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Sometimes Bumblebee thinks the universe really has it out for her.
Her day had been going fine. She’d gotten the budget for the next couple fundraisers sorted out. Almost missed her bus but managed to squeeze on at the last possible second. Been stood up on a lunch date she wasn’t really feeling in the first place. Saw a really cute dog on the walk over to the bar. All in all, not a bad day. Except for the part where she has her extremely drunk sorta-kinda-boss in her arms trying to kiss her (and repeatedly missing, on account of the “extremely drunk” part).
Not that the failed attempts seem to deter Starscream in any way; she seems perfectly content to cover Bee’s nose and chin with lipstick smears, in between whining at her to hold still and stop moving, already. This despite the fact that Bumblebee hasn’t moved even once, too focused on keeping the both of them stably upright on the sidewalk outside the bar while they wait for the cab to arrive.
Bumblebee knows she could just let her drop to the sidewalk at any time. It’s tempting. She’d expect Star to do if their places were swapped, and she wouldn’t blame her. But she just can’t do it. She can’t be that person, as much as it would make her life easier. For one thing, she wouldn’t be in these kinds of situations nearly as often.
Another kiss lands smack dab on the center of her nose. At this point she’s not sure Starscream is even trying to aim for her mouth.
This always happens. Apparently being the friend who’s willing to drive more than half the time and makes an actual effort to start conversations makes you a great target for bouts of drunken affection. She knows they never mean anything by it, and at this point it’s really not that big a deal.
But this, this is— this is Starscream. Calculating, vicious, infuriating, wonderful Starscream, her worst and best friend, who she’d always thought understood her better than anyone else. Who she thought she could trust not to see her as pliable and generous as so many others seemed to think she was, a willing fount of affection for every and any lonely soul who’d had a little too much to drink. And apparently that’s different enough that there’s a growing lump in her throat and her eyes are beginning to feel hot and this awful, awful numbness is spreading out from the center of her chest, and she hates the fact that she’s getting all worked up over something this meaningless and stupid in the first place, because it’s just the alcohol and she knows Starscream doesn’t mean any of it but that doesn’t change the fact that she feels like the butt of the universe’s biggest joke.
Starscream, meanwhile, continues to kiss her face, utterly oblivious to Bumblebee’s downward spiral. “You’re the— nicest person in the world, you know that?” she drunkenly announces between obnoxiously loud smooches. “Even to me. I don’t know how you can— how you can stand it. You’re so—”
“Starscream.”
There’s something in Bumblebee’s tone that slices clear through the fog in Starscream’s brain, making her peel herself partially off the other girl and look at her. Bumblebee is looking back, deep, dark brown eyes locked intensely and unblinkingly onto the other’s face.
“Just because I’m nice doesn’t mean I’m easy.”
The Bumblebee is shoving her into the open door of a cab, slamming the door shut behind her.
Hot Rod is lounging on the couch flipping through channels when Bumblebee quietly lets herself in. She cranes her neck around to look at her and lets out a loud whoop at the sight. “Someone had a good night!”
Bumblebee is silent for a moment or two. Then, to Hot Rod’s horror, her eyes begin to fill up with tears. She immediately hurls herself over the back of the couch in an ungainly scrabble of limbs to go comfort her sister.
Paranoia is an old friend to Starscream. She shakes its hand every day and says hi, how are things, and it says great, just fine, they’re all going to kill you and you’re going to deserve it. And she nods and smiles and goes on with her day. It’s good to be reminded of the facts of life. Except today, when she wakes up fully clothed with a hazy but unmistakable memory of last night, it doesn’t feel very friend-like all of a sudden. Because it’s not just irrational thoughts talking, she really did feel up the (probably) most beloved person in the entire city, and they are all going to kill her and she is going to deserve it.
