Chapter Text
There was something oddly comforting about remembering a place, even if Bumblebee only remembered it because he’d been here a couple of weeks ago.
The moonlight was thinner this time, the glow from the half-moon slightly dampened by the smear of thin clouds painted across the sky. The ground beneath Bumblebee’s pedes wasn’t quite as squishy as it had been before, just shy of being frozen. Even though November had barely begun, Bumblebee could see the warm air from his vents solidifying in front of him, accumulating into a puffy mist before dissipating into the atmosphere.
But fortunately, on this visit to what Bumblebee was now calling ‘Blitzwing Island,’ his fear had ebbed ever so slightly. The looming trees no longer looked dangerous and ominous, and the gentle smack of river water against the shoreline was a welcome distraction from the autumn silence. Bumblebee’s optics darted around, seeking out a shimmer of red amongst the greys and browns, trying to keep himself from wandering too deep into the woods.
“Hello?” Bumblebee called, twitching as his voice emitted as a pathetic squeak. He cleared his intake and tried again. “Um… hello? Blitzwing?”
The name tasted oddly familiar against Bumblebee’s lips, and he swallowed hard, rubbing his aching forehead. This will never not be super weird, he thought dejectedly, pressing his lips together, his spark pounding.
“Yo,” he said, forcing himself to be brave. “Swear on my spark that I won’t scream and run away this time.”
He held his datapad out to no one, shaking it as though it were a treat for a pet. “And I told you not to be late,” he said, irritation making his tone much more solid.
“I’m not.”
Bumblebee yelped, his plating rattling as a shiver went through him, instinct taking over his processor for a moment. He whirled around, optics widening as he held the datapad in shivering digits, staring up at Blitzwing’s towering form.
“Are you trying to freak me out?” Bumblebee snapped, taking a few steps back in spite of his own promise. “For frag’s sake! You can just walk out of the trees like a normal mech, you know!”
“I needed to remain hidden in the case that you opted not to come,” Blitzwing said, optics glowing like crimson embers against the dark sky. “But against all odds, you did show up.”
“I’m the one that told you to come here in the first place,” Bumblebee said, his pedes carrying him another step back as Blitzwing took a step forward.
“You are known for being a bit of a flake,” Blitzwing said, his tone strangely warm despite his ice-cold expression.
Bumblebee made a strange sound, his vocalizer caught somewhere between a scoff and an indignant curse. He stretched his arms as far as they would go, tilting the datapad in Blitzwing’s direction, his processor flickering with static.
“Show me how,” he said shortly.
Blitzwing’s expression was unreadable, and for a terrifying moment, Bumblebee thought of how easy it would be for the Decepticon to simply lift his leg and smash Bumblebee under his massive pede.
But instead, Blitzwing nodded and took a slow step forward, pausing as though to make sure Bumblebee wouldn’t run. Bumblebee didn’t—though Primus, did he want to—and Blitzwing continued to walk. His footfalls seemed to shake the entire island as he approached, carefully lowering his frame to the ground and sitting next to Bumblebee in an oddly casual cross-legged position.
“Sit,” Blitzwing said, a gentle plea dancing at the edge of his tone.
Bumblebee swallowed hard, his frame still shaking anxiously. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought in a frenzy, looking down at his datapad. This is so dumb. This is officially the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Number one. Absolute dumbest. I will never be dumber.
“Okay,” he croaked, dropping to the ground next to Blitzwing, ensuring that there was considerable distance between them.
“Okay,” Blitzwing repeatedly, holding out a servo large enough to crush Bumblebee’s helm into powder. “Hand me the datapad. Encrypting messages is quite easy, really.”
“Then they’re probably really easy to read, too,” Bumblebee said, dropping the datapad into Blitzwing’s outstretched hand before pulling sharply away.
“Not quite,” Blitzwing said, the faintest hint of a smile passing across his features. “I commissioned this application from a trusted source. The price was high, but he—”
“Lockdown,” Bumblebee said, wincing as a stab of pain rocketed through his processor.
Blitzwing cocked his helm slightly. “Correct,” he said. “How did you know—”
“No idea,” Bumblebee said, curling forward and pressing his throbbing helm between his knees. “Just show me the damn thing so I can go home, okay?”
