Ep 0.5 – “Bored Bumblebee Bored” – Closed

[bumblebee]

So he hadn’t really… met team Axalon exactly. He wasn’t sure why beyond the fact that unlike many of the other strays Team Prime had picked up, brushed off, and adopted to the team, Team Axalon was irrevocably bound to the fact that they were ‘Team Axalon’ and had been so first and there was no getting rid of that. Sure. They were also now official part of Team Prime, but there was a pre-existing sub-clause. They were Team Prim but they were still Team Axalon – worse, what was left of Team Axalon – and it felt like there was this… bubble around them and Bee wasn’t sure why but he’d been reluctant to cross it kind of.

But now, peering around the edge of the door into the rec room, staring at the backs of their heads, the young scout-bot was debating very intensely with himself all the reasons why he needed to go say ‘hi’. Hi was a good opener. Hi. Nice and simple. He could do that. Right. He was going to say hi… right now. Now. Okay now. Very soon. Dangerously soon. Very very soon he was going to step away from the door and he was going to stop acting like a new spark and he was going to say ‘hi’. He was good at saying ‘hi’.

Yes. Very soon. Soon.

… soon.

[Deleted]

Human television was a fascinating window into the species' sociology and psychology, even if its quality could be spotty at times, and Team Axalon had discovered in it a fitting way to spend evenings together without any painful subjects coming up. Rhinox had no particular preference as to what they watched; if Airazor and Rattrap were arguing over the remote or settled on something he didn't particularly care for, he could pull out a data slate and quietly engineer. His presence was all they needed.

The data slate was put away right now - Mythbusters was on, one of those shows all three could agree on. Rhinox watched contentedly as Airazor cheered on the explosions and Rattrap cheered on Adam hurting himself. Clearly, it was going to be another educational evening.

Without looking behind them, he offered, "Bumblebee? Would you like to join us?" Might as well extend the offer, if he was going to hover like that.

[airazor]

Airazor turned to look over the back of the sofa and gave the yellow scout her own smile of welcome, while Rattrap grumbled about people watching where they sat. Unfairly - Team Prime was used to dealing with Rattrap-sized things in the humans - but nonetheless a moment later Rattrap was clambering over her lap and climbing up to drape himself across Rhinox's shoulder in his usual display of personal space, what personal space?

One problem solved, at least.

"Are you familiar with Mythbusters? We have a wager going about how many pieces Buster will wind up in after the commercial break."

[bumblebee]

Bumblebee’s nerves evaporated instantaneously in the wake of open invitation, door-wings jumping up, optics brightening immediately a nuclear-radiated level of blue. Chirping brightly, the scout bot abandoned his fretting position in the hallway and didn’t quite dash into the room but he certainly made little effort hiding his enthusiasm. “Never watched Mythbusters/just Googled them. Googled. That’s a great word/term/verb. Googled.”

The little scout hopped on the couch next to Airazor, looking up over her to where Ratrap was making himself at home on his much larger teammate. It was like, maybe, if Arcee were smaller and decided that sitting on Bulkhead’s shoulder was a good way to go about passing the time. The immediate mental image forced him to repress an immediate snicker, his EM field, instead, flattening reflexively and slightly shyly as he looked from the Rhinox/Ratrap totem pole to Airazor who – by the way – Bumblebee thought had an exceptionally pretty transformation sequence.

“So which one is Buster and what are they trying to debunk/prove today?”

[Deleted]

Chuckling, Rhinox made room for Bumblebee, paying no mind to his sudden passenger. He was used to Rattrap perching on him. It was comfortable, when he didn't have anything to do where the extra unbalancing weight would become bothersome. If it ever did, he had standing permission to dump Rattrap on his head.

Upon such agreements, friendships were maintained.

"Buster is the human analogue they're using." Rhinox nodded to the screen. "Currently, they're trying to launch him into space using chemical rockets strapped to a chair." He shook his head. "It'll never work."

[airazor]

"Of course it won't work. The show isn't as much fun when they don't blast the myth to pieces," Airazor said, with a cheerily bloodthirsty enthusiasm few outside of Team Axalon would suspect her of. Like she was calling a shot in pool, she added, "My credits are on Buster coming down in three pieces: snapping at the waist, both legs separating."

"Nope, he's gonna loose his head too, see if he don't," Rattrap said.

Airazor, who had noticed the way Bumblebee's field tucked in when he joined them, ignored the opening for a good natured argument and instead said to Bumblebee, "There's a good chance Buster will catch on fire again, too."

[bumblebee]

Bumblebee, who generally approved to things being on fire and/or exploding, immediately took a more active interest in what was happening on screen. The humans on screen seemed to be in the middle of explaining the safety protocols they were utilizing to make the rocket-propelled take off of the crash dummy, Buster, not a danger to the public. Bumblebee was of the opinion that he would have liked things to be on fire much more quickly, but also understood that humanity was very squishy and prone to… squishing… and catching on fire… and breaking. It occurred to him that for such a fragile species humanity was very prone to finding all the dangerous ways in which they might eliminate themselves.

“Can we do that?” Bee blurted immediately after Buster failed to lift off like he should have and instead went rocketing off sidesways into the side of a building.”Like… I mean I’m sure Raf/Jack/Miko would love it.” Meaning he, Bumblebee, would love it. He looked up at Airazor, appealing immediately to her enthusiasm for things going BOOM.”Autobots do human Myths. It’s for science!”

