracker merely grunted, grinding his weight down harder. 

“I shall take him from here,” a voice came.  Bumblebee couldn’t place the speaker, but the voice sent a chill through his systems. 

“You sure?” Thundercracker growled. 

Bumblebee heard approaching footsteps.  He struggled to turn his head to get a look, but all he could get was a glimpse of blue and silver feet.  Megatron? No. Not Megatron. 

“I assure you,” the voice continued, “he is merely Security Forces.  We need not waste a true soldier on one such as him.”

Bumblebee could feel Thundercracker preen at the compliment, even as the other edge burned into him like acid shame. The weight of the foot left him, and he pushed up, his damaged arms trembling.  His blue optics whirred in and out, struggling to focus on the mech in front of him.  He still did not recognize him, and then wondered why he’d thought he would. As the mech had said, he was only Security Forces, and a low level enlistee at that. 

“Designation: Bumblebee,” the other mech said. Bumblebee started.  The strange mech laughed, large silver panels behind his shoulders riffling. “I have access to personnel databases.”  The head tilted, silver mandibles pinching in amusement. “Among other things.”

I’m not afraid, Bumblebee told himself. Not afraid.  Faced those freaky aliens at Simfur, just me and Cliffjumper, and we held our own.  We did our best. 

It just…hadn’t been very good. Megatron’s deep voice still taunted him with his inability, pushing them aside, out of the way, ‘for their own protection.’ Bumblebee had decided right then and there that he’d never need anyone’s protection again.  He’d been playing at soldier, but it was no longer good enough.

How far he’d come since then, toughening his body, his mind, as the rift between Council and Defense Forces widened into an unbreachable chasm. And he’d seen Megatron fall from the pedestal he’d put him on, and thrown his lot in with Optimus, who had forgiven, who had understood why he’d taken part in the ambush against him, who had looked in his optics and seen the flame of crushed idealism, and quenched it with hope.

He thought he’d come so far…but here he was, hopelessly damaged, pain lancing across his sensornet, weak, pathetic, and at the feet of an enemy. At the enemy’s mercy.

No. He’d get out of this. He’d figure a way. And he’d return with a report, with more information than they’d wanted him to get. He’d be a hero. Heroes could be injured, damaged. Not just victims.  Heroes got hurt, too. If only they returned something larger than they were.  Optimus deserved better.

He jutted his chin defiantly. “I don’t know who you are,” he said.  Step one: find out the one’s name.

Another of those icy laughs. “You are not supposed to, underling.”

The word stung more than Bumblebee would admit.  No. No. Optimus trusted him.  Optimus himself. He wasn’t a nobody.  He counted. He mattered.  “I must be some kind of important,” he said, “Or why take me prisoner?”

A rustling as the other mech squatted down to where Bumblebee had pushed himself to his knees. A long, taloned hand cupped his chin, the gesture deliberately intrusive, turning Bumblebee’s gaze to meet his own. “Because, Autobot Bumblebee, we need a pawn.”

Too late, Bumblebee saw the silvery cables snaking over the forearm that held him. They slithered against him. He struggled, trying to pull away, but the mech held him fast by his chin, one finger digging into the vulnerable spot under his mandible, another forcing into his mouth.  The cables snaked, cold and slick, under Bumblebee’s armor, searching, probing, before settling into the circuitry with a burn like etching acid. “I’ll never cooperate with you,” Bumblebee managed, around the intruding fingers.

“You,” the other mech said, optics drilling, hard and red into him, “will not have a choice.”

Bumblebee’s hands came up to tug weakly at the tentacles invading him, even as he felt the cold fire of the other mech’s code piercing his coding, like daggers of malevolent ice.  His physical systems failed, the last sound his audios picked up was the dying whine of his servos. And his last thought was, be brave.

[***]

“They suspect nothing?”  Soundwave managed to sound dubious. 

Thundercracker snorted. “They suspect everything.  But he’s a young one.  And their kind is notoriously soft on young ones.” He said it as though it were anathema.  Defense Force discipline, Soundwave knew, was anything but soft on new recruits. 

“The launch must happen,” Soundwave said.  The Fallen’s sarcophagus thrummed from the next room.  Megatron had given orders—they were to leave, to take it to begin a glorious conquest. Starting with getting the Fallen a body.  Soundwave did not understand, but he had his orders.  A good warrior did not question his orders: he obeyed. 

“It will.  By the time they actually get around to checking on anything, you and your ship will be long gone.”  A note of judgment in Thundercracker’s tone: he and the others were staying. It was hard, Soundwave supposed, not to feel abandoned when the bulk of the Decepticon army and its assets were leaving  while you remained behind. “You sure that one will do what you want?”

“He will divert the Autobot army to Tyger Pax.”  Where Thundercracker and the others would act a a breakwater distraction while the Nemesis made good its departure. Soundwave’s mandibles flared. “He has no choice.  And besides. He is, at the core, a child and a coward. He is no threat.”

Thundercracker snorted, dubious. “He fought hard enough.  Just not well.”

Soundwave’s optics went as cold as space. “Thundercracker. I am never wrong.”

 

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/__wilderness__/]

Ooooh...


Note: This is a good ooh, commenter is just not coherent enough to make a better comment

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked! Could I pick a more obscure moment in canon? I think not. :D

[linnet-melody.livejournal.com]

*interested!* I'm always happy to learn a little more about in-canon goings-on by characters that I recognize. I think you did a great job of exploring a young, freshly-determined Bee who hasn't quite lost all the varnish off his ideals. (Poor kid. He hasn't learned yet that sometimes being a hero just means living through this moment.)

The last bit was a little confusing for me, since I'm not sure what happened in Defiance. (Though thank you for giving me a name for a starting reference point!) I'm guessing Bee got reprogrammed somehow? What sort of "diverting" was he supposed to do?

...Or is that another story? :D

ETA: my html abilities suck.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Well it's a bit of canon timeline tweaking. The Nemesis holds the Fallen and is going off, with Soundwave, to find the last Solar Harvester. Megatron and Starscream remain behind, until they see the Allspark launched at Tyger Pax. Bumblebee was one of the ones who spied on the Nemesis, pre-launch, so I tweaked it so that they needed a diversion so that the Nemesis wouldn't, you know, get shot out of the sky by the Autobots upon launch.

In actual canon I'm not sure Bee ever met Soundwave. But he shows at Tyger Pax and is badass enough to confront Megatron himself, so...something had to turn him from the sort of semi-competent guard at Simfur to the tiny bot who went toe-to-toe with Megatron himself, right?

[linnet-melody.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I understand Bee being a decoy better now. I also see him covered in wool, being a sheep who explodes upon impact...Yeah, I'm weird.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Interesting's a good word for it! ^_^ My first time writing Bee, so...it's a bit rough!

[eerian_sadow]

pft. and you say you can't write autobots.

Bee was perfect in this. He was a wonderful mix of idealistic, young and overly ambitious. and even better was that he was believably that way. <3

your Soundwave also continues to creep me out, as ever. i love the way you write him. and the fact that he just really didn't care too hard about who/what he was programming to be his decoy just reinforced that utterly sinister vibe he gives off.

i love it, babe! it's perfect. <3

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

You'll notice how Bumblebee did not have a *big* part in this. /cheats

It's supposed to be kind of hopeful for Bee because at the end they're downing his abilities when we know, through the movies and such, that Bee is actually pretty damn hardcore.

Thanks! I do love creepy!Soundwave.