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Becoming Mama Bear	By : Breech_Loader Category: Transformers > Transformers: Animated > Het - M/F Views: 8539 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Becoming Mama Bear
Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651
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Harley: It’s just too long since I uploaded a chapter. I am a lazy cow, aren’t I? So, here’s one again.
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Chapter Twenty-Six: Major Depressive Episode
Bumblebee slowly walked towards Hotwire's chambers/medical lab, stretching out his joints and servos after a fitful recharging session. It had been a very long day yesterday, and the guilt still gnawed at him constantly, but he was forcing himself to keep going, to atone for his mistakes. Right now, though, he just wanted to talk to his newest friend, and knocked on the door, "Hey there, Hotwire! You online in there?"
There was no answer at all, which surprised him. Hotwire spent almost all her time in her lab - possibly a by-product of how much time she had spent in her med-lab in the Decepticon base. He hadn't seen her anywhere else today. So he just pushed open the door and walked in - it wasn't as if he hadn't knocked, anyway.
Hotwire's lab was a horrible, horrible mess, which was another shock. She was even more obsessively neat and tidy than Ratchet. But now it looked as if there had been a dreadful explosion. Experiments were scattered all over the floor, a desk was overturned, data discs were in disarray, and any reflective surfaces had deep, angry claw-marks in them. A mirror had been smashed. For a moment, Hotwire was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a soft, wretched whimpering noise.
At first, he had mistaken her for part of the debris. Under all the scratch marks, dripping energon, and nasty gashes, he could barely recognize her. But when he did, Bumblebee stood still in shock for an instant before rushing towards her dropping to his knees. "Hotwire!" he yelled in terror, "Hotwire, what happened to you?! Please, speak to me!"
"Go away..." Hotwire whispered, not even looking at Bumblebee, "Go away and leave me alone..." She tried to hide the deep wounds on her arms, none of which had been welded back together again. The screwdriver had been driven through the palm of her left hand, and she was using that same hand to open the gashes on her right arm wider. There was energon pooling slowly underneath her, and her exposed wires were sparking electricity.
"Are you insane?!" Bumblebee shouted in her face, grasping at the screwdriver with all his might, tearing it out of her hand, "HELP!" the young mech shouted again, trying to get the attention of the base, "I need some help here! What were you thinking?!"
Hotwire shrugged listlessly. She wasn't sure why she'd done all this either. She wasn't suicidal, she knew that... but when Prowl had left the room, she'd just started digging at herself, and she hadn't been able to stop, "I... don't know," she said quietly, not really focusing on the yellow Autobot, "I... couldn't stop..."
Bumblebee didn't have a response to that. He didn't know what he could say. So he simply acted. He couldn't wait for the others to come to him. Not wasting time, the yellow mech swiftly scooped Hotwire into his arms and went running after the other medic in the base. "Ratchet! Ratchet, where are you?!"
Fortunately, the Autobot medic wasn't far away, and heard Bumblebee's fearful cries from his own med-lab, "Bumblebee? What's wrong?" he asked, just before he saw Hotwire in the yellow Autobot's arms, "Oh, Primus... what have you DONE to yourself, Hotwire?"
"You... always assume that I've done something to myself..." Hotwire hissed at him, "Did it ever occur to you that somebody might have done this to me?"
"Did somebody do this to you?" Bumblebee asked, shocked.
"No..." Hotwire admitted after a second, "But they could have..."
"What is that supposed to... oh, forget it!" Bumblebee snapped, rushing to the Autobot medic, "Ratchet, you have gotta help her!"
"Ugh..." Ratchet took Hotwire in his arms carefully, and she looked away from both of them, "Massive Energon depletion, torn servos and severed wires... Bumblebee, you need to find Sari and bring her and that key to my med-lab right now. But I have a nasty feeling that this is going to take more than AllSpark energy to heal..."
Nodding quickly, Bumblebee rushed off, "Sari! Sari! We need your help here!" he cried out, cupping his hands together, “We need that key of yours!”
The little human had just gotten away from her tutor-bot, and heard Bumblebee calling, "Bumblebee! It's great to see you!" she cried out, then saw his fearful expression, "Hey, what's wrong?"
"It's Hotwire! She's messed herself up bad! Come on, quick! She needs your key!" the young mech swiftly explained to the human child, right before grabbing her by the arm and dragging her quickly towards the injured femme.
They got to the med-lab even as Ratchet was lying the listless Hotwire down on a berth. Sari climbed up and held her key to Hotwire's chassis, and the fresh injuries on her arms healed up cleanly - far more cleanly than any of Hotwire's welding jobs on her arms had ever been. But Hotwire still didn't get up. She just looked away from them.
"Go away... and leave me alone," she said dully.
"No!" Bumblebee snapped angrily at her, "We're not leaving you so you can do that to yourself again! You scared the pit out of me!" Indeed, the young mech's expression was a mix of fear and anger now, the rare curse a punctuation to the trauma he had just gone through.
"Why? Nobody cares," Hotwire said, staring up.
"Damn," said Ratchet, who was looking at a screen, "Bad code."