Blitzwing didn’t pry—an extremely welcome change from the Autobots, Bumblebee supposed. His team seemed more invested in regaining Bumblebee’s memories than he was, and it was refreshing not to have four fresh headaches piled on top of two preexisting ones. Bumblebee lifted his helm just enough to watch what Blitzwing was doing, watching as the rough, scratched digits navigated through the datapad’s software.
“There’s two main functions to the application,” Blitzwing said, his voice softer than Bumblebee had ever remembered hearing it. “Mass-deletion and encryption. Encryption ensures that messages can only be transferred from your datapad to mine, or vice versa. If someone attempted to intercept the transmissions, they would see only gibberish. Interception is difficult, as well, since these messages cannot be added to any databases without our explicit permission.”
His servos are so big, Bumblebee caught himself thinking, watching the fluid movement of each joint, the way moonlight caught the dents in the black plating. He, somehow, remembered them being very warm, but decided not to overthink that at the moment.
“All you need to do is tap here and select ‘private’ before entering my address,” Blitzwing continued, though Bumblebee was barely paying attention. “Then we can message one another without fear of our messages being expropriated. We also agreed to delete all of our conversations after having them, so when we are done talking, tap the ‘delete’ button twice, and the conversation will disappear on both of our devices.”
“Uh-huh,” Bumblebee said absently. He likes lifting me up at the waist. I know he does. Always the waist… why there? My shoulders are a lot bigger and squishier, so why wouldn’t he—why do I even know that?
“Now you try.”
Bumblebee snapped out of his confused trance, meeting Blitzwing’s gaze with a start. “What?” he said dumbly.
Blitzwing snorted. “You want to know how to send messages, yes?” he said. “Then prove to me that you were listening.”
“I was,” Bumblebee said.
“Likely story,” Blitzwing mused with irritating knowing. “Show me, then. My address is in the database, so—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that much,” Bumblebee grumbled, snatching the datapad away from Blitzwing and trying to remember his instructions. Had he really been staring at Blitzwing’s hands for five straight minutes? Bumblebee couldn’t remember the last time he’d focused on anything for that long.
“Tap ‘private,’” Blitzwing said, scooting just close enough to Bumblebee so that he could point at the screen. “Then send a message. Anything works.”
Bumblebee rolled his optic at the hint, his spark pounding as Blitzwing’s warm frame grew closer to his own. “Tap here, then ‘private,’” he droned. “Type a message: ‘Blitzwing is a stupidhead.’ Then send?”
“Then send,” Blitzwing reaffirmed, drawing his own datapad and proudly showing Bumblebee the notification. “Try deleting it. No hints this time.”
Bumblebee forced his attention away from Blitzwing and back onto his own datapad. “Delete button twice,” he said, glancing at Blitzwing for confirmation as he did so.
Blitzwing’s datapad went blank, and that faint smile passed over Blitzwing’s face once again. “Well done,” he said. “I told you it was easy.”
“Easy after I knew what to press, yeah,” Bumblebee muttered. “Fumbling in the dark with half a processor missing, not so much.”
A thick silence cascaded between them, one that seemed to last for hours instead of seconds. Bumblebee’s datapad flickered into sleep mode, and his optics swept across the ground, looking everywhere but at Blitzwing. Every inch of the Decepticon’s frame made his processor hurt more, some fractured memory tied to every part of him. It was unbearable and tempting all at once—a large part of Bumblebee ached to look, to understand a little more of what was missing from his memories, but another part of him was too terrified to do so.
“So,” he said, his tiny voice bursting through the tense silence. “So, um… this whole ‘you and me’ thing… it’s real? We’re a… thing?”
A few hydraulics in Blitzwing’s frame hissed. “Yes.”
“Really?” Bumblebee said, forcing himself to meet Blitzwing’s optics, his processor and spark drumming in time with one another. “You and me. An Autobot and a Decepticon. Thirty feet and twelve feet, four and—”
“Four and a quarter inches, yes,” Blitzwing said, clearly amused, his one working optic twinkling. “I know. You have always been quite adamant about including the quarter of an inch.”
“It’s important!” Bumblebee snapped. “That’s a quarter inch taller than—”
“Wasp, yes. I know.”
