Big Bee, Little Bee

[jazzthetiger]

Title: Big Bee, Little Bee
Author: jazzthetiger
Rating: K
Pairing or Character(s): Bumblebee, Sari, Prowl, Jazz, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Bulkhead
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters
Summary: Bumblebee is restless by nature, so how do the autobots handle him when an explosion turns him into a sparkling? And a big Bee trapped in a little Bee's body at that!
Warning(s): cuteness and humour?
Author's Note: This is the first time I've posted to a community on LJ and it's my first transformers fanfiction, so be nice =] This fic can also be found on fanfiction.net....


Bumblebee growled impatiently, Sari Sumdac sighed and leant back into the front seat, gazing out of Bumblebee's window in boredom. They were currently on a main freeway in the city of Detroit, heading back from a patrol. Bumblebee had picked Sari up on the way back so they could hang out like they always do on afternoons like this. But they were stuck in a traffic jam, and they weren't going anywhere fast anytime soon. This is what irked Bumblebee the most, and he revved his engine in his growing frustration, momentarily startling his teenaged passenger. Behind him a green SWAT assault vehicle sighed tiredly at his team mates antics, readying himself to talk the yellow police car out of whatever escape plan he had come up with in the five minutes they'd been stuck in traffic.

"Why don't we just transform and walk out of here?"

"And scare the living daylights out of everyone around us, I don't think so" Sari beat him to it.

If Bumblebee's alt mode allowed it, he would've grinned.

Without warning, he placed a police siren on his roof and took off down the emergency lane.

"How about I do this instead!" Bumblebee called to his thrilled passenger over the loud roar of his engine and screeching tires.

Behind him Bulkhead groaned, and would have rolled his optics if he could, then followed after his speedy friend, he was disguised as a SWAT vehicle after all, and he was certain Bumblebee was breaking the speed limit.

Again.

Bumblebee and Sari arrived at the 'abandoned' plant that was home to the autobots, five minutes before Bulkhead.

After having let Sari out and transforming into robot mode, Bumblebee burst into the building dramatically spreading his arms wide and all but shouting

"Guess who's back!"

Moments later Optimus appeared in the room.

"I take it things are still quiet?"

"and incredibly boring"

"Where's Bulkhead?"

"Er…. He was a little slow…" Bumblebee trailed off sheepishly, avoiding optic contact with him.

Optimus groaned in exasperation and face-palmed, Bumblebee had a habit of leaving his team mates behind when he took off after patrols, and it was only a matter of time before something bad happened to either himself or the team mate he'd left behind.

Bumblebee and Sari shared a knowing look.

When Optimus looked up again to speak, they were both gone.

He rolled his optics when moments later, loud upbeat music started playing from the rec. room.

Bulkhead chose that moment to stroll into the building

"Hey boss! Oh… are you okay?"

"Thank you, but I'm fine, Bulkhead"

"Are you sure? You looked a little annoyed when I walked in…"

"I'm fine" Optimus cut in, giving Bulkhead a strained smile.

"Ok then" Bulkhead shrugged, and joined Bumblebee, Jazz and Sari in the rec. room.

Bulkhead sat down on the cement couch and watched as the three happily danced around in front of the TV while the stereo blasted out music, Jazz saw it as a great opportunity to keep himself fit, and his dance moves closely resembled those of break dancing due to his cyber-ninja training. Bumblebee and Sari were more casual with their dancing and simply busted out cool moves as they remembered them from music videos and the like, giggling at failed attempts or applauding well executed ones.

Whilst executing a particularly complicated dance move, Bumblebee had forgotten he was still holding an energon cube he had picked up earlier after the patrol.

Meanwhile the jerky movements caused the energon to slosh around and become unstable, and the pink fluorescent fluid began to glow brighter. Bulkhead noticed this.

"Bumblebee!"

Bumblebee didn't hear him over the music, he almost had it!

By now Jazz had also noticed the glowing cube "Bumblebee, STOP!"

Bumblebee paused, was there something wrong? It was only then he noticed the scorching hot sensation in his servo, with a yelp he dropped the cube. The final jolt from the cube landing on the floor caused the energon to explode at Bumblebee's feet with a flash of blindingly bright white light and a deafening blast.

BOOM!

