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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
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Becoming Mama Bear

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

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Harley: Christ, you should see the state of my black eye today. I had a fit last night and my face is in a right state.

Froggy: Don’t worry. Bumblebee has his voice back, and he should be getting his optics and armour back this chapter.

~~~

Chapter Seven: Beliefs

Bumblebee listened to Hotwire's metal feet clack their way lightly into the med-lab. He just wished he could see her. But she had promised to replace his optics today. He'd be able to see her soon.

The femme was in fact carrying armfuls full of equipment. Everything needed to install his new optics, the new red armour, the only colour in his size. And a bunch of weapons and installation programs, "Okay, Bumblebee," she said, "This is going to be a hard operation, and it's going to be lasting a long time," she dumped everything on another table, "I'll be giving you a painkiller program, but I'm not sure that it'll numb all the pain. But this operation has to go through."

"Can't you just knock me out for this?" the young Autobot asked the medic. The idea of going through more agonizing pain was not one he liked. He just wanted to be repaired so he would be in better shape to plan his escape... or revenge. He wasn't entirely sure which.

"Well, I've got a lamp-post around somewhere," Hotwire answered, "Trust me, even if your Ratchet was working on this job, he would have to do this the same way. Unless you think I get a kick out of dealing pain," she added dryly.

"Well, doctors do tend to develop a god-complex..." Bumblebee joked half-heartedly, "But... I trust you." It was more than he could say for most everyone at that point.

"Wouldn't blame you if that was what you thought," Hotwire commented, "Most everybody in this base likes dealing pain. That appears to be the point of being a Decepticon," she checked the program she had just picked up, and then put it back down, picking up another.

Yet again, it occurred to the Autobot just how out-of-place Hotwire seemed to be in a place of such hostility. "Yet you still help them,” he spoke quietly, "It doesn't make any sense."

"It's a complicated story," Hotwire answered, "I never told the full story to any Decepticon. It's just the sort of thing they'd get a real kick out of. You Autobots, on the other hand, would start with 'No, that can't be true'. Then when it clicked, move on to being disappointed, shame, trying to convince me not to dwell on the past, that sort of thing. No offence," she bent over him, painkillers in hand.

Bumblebee relaxed, letting her do her work while her words sunk in, "I'm not in a position to argue,” he told her, "But I would like to know more. You're too good to be around these creeps."

Hotwire installed the painkiller program, before she picked up the new optics, "Very well," she sighed, starting to work, "I was created, as most mechs are, by two people. One of them was designated Wheeljack. The other was designated Hook. But names aren't important. What's important," she said slowly, "Was that only one of them was an Autobot. Hook was a Decepticon."

"I didn't think that was possible,” the young mech muttered, feeling his senses become dulled, "I would think they would kill each other before making someone else."

"You may like to know that Wheejack didn't have a choice. According to him, it was an experiment. Hook forced his firewall down and raped him until he bore a spark. Then they built the body. Then Hook lost interest in the project, and I wouldn't even be in this body if Wheeljack hadn't taken both Spark and body back to his unit."

"So the Decepticon screwed you over, and the Autobot took you in,” Bumblebee commented, sure that this story still had more to it.

"Oh yes," Hotwire handled the optics carefully, and started to put one in, "But nobody told me that. The unit I was with pretended for nearly eight million years that I really was an Autobot, the creation of Ratchet and Wheeljack. Your Ratchet. And it was the Ratchet you know who told me the truth. Right around the time I was expelled from Protihex Medical Mechanics University by him."

The part about hiding the identity of one of her parents made sense to Bumblebee. Victims of rape generally didn't enjoy recalling the event and would prefer to hide that ugly truth from their child. He was more surprised by Ratchet's other action, "Why were you expelled?" he asked, "You seem to do a good job to me."

"Couldn't see why myself," Hotwire answered, continuing to work on the optics, "But I was a Triage Officer then. Or a Triage Officer Student. You know that supplies were becoming tight. Really tight. Triage is a hard job. Sometimes, when there aren't enough supplies to go around, the most severely wounded patients have to die. Otherwise others who could survive would die. At least, that's the usual method."

Bumblebee would have nodded if he could; he understood what she was talking about. He had seen triage in action, and it wasn't pretty, but it was essential. Wasting too much time on someone who could be saved insured that others who can have been saved are lost. Thinking it over helped keep his mind off the discomfort he felt as Hotwire dug out his broken optics.

Hotwire looked at the chips of broken glass in her hand, before throwing them into a bin, "So, I saved a little more time and supplies, and started deactivating expectant mechs early, saving the waste of painkillers and ending their pain. Also, it meant I could use the parts of them still working on others who could be saved."

"Wait... you started killing patients?" Bumblebee asked, suddenly chilled by the realization. There was a different between prioritising treatment and actively ending lives.

