Chapter Text
He couldn’t shake that feeling of “off” that he’d been experiencing lately.
He wasn’t sure what it was that was making him feel like that. Physically he was fine, and even more so, he thought as he looked between his thighs at the leftover evidence that he and the Dinobot had gone at it again. He was contented – as far as he knew he shouldn’t be feeling like this.
Unless it was his self-doubting nature creeping up on him again.
Knowing him, it probably was.
Bumblebee sat up on the berth, passing an affectionate servo over Grimlock’s helm and smiling as the larger mech snorted in his recharge. A smile crossed the green mech’s faceplates, and he wound his arms tighter around Bumblebee’s middle, smushing his face against the yellow mech’s side. Sighing, Bee gently wriggled out of his berthmate’s possessive embrace and got to his pedes, doorwings twitching.
For a moment he felt perfectly fine. For that moment he thought that the worst of whatever bug he had caught had passed. It had been almost two or three Earth weeks by now, too long to put up with it. But…
He knew he was about to hurl moments before he felt the undigested energon from last night (mixed with other fluids, among other things) make its way up his throat. He didn’t care if he woke Grimlock up with how quickly and loudly he clambered out of his makeshift berthroom and out into the woods.
Bumblebee made it a fair distance into the forest before he fell to his knees and hands, retching loudly and with such force that his entire frame shook violently. The puddle of white slush, the color of undigested energon that had been stripped of its necessary nutrients, grew bigger and bigger.
“Primus,” the yellow mech groaned when the vomiting fit passed. He scooted back from what he had hurled up and put his servos to his helm, sighing. “Primus, what’s going on?”
“Bee?”
He felt Grimlock’s servo on his back. He looked up at the Dinobot with tired optics, exhaustion taking over his entire frame. Every bit of energy he had stored from his recharge cycle had been expended by his purging fit. “Hi Grimlock.”
“You been throwing up a lot, Bee. I think you need to have Fixit take a look at you.”
As with all the other times, Bumblebee was about to say “no”, that he was fine and that their resources would be better spent hunting down the Decepticons from the Alchemor. But this time was worse. He had to get to the bottom of this.
Strongarm had been taking on more and more of the leadership duties that he should have been doing. She was more than happy to do so, but she was only a rookie, and she had no training for that. Not like he did.
“I’ll ask Fixit tomorrow,” Bumblebee sighed heavily. He then checked his internal clock and noted that it was just after two in the morning. “Well, when the sun comes up.”
Grimlock smiled that crooked smile that always warmed Bumblebee’s spark. The yellow mech placed his digits under Grimlock’s sweet face and gently pulled him towards his own face, kissing the other mech. The Dinobot’s engine purred happily – if he had been in his dinosaur mode, his tail would have been wagging quite happily.
The tender moment was ruined when Bumblebee’s tanks churned again. He jerked away and onto his servos and knees, retching more white slush.
He heard the Dinobot sigh and felt him rub his back in a comforting gesture.
.-.-.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had to drag out the medical efficient – equipment! what with everyone else onboard the Alchemor being in stasis, which meant no one really needed it-”
Bumblebee let the Minicon chatter away, paying only half mind to what was being said. He nodded once, twice, just to ensure Fixit that he was being heard. The yellow mech absentmindedly rubbed at his midsection, where the source of his constant purging came from. He noted how it felt… more taut? if that was even possible.
“-see if I can fix this thing up and voila! Here Bee - we - are.” Fixit fired up whatever medical equipment it was that he had dragged out (well, that Grimlock and Sideswipe that dragged out) and tapped his servos on the screen. It took a while for the screen to boot up but when it did, it gave him some command prompts that Bumblebee couldn’t read.
“Strongarm could you grab the banner – canner – scanner – and hold it over Bumblebee’s… uh…,” the Minicon’s blue optics looked at the yellow mech in confusion. “Where did you say you were feeling sick?”
Bumblebee sighed and placed his servo over his optics. On any normal day he would be a lot more patient in re-explaining what needed to be explained, but he was sick to his tanks and mentally exhausted. “Digestive tanks. I haven’t been able to keep much energon down. It comes up a white slush.”