“Stop doing that!” Bumblebee squeaked, his spark doing a wild, excited backflip. “It’s creepy that you know all that, and I don’t know that you know that!”
Blitzwing smirked cruelly, a low chuckle rumbling deep in his frame.
Another silence fell over the island, less painful than the previous one, but equally pressing. Bumblebee was hyper aware of the leaves rustling in the breeze, the distant water slapping against rocks, the creaks and hums of Blitzwing’s frame and his own. He shuddered, gathering his knees to his chest.
“This is weird,” he said, more to himself than to Blitzwing.
“I understand,” Blitzwing said.
“And that’s even weirder,” Bumblebee mumbled. “You’re nice. To me. Words can’t even explain how weird that is for me. We were fighting, and you missed me on purpose, right? Didn’t you?”
“Of course,” Blitzwing said gently. “I swore to never hurt you, even if we did have to pretend. To keep up appearances.”
“That’s so lame,” Bumblebee said, unsure of what else to say.
Blitzwing’s frame moved slightly closer, his monocular telescoping in and out rapidly. Bumblebee wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain that Blitzwing was looking at him, watching for any signs of hesitance.
Weird.
“You remembered that?” Blitzwing asked, seeming satisfied that Bumblebee wasn’t skittering away.
Bumblebee shrugged. “Sort of,” he muttered. “That’s the only bit I, like, actually remember. The rest of it is kind of… smudged? It’s all criss crossed and confusing—I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But I do remember it. Does that make any sense?”
Whirr. Bumblebee jumped as Blitzwing’s face spun from blue to black, a jagged smile cracking his faceplates in two. “Not really,” Blitzwing said with a snicker. “You can try to explain it, though! Promise I’ll shut up.”
Bumblebee shrugged, his head aching even more as he looked at Blitzwing’s face, his big scarlet optics wide and expectant.
“I guess… I remember what it was like, and how it felt,” Bumblebee said, shuttering his optics as he tried to put the sensation into words. “I told Sari it’s like trying to remember a dream that you forgot. I know it was a really hot day, and I was dying for some coolant, and you made really intense eye contact with me before firing off to the left. Then I did some insane overcomplicated dodge so I’d look like a badass. I know we did it on purpose—both of us. We orchestrated the whole thing. Then there was… something about Prime’s trailer. Then later in the day, something about the oil tasting funny, I don’t know. But the rest just isn’t there.”
Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue with a whirr, though he said nothing. Bumblebee bit his lip, rocking back and forth, drumming his digits against his knees.
“How did this even start?” he asked, unsure if he was ready for the answer. “Us, being a—a thing. How does that even happen?”
Blitzwing shrugged, his gaze shifting toward the horizon, an oddly wistful expression taking over his face. “It was quite a process on both of our parts, if you must know,” he said, uncrossing his legs and stretching out, his wings twitching as his frame unfurled to its full size. “In April, I believe, we were on patrol at the same time and happened to bump into one another. We started arguing about something—Primus only knows what, probably something foolish—and I dared you to shoot me. We ended up laughing more than arguing, and I personally recall returning to base and thinking that it had been my favorite patrol route in months.”
Bumblebee’s processor splintered a few times, shards of memory flickering into the front of his thoughts before vanishing. He swallowed, fidgeting with his fingers, his alert lowering by the second as he watched Blitzwing settle into a more comfortable position against a tree trunk.
“Eventually, we both started requesting similar patrol shifts, because we enjoyed seeing one another,” Blitzwing continued. “We saw one another almost daily, but I eventually admitted having feelings for you in… late June, I believe it was. You laughed at me, and I was crushed until you said the same. Though it wasn’t until mid-August that we… what was the term you used… ‘made it official.’ Created ground rules, established times outside of patrol to spend with one another, and so on.”
Bumblebee jumped into Blitzwing’s arms, smiling so widely that his face hurt, smashing his lips against Blitzwing’s— Static. Blitzwing’s digits were trembling as he gripped Bumblebee’s waist, so large yet so gentle, holding him close as thought he’d never let go—
“I… kinda remember that, yeah,” Bumblebee said, his knees suddenly feeling rather weak.
Blitzwing’s features quirked into a brief smile, but the happiness quickly vanished, something much more dark and melancholy flooding his optics. “Good,” he said. “We continued to go on dates for a month or so, and in late September, we confessed love for one another. You said it first, and I was quick to follow suit.”