"What? Don't say you're going to be fussy too?" Hotwire continued to work with the new optics, "Ratchet seemed to have a real problem with that. He even complained about the new students starting to follow my example. I suppose he wanted even more people to be deactivated in this war," she said, sarcasm rife in her voice, "He expelled me, and when I asked him why he was doing that to his own creation, he told me the truth. Finally. Did he really expect me to stick around after that?"

"No,” Bumblebee admitted, "But which part made you more angry? That he expelled you or that he lied to you?"

"I'm... not sure," Hotwire admitted, hooking up the wires, "I think it must have been a 50/50 split. It often is with me."

"I don't think he meant to hurt you,” the Autobot told her softly, "He was more your creator than Hook ever was."

"I couldn't stay there," Hotwire replied, "Maybe it was me, but I couldn't stay, not knowing that I'd been lied to ever since I was brought online. So I left and went to work on battlefields, trying to help both sides. But the Autobots have more medics than the Decepticons, so I usually ended up repairing ‘cons."

Bumblebee winced, feeling the work on his optics much more clearly than he had hoped. Sure, it wasn't the same as with a human and their irreplaceable body parts, but that didn't make it any less disturbing, "But aren't you just helping the Decepticons hurt more people that way? That can’t be what you want!"

"People would get hurt whether I repaired them or not," Hotwire answered, "The Decepticons are fighting for what they believe in, just the same as the Autobots. Does anybody deserve to die just for defending their beliefs?"

It was a question that stopped Bumblebee, made him think. He had always been good-natured and hated the war, even though he realized the necessity of it. There had been a time when he believed that all beliefs should be respected, even if they weren't all compatible. But then he saw Starscream in his mind, beating him, forcing him down onto the table, and... Bumblebee's answer was short and sharp, "Yes."

Hotwire just smiled thinly. She couldn't help but be a little bit pleased that Bumblebee had given that answer, "What, even Optimus Prime?" she asked Bumblebee, twisting in the new optic with a sharp *click*.

The small mech gave a hiss of pain as the new device clicked into place, and immediately his systems began to recognize and analyse the hardware being installed, although it wasn't brought online just yet, "That depends on what he believes,” Bumblebee answered.

"We could argue about this for hours. Days, even," Hotwire smirked, "But if that's the case, why don't you just offline me? After all, I repair the mechs who hurt you so badly. Without me, they'd lack a medic on this dirtball. I'm a programmer as well as a medic, you know. It would cripple certain operations. Who'd clear out all the STVs in Starscream's system once a month?"

"Because you don't actually hurt anyone,” he was quick to reply, "Yeah, you fix the people who do hurt others, but that doesn't make you responsible for what they do. Your beliefs don't harm others."

Hotwire chuckled. Then she started to laugh. Eventually she stopped, "Wait, you're serious? You don't know me very well just yet, do you Bumblebee?" she asked him, picking up the second optic to install, "Oh well. I don't really want to spoil your perfect little view of how the world works," she chuckled again.

That was when Bumblebee swatted her hand away from him, "Don't patronize me!" he growled.

"Oh, very well," Hotwire shrugged, "Nobody in this base - including Soundwave, I'd like to add, rather proudly - knows more about viruses, how they work and their effects on the Cybertronian mind than I do. And I myself have never met anybody who demonstrated a greater knowledge of them than I have. I'm also rather good at creating them. Especially the ones with a serious effect on the mental processes."

"So? What's your point?" Bumblebee asked her, not at all surprised that a practiced medic had extensive knowledge of electronic viruses.

Hotwire shrugged. She liked Bumblebee, even if he had taken a side, so why tell him? He'd probably be horrified, just like every other person she'd told, "It's not important," she said finally, twisting in the second optic, "Now, before I install the software for those optics, I'm just going to run a quick virus scan on you. Don't want anything affecting something that was this hard to get hold of."

"Right,” Bumblebee replied, dropping the subject for now. He was ready to see again, and he didn't want to wait any longer than he had to.

Hotwire plugged in a cable into Bumblebee's neck and stood looking at a computer screen, "Things are nearly sorted now," she said, "You'll be able to leave the med-bay soon, provided nothing goes horribly wrong."

The young Autobot reached up to feel his new optics, pleased to feel that they had no cracks or imperfections that he could detect, "Ready to bring them online?" he asked hopefully.

"Just finishing this scan of your systems," Hotwire replied, "You don't want to be running around with any of Starscream's viruses, especially the ones I gave him to experiment on."

Bumblebee frowned, "You're experimenting viruses on him?" he asked, pausing a moment before adding, "...Good for you."

"Good to see you don't mind," Hotwire looked at the screen, "Well, your files look pretty clean. Except for the Trojans and... oh dear, he infected you with a Logic Bomb. It would have activated as soon as you opened your optics again, and then you REALLY would have been screwed. I'll just get rid of them." Bumblebee listened to the tapping of fingers on a keyboard.