When the last of the energy blasts faded, the autobots began to recalibrate and online their optics. They were greeted with a scorched rec. room. The giant wall mounted TV near where Bumblebee was last seen standing was shattered and broken beyond recognition, blue sparks of electricity jumped out from exposed wires, the cement couch which they had all dove behind was a crumbling mass of rubble, but worst of all, there was no sign of Bumblebee.

The remaining autobots, Optimus, Ratchet and Prowl burst into the room having being stirred from their activities by the blast.

"what's going on..." Optimus's voice trailed off when he saw the destruction.

"…Bee…." Sari sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks, and dropping to her knees beside the small black crater that marked the place where Bumblebee had dropped the cube.

A frightened whimper came from underneath the chunks of scorched metal that had once been the stereo systems, causing all gazes to focus there. Jazz warily approached the spot where the small sound originated from, he began to carefully move away chunks of metal so as not to have anything fall on whatever had made that noise. He very nearly dropped the chunk of metal in shock, a pair of large sky blue optics warily peered out at him from their shelter beneath the metal scraps.

Sari had crept closer whilst Jazz was moving the metal and was now watching from behind Jazz.

"…Bee, is that you?" she called out tentatively.

"Squeak!" was the noisy reply as a yellow rounded helm poked out from the shadows, large blue optics round with happiness.

The autobots gasped as a miniature Bumblebee staggered out from underneath the metal shelter and hobbled towards Sari.

Sari squealed with delight and ran up to him, sweeping him off his feet in a hug, and spinning around with him in her arms. "Bee! You're alright!"

Bumblebee could only stare in shock. Something definitely wasn't right here, how did she get so big?

He tried to ask her this, but she didn't seem to notice, and continued grinning obliviously at him. Unbeknownst to poor Bumblebee, who had a habit of speaking his processor and so his thoughts were consequently louder than his voice, he was speaking in chirps and squeaks, or more generally known as sparkling babble.

"You're so cute!" she said grinning and holding him out at arms length to examine him better.

Bumblebee shrieked in alarm when he noticed Jazz crouched down beside Sari. Holy Frag! He was even bigger than he remembered!

"Wow little dude, how'd ya get so small?" Jazz said cheerfully to calm the trembling yellow sparkling in Sari's arms, but managed to do the complete opposite when Bumblebee decided to freak out about his even smaller stature.

A loud thud from the back of the room caught Bumblebee's attention, as it did with most of the bots. Prowl had done the robot equivalent of fainting and fallen into stasis lock upon the sight of Bumblebee as a sparkling, he was trouble enough as a fully grown mech after all. If there's one thing Bumblebee wouldn't turn down, it was an invitation to fluster the police motorcycle in any way possible, which was a pretty tough challenge. Bumblebee grinned mischievously (the sparkling equivalent was an incredibly endearing little smile) and pointed to Prowl, squirming a little in Sari's arms to get the point across better.

"Oh you wanna go see Prowl?" Sari asked, already walking towards Prowl who lay uncharacteristically sprawled across the floor.

Bumblebee giggled excitedly, Prowl obviously didn't like whatever had happened to him, and he was going to make the most of it.

Meanwhile, Bulkhead and Jazz where explaining to Optimus and Ratchet what had happened to cause the explosion. But they hadn't the slightest clue how Bumblebee had become a sparkling.

Sari let Bumblebee down beside Prowl, and watched as he crept closer and closer, wobbling a little on his pedes as he went, and stopped when he was close enough to tentatively poke the unconscious transformer's cheek.

No response.

He pouted, and then poked Prowl again, with a little more force.

Again, nothing.

Bumblebee whined with frustration and crawled onto the motorcycle-former's chassis and sat there peering down at his face, eagerly awaiting the moment when Prowl onlined to (hopefully) give him the scare of his life.


About six cycles later Prowl onlined wondering vaguely why his processor was aching so much, that was until he onlined his optics to find a little yellow bundle of joy perched on his chassis. Bumblebee gave an extra loud squeak of joy upon seeing Prowl's visor flicker with blue light, and the black robot beneath him jerked a little as a new wave of pain wove it's way into his already aching processor. Prowl slowly sat up, prying Bumblebee off his chassis and disdainfully depositing the yellow bundle into Sari's arms as if he were infected with cosmic rust. Then stood up and left without uttering a single word to the two rather disappointed youths.