She lays in bed terrified for a full hour before crawling for her phone on the nightstand, expecting notifications from every single person she’s ever met. But no, just calendar reminders and a handful of social media interactions. The most threatening thing she sees is a text from the dry cleaners to pick up her suit before five. Still expecting the other shoe to drop at any minute, she tiptoes out of her room, cringing, expecting Megatron to hurl her phone at her head or a cold glare from Soundwave, but the former is scribbling something in the margins of a book while her eggs burn on the stove and the latter is on the couch cyberstalking her favorite musicians with a purring Ravage curled in her lap.
The anxiety continues to plague her all the way until noon, and it only occurs to her then, as she pulls into the Iacon Community Center parking lot, cutting off TC without a moment’s hesitation, that Bumblebee hasn’t told anyone.
Which is absurd. Why wouldn’t she?
Unless, of course, she’s keeping it as blackmail material. Yes, that made much more sense. Wait for a good opportunity, then drop the information at a convenient moment, destabilizing Starscream’s support and finishing her off when she’s vulnerable. Sneaky little bug. Except that she knows Bee, and that doesn’t sound like her at all.
Maybe she’s just…not actually mad, then? She’d sounded mad, but that could just have been Starscream hearing things.
The other district reps don’t call her out for being twenty minutes late to the meeting— they know what to expect from her at this point. She throws herself into the itinerary with a zeal she hopes comes off as impatient and not manic. And things go well, or at least as well as can be expected. Only Windblade seems to have noticed something wrong, judging by the way her eyes flick between the President and the Secretary quietly taking the meeting minutes on her laptop.
She corners Starscream later, during the break.
“Did you say something to Bee?”
Starscream, who had been hiding out in the small yard in the back that opened onto the community garden and wishing she still smoked, closes her eyes and hopes for death.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Well, she hasn’t said a word to correct you all meeting, and you haven’t tried to provoke her even once. Something’s going on.”
Starscream looks at her, all crinkled brow and bitten lips and flyaway hairs escaping her hijab, and feels something in her chest tighten. She should tell her. Tell her she was a douche and she made a really, really bad mistake and she doesn’t know how to even begin to fix it. Instead she lets her mouth curl into a sneer. “Look at you, so noble. Can't just let two grown women handle their own issues without needing to butt in and feel good about yourself. You ever think that’s why you don’t have many friends, Windy?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Windblade’s face crumple. Seconds later, she hears the door slam shut behind her.
It’s a warm day, for October. Every crack in the sun-warmed concrete beneath her feet seems thrown into sharp relief. A few sweat-sticky hairs are beginning to cling to her cheeks and forehead.
She hasn’t eaten anything today, but all of a sudden she feels nauseous, something oily and festering clawing at the walls of her stomach. She swallows down the feeling before it can erupt and walks back into the building, head held high.
The next time she’s invited out, Bumblebee doesn’t bother offering to drive. She’s had enough of wrangling drunks for…a lifetime, probably, but a couple more weeks will do.
So how come she still ends up here, outside a bar with Starscream?
It’s not even the same bar, Bumblebee laments. Screamer wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere within a ten-mile radius of a place like Swerve’s. And indeed, it would seem she hadn’t, still dressed in a full pantsuit like she’d just come straight from work. She seems to notice Bee at the same moment Bee does and immediately makes a beeline for her, heels clacking furiously on the sidewalk. Oh, that’s her I-want-a-fight stride, is the thought that bubbles up through the shorter woman’s mind through the spongy haze of the 1.5 margaritas she’d had.
Starscream skids to a stop a few feet in front of her and points one long, manicured nail directly at Bumblebee, “Why are you here and not at Blurr’s?”
Bumblebee surreptitiously checks her phone to see when her taxi is due. “I don’t only drink at Blurr’s. Sometimes I want a change of scenery.” Eleven minutes…
If Starscream catches onto the pointed implications of the word “scenery”, here, she willfully chooses to ignore them. Instead her eyes narrow. “Which is why you’re going home at nine?”
“…I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow.”
“No, you don’t.” The other woman sneers. “We share a calendar. Your idea, remember?”