Suddenly, Bumblebee's core temperature seemed to drop down further than it should have been. He really didn't like the sound of that, "A... logic bomb?" he asked tentatively.

"If I'd installed your new optics program before I got rid of this thing, and you'd accessed it, it would have activated, and scrambled half the files in your CPU," Hotwire explained, and inserted a disk, saving the virus for later, "I expect in two days, you'd be brain-dead."

Bumblebee had heard of some nasty viruses before, but he never knew one to be so precise or so deadly. It sounded more like it was engineered to be a weapon rather than something naturally occurring. "And why hasn't it killed Starscream yet?" he asked.

"Because it's not just looking, it's the first access of the optical file that does it," Hotwire replied, cleaning out the viruses, "Only put it there a few weeks ago, and I was meaning to get around to making him install a new optical program to test the virus... but then you turned up."

"That's too bad,” Bumblebee said, although his voice lacked the enthusiasm of his words, "Seems a little dangerous, though, playing around with stuff like that."

"Hey, I told you I was good with viruses," Hotwire answered, "Oh well, that's your files cleaned out. You'll be fine now. I'm just going to install the optical software," she put the disk into a player, and pressed a few more buttons, muttering, "Next - yes, I freaking accept your terms and conditions... custom setup..."

Bumblebee sighed, wishing that the process of installing a simple pair of optics didn't take so long. It was a bad idea to commercialize the making and selling of body parts, he was sure of it.

Hotwire completed the customisation, "And... okay..." she turned back around, "Okay, Bumblebee, this should take about... two minutes and fifteen seconds. Then you'll be able to activate your optics again. Are there any questions you want to ask about them first?" she checked.

"You didn't steal these off a patient, did you?" he jokingly asked.

"Well..." Hotwire sounded slightly uncomfortable, "They are spare parts off a deactivated body... But I didn't offline him to get them for you," she added quickly.

It was Bumblebee's turn to squirm uncomfortably, "I'm sorry I asked,” he said, waiting for them to come online.

"Okay..." while the installation was being completed, Hotwire continued to move around the lab, picking up the pieces of armour and weapons and weapon software, and piling them onto another table next to Bumblebee, "Don't you worry, those optics are high quality."

"I hope so,” he remarked, "I've sure waited long enough for them." A few minutes more, and they began to activate, sending visual data to his CPU. Bumblebee blinked as the world started to come back into focus, and his gaze came to rest on Hotwire's partly concealed face, "Hi,” the mech said to her, "You're not quite what I expected. But in a good way." Indeed the female was black and white, and Bumblebee could see scarring on the backs of her forearms. And oddly enough, the Decepticon symbol on her chassis was red, not purple. It gave Bumblebee more hope that Hotwire would help him escape.

The blue visor made Hotwire's face even more devoid of expression than Soundwave's - his was set at an angle that resulted in a perpetual glare, but hers was straight. But she smiled a little, and leant forward, a pencil light in her hand, "Open your optics wide," she told him. Bumblebee did so, and she peered at each one, before leaning back, "And tell me what you can see right now."

"Um... you, of course,” he told her, testing out his eyes, running a self-diagnostic on them, "Colour is good, depth perception is working, and they seem to focus well enough."

"Okay... if there's any problems it seems they'll come up later, but it looks like your new optics have been installed just fine," Hotwire held out a hand, "Here, stand up. It's time to put on your new armour. The old stuff was damaged too badly to replace properly, not to mention a bunch of 'cons are keeping pieces as petty trophies... this is your new armour," she held up red sheet metal in Bumblebee's size.

It was more of a blood red than the brighter red that he would prefer. Definitely Decepticon colouring, even if it had been lifted from an Autobot corpse, but it would have to do, "It's not yellow, but it's close enough,” he said, "It'll be nice to be wearing something again."

Hotwire helped him to stand up, and started to fit the armour, attaching numerous catches and then clipping it on, "You should be able to transform into your previous alternate mode," she said as she worked, "Although the colour will be different. If you can't, you can just scan something new."

"Works for me. That's the good thing about humans; they have so many vehicles to choose from. Makes it easy to blend in,” Bumblebee spoke cheerfully, flexing and testing out the new plates of armour as they were placed onto his frame. It was a good fit.

"And there... and there... and right there..." Hotwire straightened up as she completed the job, "Now all there is left to do is contact Starscream and tell him you're ready for more torture."

Bumblebee's face was a picture of total horror before changing to anger and irritation, "That really isn't funny, Hotwire,” he told her.

"Seeing the look on your face was," Hotwire smiled briefly, her mouth twitching, "No, no, it's time to equip you with those weapons you asked for. The installation will take much longer than your optics though, and I may have to-"

At that moment, the door slammed open, and Starscream was standing there, sneering, "I knew there was something odd about you agreeing to fix up that Autobot slut, Hotwire," he sneered at her.

~~~
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Becoming Mama Bear