Bumblebee huffed with annoyance then directed an enquiring warble to Sari as though he were asking 'what was that all about?', which was precisely what he was thinking. Sari just shrugged, even though she wasn't entirely sure that his chatter would actually translate into anything.

Now little Bee was bored, he sighed and rested his chin on Sari's shoulder, his blue optics scanning the room for anything interesting, then chirped in surprise when he noticed the rec. room was a disaster zone. He whined sadly at the wreck that was the TV, Sari followed his gaze and sighed at the mess.

"When you make a mess, you really make a mess…" she mused.

Bumblebee grinned proudly at this statement and couldn't suppress the happy giggle before it escaped his vocaliser, causing him to quickly cover his mouth with his small servos in a vain attempt to stifle his laughter.

"I don't see what's so funny, we've got to clean it up!" she said in a reprimanding tone, causing Bumblebee's grin to widen at her complaints.

"Right, I'll go see what the others are talking about and you stay here, and be good!" She warned after placing Bumblebee on the ground and tapping him lightly on the nose to emphasise her point, before walking off to the five robots in the next room.

Bumblebee stood there dumbfounded at having lost his safe haven in Sari's warm arms, all of a sudden, everything seemed so big and scary.

She can't leave him there! Some-bot might step on him! Hey, come back!

All of this of course was communicated through loud squawks, chirps and squeaks, which Sari understood none of (but knew Bee was going to protest), leaving the frustrated little robot alone in the rec. room.

Now noticing how utterly-and-mind-blowingly large the rec. room was, and all the intriguing little obstacles the various bits of scrap metal created, Bee decided that his wait was not going to be so boring after all.

Meanwhile, after much discussion, the autobots of the earth base were still perplexed about Bumblebee's change, surely an energon explosion didn't cause it?

"I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with Sari's key" said Ratchet, in his usual grouchy voice, still vaguely annoyed at having being disturbed from his stasis nap.

"What makes you say that?" Optimus asked, raising an optic ridge at the seemingly random comment, but nonetheless curious about the reasoning.

"Well, she has used it that many slagging times to heal us, primus! I wouldn't be too surprised if there was some twisted side effect!" he replied folding his arms across his red and white chassis.

"Hmm… he has a point, there is likely to be some sort of residual energy from the continual exposure… I wouldn't put it past the power of the all spark to cause obscure changes to a cybertronian, just look at what it did to Sari." Prowl added.

"Not to mention Sari was present at the time of the explosion, and the amount of time the two spend together could have some effect" Optimus continued, finding the hypothesis likely.

"How would the amount of time I spend with Bee affect him?" Sari interrupted, having heard the exchange between Optimus and Prowl as she entered the room.

"Well Sari, when you upgraded yourself with the key, the essence of the all spark would have been transferred to you, and this residual essence, which should be stronger in you than in any of us who have been healed by it, could have had an impact on Bumblebee's change into a sparkling. But out of all the autobots, I believe the essence of the all spark is the most concentrated in Bumblebee due to the constant close proximity to you." Optimus explained, whilst Sari nodded, understanding.

"So umm if we repeated it, would Bee change back?" Sari asked.

The five giant robots exchanged uncertain glances; Ratchet was the first to speak.

"Well kid, probably not"

"Why?"

"It just sounds too easy, and things can't always work like that, how can we know for sure that it won't make Bumblebee younger? Or even worse..." Ratchet trailed off.

"Hey, where is Bumblebee?" Bulkhead asked, wanting to see his yellow friend.

"He's in the rec. room" Sari replied nonchalantly

"Alone?" Jazz ventured, even though it was stating the obvious, Bumblebee was the only mech not present.

"If Bumblebee is anything like his former self, that was probably not a good idea to leave him to his own devices…" Prowl trailed off realising the others had left halfway through his sentence, and cautiously followed.