"What's that mean?" Sari asked him.
"Well, everybody's got bad code," Ratchet explained, "Some people have more of it than others, of course. Makes 'em do stupid things, feel... unhappy, unfulfilled... but usually only a few lines of bad code activate at once. Even a Major Depressive femme like Hotwire would normally only have about a dozen bad lines of code conflicting at once."
"Usually?" Sari picked out the word.
"For some reason, every line of bad code in Hotwire's meta has activated, all at once," said Ratchet, "And... this has happened. The key won't repair that. Right now, she's a self-destruct risk."
"I am not," Hotwire said, listlessly. Ratchet didn't look as if he believed her all that much, shaking his head at Bumblebee.
"There's... there's gotta be some way we can fix up that code, right?" Bumblebee asked Ratchet, "Or at least tidy it up a bit?"
"I can try," Ratchet said, "But programming isn't my specialty, especially not when it's this messed up. There are only two programmers I know who could clean the mess in Hotwire's meta up in a jiffy. One of them is on Cybertron. The other is lying on the table right here. The best way to sort the whole thing out is to let it reset itself... but I don't know how long that might take."
"Days. Weeks. Months," Hotwire said gloomily, “Could take forever.”
"Well, why don't you help us out, then?" Bumblebee asked Hotwire, facing the femme as she rested on the table, "I mean, you can't feel good like this. I'll do anything you want! I'll even go get Prowl for you!"
"Forget Prowl," Hotwire stared up at the ceiling, "Forget everything."
"I think we may have found our trigger for the bad code," Ratchet said after a few seconds.
"What... Prowl did this?" Bumblebee asked, turning his wide optics towards Ratchet, "You're kidding, right? That's got to be a joke. That doesn't make sense. Prowl loves Hotwire! At least, I’m pretty sure he does..."
"I think you'd better go and fetch Prowl, so that we can confirm that," said Ratchet, staring at endless lines of confused code on the screen, "For now, it might be a good idea for me to deactivate all your weapons," he told Hotwire.
"I'm not self-destructive," Hotwire said. She was far too despondent to protest as Ratchet deactivated her cyber-pistols and removed her tools, "I deserve to suffer. To go offline would end that all too soon..."
~~~
Barricade – or was he Prowl? - knew that he should have felt satisfied by the praise and a job well done...but that wasn't what he felt. All he felt was disgust and shame. There was no honour in this. This was no achievement. Ignoring the hidden channel, the ninja approached the platform Hotwire was resting on. "I...think I hurt her feelings earlier. I didn't mean to. It was an accident, but I suppose there was little difference to her either way."
"I'll leave you two briefly," said Ratchet, "I have other things to do. But Prowl," he put a heavy hand on the motorcycle's shoulder, "Do... not... leave... her... alone," he told the mech slowly and deliberately, "Even if she doesn't try to self-destruct, she may still try to hurt herself. Do you understand? She is not to be left unattended."
Nodding slowly, the cyber-ninja replied, "I understand." It was his fault that Hotwire was in this mess to begin with. He didn't intend on letting her offline alone in this chamber. He was guilty enough as it was.
Ratchet left them, taking a protesting Bumblebee and a worried Sari with him. He would be back soon enough, but for now they were alone together.
"Oh," Hotwire said dully, just barely acknowledging Prowl's presence, "It's you again."
"Hotwire..." Prowl began, stepping over to her side, "Did you do this because of me?" He looked into her optics, waiting for an answer.
"I expect so," Hotwire said. Prowl couldn't see her optics, but there were still tears running down her cheeks, "I know I'm hideous now... you didn't have to lie about it... Or were you just in that much of a hurry to get under my plating?"
Prowl was insulted by the accusation, "I am not that kind of mech," he shook his head. At least, he was pretty sure he wasn’t, "Look, I'm sorry, Hotwire. I was just a little surprised when you took the visor off. But you are NOT hideous, do you understand?"

Hotwire wouldn't look at him, "I may not be a people person," she said, "But I saw the look on your face! Your time at the Decepticon base... it's changed you..."
"Of course,” Prowl said, making no attempt to deny it, "You'd change too, if they did to you what they did to me. But it has not changed how I feel for you." He frowned, shaking his head again and leaning closer to her. "Those scars... they don't matter, alright? They're a few scratches on metal, that's all! Stop... destroying yourself over them! It's senseless! You're smarter than this!"
"I thought you... thought you... you... l-l-lo..." Hotwire couldn't make the word, "You didn't have to lie! I thought you were different..." She curled in on herself, scratching at old scars with her claws.
Prowl wasted no time in grabbing Hotwire's wrists and pinning them to the table. As much as he liked the femme, she was starting to anger him with her defeatist, submissive attitude. This wasn't the medic he saw earlier. "Are you not listening to a word I'm saying?!" he snapped, trying to break through her fog of self-pity, "This is beneath you! You've survived to this point only to offline yourself because of a few stupid marks on your face? What is wrong with you?"