“Ah, right! Strongarm, hold it over his abdominal plates would you?”
The white and blue femme cautiously stared at the scanner that Fixit had gestured to, turning it over in her servos as she looked at every inch of it. “And how do I turn it on, Fixit?”
“Ah, I’ll be doing that from here!”
Bumblebee only stared at the cloudy sky above, hoping to Primus that whatever it was that he had could be fixed and quickly.
A welcome visage hovered in his visual field, a doofy and loving smile cast down at him. Bee smiled back and reached up, bringing Grimlock’s face toward him and kissing him all over his faceplates.
“Ugh, can’t you wait until you’re both alone?”
“Can it, Sides,” Bumblebee replied when he stopped kissing the Dinobot. “Fixit, the scan?”
“Oh, right, s-sorry I was attracted – distracted by something in the sky. Cloud. Right, right, Strongarm could you-”
“I’m on it.” Strongarm heard the hum of the scanning wand in her servo turning on, then extending it over her commanding officer’s frame.
A loud growl echoed through the immediate area. Everyone jumped, except for Bumblebee, who only looked at Grimlock with an exasperated expression on his faceplates. “Take it easy, she’s not going to do anything to me.”
The Dinobot growled and bared his dentae at Strongarm, and only backed down when the femme narrowed her optics at him and grabbed a blaster from her subspace.
“Okay, enough. Fixit can you scan me now please?”
“Sure! Strongarm?”
The femme sighed and began waving the wand over Bumblebee’s frame. “Like this?”
“A little sower – slower.”
Strongarm did so, furrowing her optic ridges at the strange noises coming from the device.
“Ah, I think that noise means it sound – found – something.”
“Is it serious?” Bumblebee asked before he could help himself. His spark was already fraught with worry. He clenched his servos into fists and closed his optics, letting out a slow breath.
“I can’t tell right now, I still need to look at the scans. Hmm. I think I was mistaken. There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary in your sank – tank. Are you sure it’s just there?”
“Well I am just throwing up white slush and I feel… exhausted.”
“Hmm, I’m going to bet – set – this to scan your entire fr-frame and not just your tanks. Strongarm?”
“Got it.” The femme held the wand over Bumblebee’s helm, ignoring the possessive growl that emanated from Grimlock’s vocalizer, and slowly moved the wand, and her frame, downward, making sure that the scanning wand looked over each micrometer of her commanding officer’s frame.
When she reached Bumblebee’s midsection again, the wand vibrated in her servo, making her shout in surprise. A bright blue light pulsed.
“Oh, that means it found s-something.”
Everyone waited with baited breath as Fixit pulled the data that the scanner had found up ontothe screen, looking at it but also looking at a guide of common ailments that could befall any random Cybertronian.
“Well, it’s certainly not tank rust! It i-i-isn’t something like a virus and… oh.”
“Oh?” The worry in Bumblebee’s vocalizer was obvious.
Fixit looked at Bumblebee, then Grimlock, back to Bumblebee, then he motioned Sideswipe and Strongarm over. “Tell me I’m not imagining sings - things.”
“What is it?”
Fixit merely motioned to the medical guide he had opened on one half of the screen, then to the results he had grabbed from the scanning wand that were on the other half. Strongarm looked at the particular symbol that Fixit pointed to on the guide, then at what had been found to be ailing her commanding officer. Her optics brightened. “No, I see it too.”
“See what?” Sideswipe shoved Strongarm out of the way (and ignored the shove she gave him in return). He looked between the guide and the scans. “Well, yeah, I see it. What does it mean?”
“That’s a orb of light. What it means is that Bumblebee here is…” Fixit zoomed in on what it was that had been found in Bumblebee’s frame. A bright and shining little orb of light with consistent pulses that could only be a newly formed spark. “Is carrying a s-s-sparkling.”
This time everyone stared at Fixit.
A moment later, a loud crash echoed in the junkyard as Grimlock fell to the floor, processor having had a glitch of epic proportions.
Bumblebee looked at the Dinobot sprawled on the ground and sighed, closing his optics and holding his helm in his servos.
Perfect. Wonderful.
What else did the universe have in store for him?