Bumblebee's spark pulsed wildly as he swerved to the side, narrowly avoiding a painful collision with a chunk of cement originating from the couch as he continued his high-speed race around the rec. room, darting in and out of the scraps of metal and having an absolute ball. He shrieked with joy as he raced up a panel forming a ramp, and sailed two meters above the ground before landing with a squeal of his little tires and roar of his engine as he gunned it towards the next turn. His drift around the corner turned into a power slide sending clouds of soot into the air whilst he righted himself and gunned his engine again, aiming to reach top gear this time on the long stretch before the next turn near the doorway. All of a sudden, a pair of red and white pedes appeared in the middle of the track, barely three meters ahead. Bumblebee braked hard, swerved and transformed, stumbling then rolling to a stop in front of the pedes. He let out a string of cybertronian and human curses, which to the audios of everyone else was only a series of angry shrieks and squawks, and to illustrate his point better, the yellow sparkling hopped up and down on the spot whist waving his fists up at the offender.

How dare they interrupt his fun!

The offender had been Ratchet, the unfortunate bot to walk through the door first; the CMO was shocked upon seeing the yellow sparkling shoot around the corner in his alt mode, resembling one of those remote controlled toy vehicles the humans invented. According to the medic's knowledge, a sparkling should not be capable of transforming into any alt mode, and yet here was Bumblebee in a miniature version of his former alt mode and controlling it with his usual enthusiasm.

A collective gasp had followed as the autobots behind Ratchet watched Bumblebee transform back into his alt mode and zip around the corner, the buzzing of his engines grew louder as he gained speed and the squeal of tires followed as he drifted around another corner, oblivious to his onlookers and their shock. Sari however was not surprised, she knew nothing of what was normal for a sparkling and merely rolled her eyes as Bumblebee tore around the corner again for a second lap around the room.

"Yep, he's still the same old Bee" she commented as she watched his haphazard slide around the sharp bend marked by the sharp edges of two shards of glass, obviously trying to make every turn as dangerous and thrilling as he could without losing control.

Ratchet had had enough of watching Bumblebee putting himself in danger, and sensing that Bumblebee would continue until he was warranted with a trip to his med bay, decided to end his fun. He waited for Bumblebee to come past the door again and then with surprising speed and accuracy, grasped the little car around his sides and lifting him whilst his wheels spun uselessly in the air. With a shriek of outrage, Bumblebee transformed and fixed Ratchet with a thoroughly annoyed glare, which Ratchet was quick to reciprocate.

"Can't you have fun without being reckless for once?" Ratchet said in a scolding tone whilst wearing his trademark scowl, he was dangling a writhing Bumblebee near his face between his thumb and forefingers threatening to drop him. Bumblebee quickly became still upon noticing his precarious predicament and whimpered whilst he gave Ratchet a pleading look. The CMO was the only robot on base that could resist Bee's puppy dog optics, well almost, Ratchets softened a bit as he spoke

"Sparklings get hurt so easily you know…"

Now it was Bee's turn to be shocked as the medic handed him over to Bulkhead, who was eagerly awaiting a chance to hold him.

He was a sparkling!

His world as he knew it had crumbled around him leaving him alienated, meanwhile he was sitting on Bulkhead's servo with a horror-stricken expression, which was starting to worry Bulkhead.

For the second time that day, Bumblebee freaked out.

And when Bee freaked out, boy was he loud.

No FRAGGING way! I AM NOT A SPARKLING! I'm not I'm not I'M NOT!

He chanted aloud, but shrieked louder when he heard (and finally realised) that only wails and shrieks escaped his vocaliser.

Meanwhile the poor bots closest to him had reeled backwards from the strength of Bee's voice covering their audios with their servos, unfortunately, Bulkhead could not, he was still holding a screaming Bumblebee, and man! Could the little bot scream! Bulkhead reckoned he was loud enough to rival Starscream, but sadly, that thought was not helping him appease the distressed sparkling.

Eventually Bumblebee quietened to a quivering, hiccuping bundle cradled against Bulkheads massive green chassis. His outburst had tired him and he fell into recharge as Bulkhead rocked him to sleep. When Bumblebee's venting became regular as a sign of being in full recharge, the occupants of the room released a collective sigh of relief.

"Hmm... what caused that upstart…?" Ratchet broke the silence.

"That is one reason I dislike sparklings" Prowl added before stalking off to his room.

"I wasn't being rough was I?" Bulkhead asked his voice thick with concern.

"No, not at all" Jazz reassured him with a smile and soothing tone "It's been a long day for the little guy, things probably got a bit too overwhelming for him that's all" he continued, though it was to reassure the other nervous bots as much as it was to reassure himself.