Oo-kay, time to go. Bumblebee stands, a little unsteadily, from her seat on the curb, already mentally composing a text to her taxi driver to meet her on the corner instead. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Starscream. I’m tired.”
“Really?” Her voice seems to grow more shrill with every syllable, “I came all the way out here to apologize to you, and you won’t even hear me out?”
Bumblebee grits her teeth. She really, really doesn’t need to hear this right now. “You were drunk. I know. I was there. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“There clearly is! You’re really going to deny the way you’ve acted all week?” Starscream huffs. “Acting petty is supposed to be my forte. It doesn’t look nearly as cute on you.”
“You seemed to think I looked plenty cute a few days ago,” Bee can’t quite keep herself from muttering.
“So you are still mad.” Starscream plants her hands on her hips, looking absurdly triumphant. It’s something Bee might have found charming if she wasn’t so pissed off.
“Yes! Because you’re—” She has to bite down on her words before she says something too incriminating. I thought you respected me more than that.
“It doesn’t matter.” She says instead, firmly. “I was mad, but I’m over it.” And then, because she can, she adds, snidely, “I get it. You’re embarrassed you couldn’t hold your liquor and threw yourself at the first person nice enough to keep you from choking on your own vomit. You don’t have to—” And she has to stop, then, because the look on Starscream’s face yanks on her heart like a ripcord and arrests her in place.
“Is that—” She splutters, aghast. “You think I—”
Bee watches, a little fascinated, as her face turns redder and redder, visibly frustrated to the point where she looks like she might actually cry.
“You think I made out with you on a filthy sidewalk because of what? Sentiment? ” Starscream finally explodes. Her bob is entirely askew by this point, her eyes shining. “Don’t flatter yourself, goldenrod. I don’t like you because you’re nice, I like that you’re cute and you’re funny and you’re a hot piece of ass!”
The admission seems to take all the fight out of her, her shoulders slumping inward, posture less statuesque and more like that of a small, wounded animal.
Slowly, with well-practiced caution, Bumblebee shuffles closer, “And…?”
Starscream raises her head to glare daggers at her, face blotchy and tearstained.
“You are the biggest bitch I’ve ever met.” She croaks out hoarsely. “And I hate you.”
Bumblebee reaches up to gently cup the other woman’s face in her hands. “And?”
“And I’m sorry, alright?”
She yelps as Bumblebee sharply pinches both her cheeks. “And you have to apologize to Windblade.”
“...You know about that.”
“I know about that.”
“Fine, I’ll— ow , I said fine, I’ll do it!”
Bumblebee releases her face, beaming. “Apology accepted.”
“How kind of you to make light of my suffering.” Starscream gripes, rubbing her cheeks.
Bumblebee snorts. “Me not talking to you for three days counts as suffering?”
“Don’t get a big head over it.” Starscream mutters, crossing her arms. She sniffs the air, once. “Ugh. Is that Swerve’s house special? I’m taking you home. You know he doesn’t mix those properly.”
Normally Bumblebee would say something in Swerve’s defense, but it’s been a long night and she’s pretty sure Starscream wouldn’t believe her anyways. “I have a cab coming...”
“Cancel it.” Starscream snaps, already looping one arm around Bumblebee’s and beginning to drag her over to where she’s illegally parked in front of a hydrant.
Bumblebee rolls her eyes but obliges, allowing herself to be bundled against Star’s side, fumbling for her phone with her free hand and canceling the trip. She finds all the fussing and the fretting kind of unnecessary, honestly, but it’s kind of sweet how openly clingy Starscream is allowing herself to be. If she wants to pamper Bumblebee for once instead of expecting things to go the other way ‘round, well, she’s not turning it down. She does feel like she’s forgetting something, though…
Minutes later, Hot Rod stumbles out of Swerve’s to ask her sister when the cab is coming, only to spot her leaving with Starscream, of all people, leaving her with a dead phone and no money.
“Hey!” She wails. “I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow!”