Hotwire didn't even bother to struggle, "I thought you were something worthwhile in my life," she said quietly, her voice blank of all emotion, "The scars don't matter... I could have handled it if you'd hated them from the start, if you'd always wanted me to keep my face covered... but why did you have to tell me you didn't care about them? It’s obvious you can't stand them..."
Growling, Prowl reached down and forcibly ripped the visor from her face, tossing it aside. "I can stand to look at them! See?!" the Decepticon explained, exasperated, "If you would stop wallowing in self pity for a moment, you might notice me trying to tell you that! I try to apologise, and you just continue to be absorbed with yourself! Does it not occur to you that I might be a little out of it...after being tortured?!"
"Go away... go away and leave me alone..." Hotwire wept, trying to curl up again. Her face was stained with tears, and for a moment Prowl considered actually doing so. But then Starscream's oily voice came through his com-link again.
"Yeah, pitiful, isn't she?" the mech sneered from his end, "I can't believe she survived so long on the Nemesis. I can't decide if I want you to leave her to her own pathetic devices, or stay so I can listen to her whining!"
Prowl desperately wanted to tell the obnoxious Seeker to shut the frag up and never talk to him again. Instead, he simply said to Hotwire, "I'm not going to do that. I'm going to stand here and watch over you, because I care about you. Even if you're too dense or malfunctioned to notice."
He didn't know if the worst thing about it was what she had done to herself, or the way she wouldn't look at him, or the way she wasn't even struggling. She didn't seem to care about the situation at all, one way or another.
Hotwire shuddered, rolling away from Prowl and falling with a clang onto the floor, “I’m sorry,” she said, and started crawling her way towards the visor Prowl had thrown aside, “I don’t mean... it doesn’t matter... I’m sorry...” Her programming was badly messed up, and she didn’t seem to be able to think straight because of all the bad code in her head, “I know you’re hurting... I didn’t mean to be selfish...”
Sighing, Prowl walked over to the crawling femme, crouching down and placing his hands on her shoulders. "It's alright,” he told her, his tone of voice softening, "I shouldn't have reacted that way." He held her in his arms and rolled her to look at him, stroking the back of her neck gently, "You're not well, Hotwire... but we'll take care of you."
"I just..." Hotwire shuddered, "Why'd you have to change like that? I loved you just as you were..." She covered her face with her hands, trying to hide it from his sight, “And... I still do... that’s why it hurts so bad...”
Prowl, holding onto Hotwire gently, lifted her back up to her feet and supported her in his arms "I'm still me,” he told her, "Everything is going to be alright. You just have to trust me."
"It hurts," Hotwire wept, crossing her arms over her chassis, hiding her face in Prowl's windshield, "It hurts again, and I feel... so empty..."
He held her close, rubbing her back slowly as he rested his cheek against hers. Training as a ninja and as a Decepticon – as much as he remembered, anyway - allowed for few chances to comfort others, but Prowl felt he had to try now. He slowly rocked her back and forth, whispering to her that everything would be fine.
Hotwire was still curled in on herself, rocking herself back and forth against Prowl. It was hard to tell if her mood was improving, but at least she was talking with more than a dull monotone, "I just wanted to feel something," she said, "And then you came and I did and it felt good... but then..."
"I know. I know,” he assured her, drawing Hotwire against his chest, "You'll feel good again. You have to believe that. You'll pick yourself back up and be your regular self again."
"I don't want to hurt," Hotwire whispered, "I should never have... never have opened up to you... I was stupid..."
"That's not stupid, that’s brave,” Prowl corrected her, rubbing their cheeks together, "And it was the right thing to do." Saying those words made him hate himself, knowing that he was likely to betray her trust eventually.
Hotwire's arm was still crossed over her chassis, but she pulled herself a little closer to Prowl, one hand hanging loose, "Why did you... I thought the scars didn't matter to you," she said wretchedly, “But then... the look on your face..."
"I had... forgotten, that's all,” he tried to explain. It was the truth, after all, and it didn't hurt so bad to tell the truth. After the extreme torture they assumed he had received, it wasn't out of the question that he could forget a detail like that.
Hotwire’s hand curled around the pendant still hanging from her neck. Her meta was too confused to ask questions; she couldn’t think straight past the bad code. Prowl’s words didn’t add up, but right now nothing in her hard drive added up. Shaking, she started to reach towards the old scars again with her claws.
Prowl reached out and gently took her hand, keeping her from picking at her scars. "You don't need to do that,” he told her patiently, giving her hand a squeeze, "Just stay here with me. You'll feel better soon, I promise. Just rest..."
"I want to..." Hotwire clutched at the pendant with one hand, and Prowl's hand with the other, "I... still love you..."
The words felt alien coming from his mouth, but it was something he could tell that she needed to hear, and for some reason he wanted to tell her, "I love you, too,” he said quietly. To his point of view, Barricade had just met this not-quite Autobot medic, but even this early, there was something about her he enjoyed... and no one had ever said anything so affectionate to him. It was a strange experience, and he somehow felt that deep inside his broken memory banks, he must have felt something like that for her, too.
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Harley: Read and review!
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Becoming Mama Bear