However, they all knew this was only the beginning of their troubles with sparkling Bumblebee…


When Bumblebee onlined again he found himself in his own berth, he chirped in surprise when he noticed Sari curled up beside him, wrapped up in her sleeping gear. It still seemed weird to him that the techno-organic was now larger than him, but he doubted he could really get used to it either. His fuel tanks rumbled, reminding him that he was in need of some energon. There was a problem with that, he wouldn't be able to reach the energon cubes in the storage room anymore, and Sari was still peacefully asleep. Rather than wake her, it was a rather early hour in the morning after all, he opted for sneaking out of the room and into the dark hallway.

Well maybe not sneaking, it was more like stumbling.

Bee was well and truly frustrated that he couldn't walk in a straight line, or was it that he couldn't take more than ten steps without tripping over his own pedes?

So he stayed near the wall, that way he had something to lean on, and he was out of the way of any unsuspecting passer-by's pedes so he wouldn't get stepped on.

What Bee wanted was to find someone already awake at this hour to get him energon, and he knew just the bot.

The yellow sparklings ambling led him to Prowl's room, which on most occasions, he would stay well and truly away from, but at the crack of dawn, he was usually the only bot online, and Bee needed his help.

There was just one little problem.

Alright, a major problem.

Bee couldn't talk, so how was he going to communicate what he wanted?

Just as Bee predicted, the police cycle was meditating -for primus' sake, was he humming!- beneath his beloved tree.

Bumblebee never liked the humming thing the ninja bot insisted on doing, so he did not hesitate to try and interrupt Prowl's meditation.

Standing next to the ninja bot, he chirped and poked his arm.

Prowl's humming did not falter, nor did he so much as twitch.

Bumblebee growled impatiently and shook Prowl's arm.

The humming paused, and Prowl readjusted his position, then began humming again, all without on lining his optics even once.

Bumblebee bristled with irritation, he really did not like that humming thing now.

This time Bee gathered himself before releasing a deafeningly high-pitched shriek, right next to Prowl's audios.

Poor Prowl.

The ninja bot had been torn straight out of meditation with the audio shattering cry echoing inside his processor.

"GAH!"

Bumblebee watched his handiwork take effect with a satisfied smirk as Prowl shot up from his relaxed state, optics wide, before his face settled into a pained grimace.

"What do you want, Bumblebee?" Prowl said tiredly, whilst fixing Bumblebee with an annoyed glare after his audios had stopped ringing.

Bee folded his arms over his chassis and pouted before throwing his servos in the air in exasperation.

Does he honestly expect me to be able to tell him that!

Prowl watched the yellow sparkling as he glared at him and spoke in jittering squeaks, a language that clearly had meaning to Bumblebee, but not to Prowl. Thankfully, body language was a universal language, and Bumblebee's frustration was clearly communicated. Unfortunately, that was not telling Prowl that Bee wanted an energon cube.

Bee noticed that Prowl was studying him, and settled on charades to try and reach some common understanding.

The sparkling clutched his abdomen in an exaggerated motion, and then stood straight and pretended to drink something. To Bumblebee's relief, Prowl caught on quickly.

"Hmm… You want some energon?" The ninja bot asked with a small frown.

Bumblebee chirped and nodded his helm eagerly.

"So that's what you came here for…" Prowl mused.

Again, Bee nodded, at this Prowl's expression brightened, and he stood up and strolled out of the room.

Less than a cycle later, Prowl returned holding an energon cube and sat down next to the yellow sparkling, Bee greeted him with a loud chirp whilst reaching for the cube. Prowl held it out of reach and frowned, noticing that the cube was over half Bumblebee's size. He mentally shrugged and pulled Bumblebee into his lap, then pierced a corner of the cube with his teeth and held it out to Bee. Bumblebee had gone rigid and was staring at Prowl with an utterly mortified expression. Prowl frowned and gently pushed the cube closer to Bumblebee's face, which the yellow sparkling responded to by shoving the cube backwards and turning his helm away, blushing furiously.

No way! I am not letting Prowler feed me like I'm some sparkling!

To Prowl the message was clear, 'I'll do it myself' and he chuckled at Bee's antics knowing that the little mech couldn't carry the cube without assistance.