Blitzwing’s tone was frank, but his gaze was hollow, cold, sad. Bumblebee’s spark sank uncomfortably.
“Just a few weeks before I lost my memories,” he said, his voice incredibly small.
Blitzwing nodded, momentarily seeming as though he wanted to say something else, but he fell silent. Bumblebee stared in awe—it was odd to see such a range of emotions on Blitzwing, of all mechs. The triple changer certainly wasn’t known for being stoic, but Bumblebee never imagined that he’d see such expression pass over just one of his faces. The changes were small but dynamic, and they made Bumblebee’s helm ache even more, fragments of memories flashing through him at speeds too quick to understand.
“Sorry,” Bumblebee said awkwardly.
To his surprise, Blitzwing laughed, though it was a sad, pitying laugh. “Don’t be,” he said, shaking his helm. “Hardware is fickle. If you damaged yourself enough to get processor damage, you should be grateful to be alive.”
Bumblebee shrugged uncomfortably. “Still,” he mumbled. “I mean—I keep getting chunks. Not everything, not even close to everything, but chunks. It’s just this big mess of corrupted data. But I mean, I’m still sitting here next to you, and something… I don’t know. Something’s telling me to stay. It feels like a safe spot here.”
Blitzwing sighed heavily, and Bumblebee was oddly relieved to see a smile on his face once again. “We met on this island every weekend or so,” he explained when he saw Bumblebee staring. “You told me everything about the week. Everything. You’re quite the motormouth.”
Bumblebee rolled his optics, sighing pointedly, and Blitzwing reached out to take his hand. Bumblebee didn’t stop him, letting Blitzwing weave their digits together slowly.
“You told me that you loved me here, as well,” Blitzwing said. “And I told you that I loved you too.”
Bumblebee watched his digits intertwine with Blitzwing’s, just barely recalling the familiar weight of Blitzwing’s servos, the roughness of his digits. “I don’t really remember that,” he said guiltily.
“That’s alright,” Blitzwing said, his voice barely a breath, a low hum over the combined whirring of their vents. “You’ll get there. Again. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Bumblebee squeezed Blitzwing’s servo, though he didn’t quite know why. “Why?” he asked. “Why do I even trust you? Why do you trust me?”
Blitzwing chuckled airily. “We never did figure that one out. Not quite. We simply did.”
Blitzwing edged ever closer to Bumblebee, and Bumblebee’s spark thudded in his chest, excitement and nervousness washing over him in a painful wave. He bit his lip, watching the grass bow under Blitzwing’s weight, the distance between them closing inch by inch.
“We were, um…” Bumblebee hesitated, certain that if he didn’t take a few deep breaths, his spark would shoot right out of his plating. “In one of those pictures you sent me, we were, um… kissing.”
“Yes, we were.”
Bumblebee chewed at his lip harder. “That picture sort of made me remember, uh—it kinds reminded me what you, um, what it feels like to kiss you. Sort of.”
Blitzwing’s face was just inches from his own. “May I refresh your memory?”
It was embarrassing to have his frame shaking like this. Bumblebee felt like every gear in his body was spinning and vibrating, his plating clattering against itself at a deafening volume. He stared into Blitzwing’s optic, then at his monocular, trying to decide which to look at, painfully aware of how long he’d been sitting in complete silence.
“Uh—yeah,” he stammered, his tanks filling with invisible butterflies.
“You’re certain? I don’t want to pressure—”
“No—I mean, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Go for it.”
There was but a brief moment of silence between them before Blitzwing bridged the gap, pressing his lips against Bumblebee’s, and the kiss sent fireworks from Bumblebee’s spark straight to his processor.
A rush of memories crashed over Bumblebee with such power that his optics whited out, his entire frame sizzling with violent charge that made all of his pistons seize and his processor burst with incomprehensible static. Hundreds, maybe thousands of forgotten shared kisses smashed into Bumblebee’s helm with agonizing force, as though he was kissing Blitzwing for the first time and the millionth time all at once. Bumblebee shuddered all over, his frame burning as memories arched through him, frying his processor until he could only think about one thing—Blitzwing.