[Deleted]

From just such beginnings as these, were born disasters of epic and hilarious proportions that would be talked about over high-grade for the rest of their lives and possibly longer than that. As the Responsible One, Rhinox should probably gently remind them of the classic Mythbusters disclaimer, repeated several times per episode: "Don't try this at home."

Perhaps losing most of his crew had shaken loose a few Responsibility circuits. "I'm sure we could claim that we're testing new weapons designs," he mused aloud. "All as part of my engineering work, of course. We do lack ground-to-air capability right now." And he smiled, innocent as a newspark.

[airazor]

"We'll do it better, of course," Airazor said, with just a hint of the smile which had struck fear into many Decepticon sparks over the vorn. "We are, after all, a highly advanced alien race."

By which she did not mean, in any way, that they had better quality explosives.

"Besides, Rattrap and I have been working on a few things. It would be good if we could test them in a more controlled manner than Rattrap sneaking off by himself and excavating the nearest junk yard."

Rattrap snorted. "Like I wasn't gonna take you with me."

"Controlled conditions are always better." And, in this case, more fun. "Besides, I'm sure it will be educational for the human children."

[bumblebee]

Bumblebee was beginning to be concerned about that smile Airazor had – as pretty as it was to watch there was a certain devious kind of ‘muhahaha-evil-laugh’ quality to it. He supposed that there was, really, very little – with the exception of say Megatron riding a phase sixer into battle – that was more terrifying than smart bots who got bored and devious. He suspected quite intensely that Team Axalon were precisely that kind of bored here on earth. The problem with being a first response team against the Decepticon threat was generally that most of the time you were just resupplying, patrolling, and prepping for the next attack. That left engineers with patrols but very little in the way of science things to do.

(They had apparently optimized the engeron converter and power grid so well that the energy draw to keep the Autobot base running was less than a quarter of what it had been and Fowler’s government distractors had quieted down. Bee knew this because Optimus didn’t look like he was going to pinch Fowler’s head off every time he called anymore.)

Bored engineers meant the probability of explosions went up. This was just fact. Bee loved it. “We have a bunch of rooms we aren’t using! Like really big ones/underground bunkers. Can we use those? I know where to get crash test dummies!” He looked pleadingly up at the three of them. “Can we name it Buster Mach 2? We *need* ground-to-air tech! Optimus will understand!”

[Deleted]

Rhinox chuckled, already mentally mapping out the equipment they would need. "Buster Mach II is a perfect name," he assured Bumblebee with a gentle smile that belied the Evil Plans currently ticking away in his processor. "And to be fair, I do need a good bunker anyway. Rattrap," he added to the mech on his shoulder, "do you think you can help me scrounge up some blast screens? Portable ones," he amended. "Since underground bunkers are fine for some things, but for full-scale rocket tests, we'll have to go outside."

Good thing the base was surrounded by desert for miles and miles.

[rattrap]

"Eh, I think I can scare somethin' up." And if he couldn't, there was always lying, cheating, and stealing...or at least stealing. And speaking of stealing...

He hooked his fingers into Rhinox's shoulder seam and leaned over, stretching to rap Airazor on the helm. "Ya owe me twenny credits. Buster's head popped off soon as he hit th' wall."

Airazor swatted his hand aside. "I'll apply them to the credits you owe me from poker night."

"Yeah, fine." Rattrap straightened, sulking only a little, then a thought struck him and he brightened. "I get first crack at whatever fun little toys we devise, right?"

[bumblebee]

Bee was so excited he was positively vibrating. This was what other members of Team Prime might have referred to as ‘a dangerous level of pent up shenanigans’ and was often a state that prompted Optimus to ship him out for a very long drive somewhere… or encourage him to ‘do one of those online games that you do’. It was Bumblebee’s goal in life to get the Prime to play WoW for no other reason than because he tended to look at Bee like a psychopath whenever he started talking about it.

“We should watch more Mythbusters/tv/episodes for ideas. Can we get it on Netflix? I have a Netflix account/subscription.” He beamed up at the trio, enjoying the lazy teasing passing between them and the easy familiarity there. Too many teams were busted up so entirely there were no longstanding connections so it was a rare and kind of mesmerizing thing to see a team – even part of a team – still intact. Even Team Prime had been cobbled together to some degree and lost pieces of itself along the way. Cliffjumper… Bee’s doorwings drooped just a little. “Umm, Rhinox, I’ll find us a Buster/dummy/test victim of our own. I got some ideas.”

[Deleted]

"I'll be interested to see what you come up with," Rhinox told him kindly. Bumblebee's artistic or engineering abilities were unknown to him, but he had a feeling the yellow scout would surprise him. He was good enough to be chosen as a core member of Team Prime, after all. "And yes, Rattrap," he added, "you get first crack at the toys. You usually do."

He didn't even break most of them, unless Rhinox asked him to test them to destruction. Rattrap was really, really good at testing to destruction.

"But I think," he put forth, "before any of that, we should watch more Mythbusters. For ideas and procedural hints, of course."

[airazor]

Airazor hadn't missed the slight sag of Bumblebee's doorwings, and she reached out reflexively to pat his arm, even as most of her attention was on Rattrap and Rhinox. "Optimus will probably want to think we have some sort of plan," she pointed out. "The Commander always did."

(Because obviously, nothing ever got out of hand with proper planning. Certainly not, for example, sparkling toys that might be threatening to take over one workroom, and the less said about that the better.)

"Plan, schman," Rattrap said. "We can give 'im th' TV Guide summaries."

Airazor rolled her optics. "Or we could just admit we're bored and we want to blow slag up," she said dryly. "I can't imagine he'd have any objection to that."