Bumblebee's empty tanks rumbled again and when Prowl patiently, but persistently, held the energon cube towards him, he hesitantly reached for it, then paused and shot the ninja bot a warning glare, before pulling it closer and sucking hungrily at the corner where the pink fluid seeped out from.

Bumblebee shifted in Prowl's lap getting comfortable, still suckling at the cube, his large blue optics half closed in contentment as the energon reached his empty tanks. Prowl couldn't suppress the smirk that graced his normally stoic features as he heard a contented rumbling purr begin from the little yellow chassis.

Prowl returned to a light meditative state, knowing that the sparkling in his lap will only disturb him again soon so it wasn't worth going back into deeper meditation (and doing the humming thing that Bee hated).

This was how Jazz found them, the motorcycle-former with his legs crossed and optics offline in meditation, one arm resting on his thigh supporting Bumblebee's helm, the other holding an energon cube to the little yellow sparkling snuggled into his lap, suckling at the cube, his little servos grasping the container and angling it up slightly. The white sports car smiled warmly, indeed, they looked cute together.

"Naaw! Kodak moment!"

Jazz blinked down in surprise at the techno-organic standing beside him, he hadn't heard her approach, Sari grinned up at him and positioned herself into a ninja-esque pose, silently explaining how she had managed to sneak up on the cyber-ninja.

But the comment had the desired effect, both Prowl and Bee's helms snapped up to see their audience before shooting each other embarrassed looks. Bee decided he'd had enough energon at that moment and pushed the cube back, scooting away from Prowl.

Prowl smoothly stood up and greeted them

"It seems that everyone is having an early morning today"

"I wouldn't call this early, Prowler" Jazz chirped, ever cheerful, he often joined Prowl in his early morning meditation.

"I was looking for Bee… HEY!" The little yellow mech interrupted Sari as he bowled into her, sending them both sprawling across the floor in fits of giggles.

"Come on Bee, let's go back to your room before we wake the rest of them up" Sari said, picking herself and Bumblebee up off the ground.

"Too late for that!" came the all too familiar narky tone of a rather cranky looking medic.

Bee and Sari threw each other comical wide-eyed looks that could very easily translate into 'Oh frag!'

"Uhh… Sorry, Ratchet! We'll just be going now!" Sari said nervously, clutching Bumblebee to her chest and sidestepping around the red and white ambulance, before dashing off down the still-dark hallway into Bee's room.

Once the door was closed, she leant back against it and slid down, sighing in relief

"That was a close one…"

Bumblebee, still clutched to her chest blinked slowly in silent agreement, not yet brave enough to make a sound.

Truth be told, he was still trying to get his processor around being a sparkling, having Prowl hand feed him an energon cube had dealt a hard blow to his pride, and he was silently contemplating how much more humiliation he had yet to go through. How was he going to support his friends and teammates if he couldn't help himself?

The very prospect of having nearly all his independence lost was too much to bear, and he whined sadly, his little shoulders drooping.

"What's wrong Bee?" Sari asked in a soft voice, after noticing his usual spirited mood dampen in a matter of seconds for unknown reasons.

Bumblebee turned his helm away, avoiding her gaze, he didn't want to be pitied or anything of the sort. Sari frowned, and cupped the side of his helm, gently turning it so he faced her again and seeing his worried expression.

"If it's about being stuck as a sparkling, don't worry, you'll get used to it" she said in a soft reassuring tone, gently stroking one of his horns with her thumb.

Bumblebee yelped and jerked backwards in surprise, earning a confused stare from Sari.

That hurt!

Sari watched the wincing sparkling with an apologetic expression, which Bumblebee responded with a reassuring chirp but slightly puzzled expression, before tentatively reaching up to his other horn and gently touching it. The little mech yelped again as sharp pain lanced through his horns and down the sides of his helm. He had not noticed the dull ache in his horns before, but it was certainly making itself known now. Bee began to whimper and clutch the sides of his helm as the pain got worse, a dull ringing sound starting to fill his audios. As the pain increased, the ringing sound got louder, until it drowned out every other sound, including Sari yelling for help.

Ok so that's all I'm going to post today, as I said before it's on fanfiction.net and there's another four chapters to it so if you really wanna read more you can search for it there =]
Anyways, I hope you liked it! ^^