Bumblebee knew he was clumsy, and for a brief moment, he was ashamed that he was apparently so bad at kissing. But Blitzwing’s surprisingly soft lips claimed that shame and whisked it away, making all of the right moments, his thick servos wrapping around Bumblebee’s waist with alien familiarity. He knew exactly how to lean into Bumblebee, how to absorb all of his anxiety and take it away, every movement practiced and perfect. Bumblebee couldn’t help but let out a tiny gasp of surprise, but Blitzwing silenced him by sliding a servo up to his helm, caressing the minibot with firm delicacy.
Bumblebee tried to reciprocate, but nothing could match the months of rehearsals that Blitzwing had over him. After a few seconds, he simply allowed himself to melt into Blitzwing’s touch, into the barbs of memory that assaulted his processor, the damaged recollections that were so foreign, yet somehow felt like home.
Their first kiss, inept and lacking in all grace, their frames tangled in hiding under a bridge. The brief pecks they managed to catch at the ends of their shared patrol shifts. Kisses blown across a battlefield, sent flying with sly winks. Fully embracing one another in the moonlight, in this very spot, minutes turning into hours as they studied each other’s lips. The struggle of sharing a kiss while smiling, their sparks full to bursting, the word love echoing through the trees—
Bumblebee lurched back with a gasp, and Blitzwing abruptly pulled away, looking alarmed.
“Are you alright?” he said, seeming surprised when Bumblebee fell against his cockpit, spark pounding wildly.
“Yeah,” Bumblebee said, his voice rusty, blinking rapidly as he tried to regain his vision. “That—uh—I got some, uh—”
“Memories?” Blitzwing asked.
Bumblebee nodded weakly. “Lots of ‘em. Frag. Still kind of—chunky. I mean, not chunky, more like busted, but uh—”
“Bumblebee.”
Bumblebee glanced up, mildly surprised to see how frantically he was clinging to Blitzwing’s frame. It was as though they were sinking and the Decepticon was a life raft, and Bumblebee had no intentions of letting go. Instinct had taken over once again, but instead of feeling the need to run away, he knew that he needed to be right here.
“I understand that this is a lot,” Blitzwing said, his servo gliding freely up Bumblebee’s back, tracing against plating with such care and knowing that Bumblebee started shivering all over again. “But if you will let me, I would like very much to earn your trust once again. However long it may take. We can work toward getting your memories back, or making new ones—whichever you prefer.”
Bumblebee closed his optics, arching into Blitzwing’s touch without even realizing he was doing so. “Yeah,” he said stupidly, not sure what else to say. “Yeah. Weird as this is, I… yeah. Definitely. If anyone can help, it’s you. Optimus is giving me the downlow on everything, but I mean…”
“Not quite everything,” Blitzwing said, his voice somewhere between snide and amused.
Bumblebee snorted. “Shut up.”
Blitzwing let out a low, deep sigh, one that made his entire frame rumble, his plating settling as though every cord and line had come unraveled in sync—Bumblebee hadn’t even realized it, but the triple changer had been on battle-ready alert, fully prepared to jump away should Bumblebee show any sign of fear or resistance.
But instead, Bumblebee lay against his chest, his vents redlining as he picked through the static-coated blips of memory. “Thanks,” he said, the phrase sticky and unfitting in his intake. “Um… would it be totally dumb of me to ask for another memory refresh?”
Blitzwing chuckled, gliding a servo protectively over Bumblebee’s frame, his digits scratching at an unreachable spot under Bumblebee’s kibble—frag, that felt good. Blitzwing was a wizard, Bumblebee decided, a wizard who knew exactly how to hold him, where to touch, where to itch.
“I would be happy to,” Blitzwing said, his voice warmer than Bumblebee would have ever expected, his face spinning suddenly with a whirr. “But we should wait first, ‘cause if we don’t, your processor might pop! Your engine redlined! Am I that good of a kisser?”
Bumblebee knocked his knuckles irritably against Blitzwing’s chest—an odd thing to do, but it felt right. “Can it, loser.”
He may not have remembered falling for Blitzwing at all, let alone falling in love with him. But he knew for sure that this feeling, this comfort, this warmth and trust—this was, without a doubt, love. And if this was just the beginning, Bumblebee couldn’t wait to see how much better it could get.