Why Do We Keep Doing This?

When did it begin?

For the longest time, animosity.

Indifference.

Acknowledgement.

Acceptance.

Teammates.

And now she’s sitting on the medic’s table, legs swinging, trying her damned hardest to look away while he meticulously welded her armor back onto her light (and at times, disadvantageous) frame. She wanted so much to focus on her scrambling circuits as they tried to reassess the uneasy intrusion on her arm (her body needed to accept the reattached armor) but her audio processors kept picking up the hum of a foreign Spark in its chamber, and she couldn’t help but acknowledge that he’s right there.

«Ratchet could’ve done this in half the time,» she grumbled, or tried to. Her damn vocal processors were noticeably unsteady. Well, she noticed. «Crosswise, too-»

«I’d rather not explain this to Ratchet, and Crosswise wouldn’t know what to do. Now stop moving; you’re shaking.»

«Doesn’t help when you’re melting parts onto my arm. And why wouldn’t Crosswise know what to do? He’s the medic, not you.»

«Because he isn’t qualified to work with Cybertronian armor. Hold still.»

«I am. Why isn’t he qualified? He’s supposed to be the medic. And what makes you qualified?»

«Easy-»

She hissed as a bright spark from the welder touched one of the exposed circuits.

<-Ratchet taught me.»

«Some confidence booster.»

Bumblebee stopped for a moment and looked at her. «Why do you keep doing that?»

«Doing what?»

«Getting defensive. Like you have something to prove. Am I…am I doing something wrong?»

What? She wasn’t being defensive here, and there was nothing to prove. She was just asking questions, like why her commander was the one patching her up and not Crosswise. Did she really sound like that?

«No,» she said. «Just…just get on with it.»

Curious blue optics looked up at her before swiveling down to the arm in his grip.

«Next time you try to take me down,» he said as he slid his battle mask into place and knelt on the floor to get a better look on the arm, «don’t try to rip out my Spark Chamber with just your arms. You know I’m physically much stronger than you.»

«Didn’t hurt to try,» was the curt reply. She meant it, too. He said not to hold back, and this was the price he had to pay. Her optics focused on his chest, where the armor protecting his Spark Chamber was violently punched and pulled out of shape. «How are you going to explain that?»

He hesitated. Dying sparks fell on the cold floor and skittered before fading into thin air. He looked up at her, a finger pushing up one side of his battle mask to reveal a glowing blue optic.

«It was a freak accident. He’ll yell at me, maybe throw things at me, but he’ll fix it. Besides, if he loses his temper like he does with the twins, Wheeljack will be there to stop him. But I doubt Ratchet will get very far in the first place. I’m not exactly Sideswipe, running around with a mine in my hands.»

«Oh yeah, that…»

It was a beautiful thing, watching Sunstreaker and Sideswipe squealing and skidding down the hallway in their alt modes, followed by a smoking Ratchet on foot, hurling tools and insults that not even Grumps would use.

«You’d think they’d know better, but they never learn,» she muttered, optics staring at the wall across the room as she tried to savor the moment.

Then quite suddenly Bumblebee rose to his feet, his battle mask retracting from his face. «Done.»

Arcee stared at him. He didn’t let go of her arm.

She had no idea which way to go about it. She was so very tempted to say, «About time, too,» but her Spark very shakily wanted her to tell him, «Thank you,» and completely and utterly ruin her image. She didn’t even know why she should be so confused. There was no reason to keep stalling over something so trivial, no reason at all.

And what about him? Why was her commander stalling?

They weren’t thinking about the same thing, were they?

Oh, by the Allspark, no, please no. Her image had already taken a beating down at the training grounds. She couldn’t afford to lose it all here. One of them was going to have to give in, sooner or later, even though there was no contest and they weren’t competing against each other. But she couldn’t look away and he wouldn’t release her arm.

But then he did, and he stepped back from the table. Warily, Arcee jumped down to the floor and waited for him to say something. Then she turned and slowly walked out of the medical/repair bay, trying her best to pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong, that all that happened was she and her commander tried to beat each other to death during a training exercise and he offered to patch up her mangled arm. But she couldn’t walk with the same stalking stride nor keep her head up and forward.

Down the hall she heard Ratchet explode.

«Bumblebee, what on Cybertron happened to you?»