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Bee hit the ground with a groan, his body making a horrible screeching noise as he slid. Electric bars slid across behind him, locking him in for Primus knew how long. His body ached from the rough treatment—being thrown into the cell and the beating he had taken before. He wasn't going to talk, fat fragging chance. They knew he wouldn't, but they did it just for fun. He wasn't even supposed to be here. He hadn't done anything wrong, nothing illegal anyway.
He stood, rubbing the spots where his paint had been stripped. It wasn't his first time in a cell, but it was his first time in such a big facility, and he knew exactly what it meant for him. There was another bot there, sitting on the top berth, almost completely shrouded in darkness. Bee paid him no mind. He sat on the lower berth and put his helm into his servos.
He'd get out soon, he was sure of it. He wasn't the only bot taken from the rally. There would be an outrage—none of them had broken the law, so the longer they were locked up, the more everyone would see that Bee and the others were on the right side of things. Now it was just a waiting game, but Bee was impatient. Sitting here, doing nothing, it made his wires buzz with pent up energy. Bee had barely been arrested two hours ago, and already his leg was bouncing.
He was itching to get back out there, but now he was stuck.
He let out a puff of hot air, and laid back. He wiggled his digits, ran diagnostics, flit through memory after memory wondering how he managed to get himself caught in the first place. The noise must have been too much because the bot above him hit the berth and said, "Could you stop that?"
"What?" Bee asked.
"Cut it out, you're not the only one in his cell."
"What's it to you?" Bee sat up to look up at the bot. He was blue and white with a red stripe down his chest plate. His red face might have been handsome if Bee hadn't been so preoccupied with more important things. The bot's yellow optics were narrowed at Bee, but he didn't look annoyed. He looked curious. His optics, Bee noted, we unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Of course, he'd seen that color, but there was something different about his cellmate's. The intensity of his stare.
"I've been alone in this cell for over a hundred stellar cycles. I'd appreciate it if you were a kind enough cellmate to make this adjustment easier for the both of us." He flashed Bee a charming smile, denta a shiny white. Bee scowled.
"Don't worry, I'll be out of here soon enough."
"Right," Bee's cellmate said. "Keep it down for the time being."
Bee sighed. He'd never been too good at keeping quiet.
Three solar cycles later, and Bee was over it.
The routine was simple: Wake up, mess hall, work, free time, shutdown. Bee fought every step of the way. He elbowed the guard and got two to the torso for it, he knocked over several energon cubes of other inmates and started a brawl, he damaged the lift that brought materials up from the mines, and he wasn't allowed his free time on the third day. Instead, he was caught off-guard by two prisoners that he pissed off the first day, and they kicked him until he spit up energon.
They didn't get their way for long, because Bee caught one of their legs and got him onto his back, and then he hit the bot in the face over and over until he was dragged off by guards—he kicked and screamed the whole way, yelling about the injustice and how they were all going to regret upholding the system.
He got thrown into solitary.
When he eventually was allowed back in general population—back in his shared cell—he immediately grabbed onto the bars, ignoring the burning metal of his palms, and yelled into the hall, listening to the crackling of his voice box from the nonstop noise. His voice eventually fizzed out, and as he reset his vocalizer, a servo came over his mouth and he was pulled back.
Bee's cellmate had pulled him back and pinned him to the wall.
"Do you ever shut the frag up?" he hissed, his face mere inches away from Bee's. Bee's brow ridge lowered, and he tried to push his cellmate away, but the lack of meals and frequent beatings had him weak. The bigger bot shoved Bee back onto the wall, his back strut protesting at the pressure being applied.
Bee tried to speak, but the bot stopped him, servo still pressing hard into Bee's face.
"What could be so important that you're willing to die here? And if you're not going to answer that question, don't say a Primus-damned thing."
The bot's yellow optics were fixed on Bee's derma as he moved his servo slowly away. Bee seemed to be perpetually scowling ever since he'd got here.
"You know nothing of the world," Bee said, voice low. "In a short time, there probably won't be a prison for us to be trapped in, and when the time comes I don't want to be here. I want to be out there, on the front lines, with Optimus Prime."
The other bot frowned. "Who?"
Bee's scowl relaxed as his face morphed into one of shock, "You don't know who Optimus Prime is?"
"There's never been a Prime called Optimus."
"A lot has changed since you've been in here," Bee said. "The world is moving on, mechs no longer want to live as their function. But the council doesn't want to change. They want us to stay how we are, keep the caste system in place. I'm part of a group of rebels that want to follow Optimus. He's going to fight for us. He's going to free us."
"Yeah, right," the red and blue bot said. "I heard of a gladiator preaching the same before I got locked up. I'm still here, and nothing has changed."
"You don't get it, you haven't lived it."
"Have you ever considered that you know nothing?"
Bee stayed silent, his temperature rising the angier he got. He waited for the bigger bot to open his mouth, and then he shoved with all of his might, almost knocking his cellmate to the ground.
He ran to bars and screamed, "If you don't get me out of this cell now, I'll never shut up! I'll yell all solar cycle long and I won't let any of you ever get a moment of peace!"
And then he turned his vocalizer all the way up, the sound high and screeching. The other mechs in the cell block began yelling back in protest. The guards came soon after, throwing Bee's cell open and shoving him onto the ground. A pede buried itself into Bee's back. They prodded him with stun wands, but he never stopped the sound, not until the kicking and the shocks finally forced him into a shut down.
Twenty solar cycles.
It had been twenty solar cycles and nothing.
No letters, no communication with the outside. No trial, no lawyers, no visitors. No one came for Bee. The fight in him was dying out. He was covered in dents and scratches. He barely looked like himself anymore. The other mechs avoided him like the plague, knowing that any small move might set him off. In the beginning, several mechs picked fights with him, they underestimated his size, his magnitude for revenge. He sent all of them to the medic. He was feral, and no one wanted anything to do with him.
In the time Bee had been there, over a hundred more mechs had been arrested, whether for true crimes, such as murder or theft, or simply protesting the way Bee had. He hadn't seen any of his friends yet, and for that he was glad. But he was also feeling terribly alone.
His cellmate rarely spoke to him, merely looked at him with a sadness. It wasn't pity. It was more like…sympathy. Bee didn't care. Everything he had worked so hard for, it was all for nothing. His whole life was spent knowing the truth, knowing that the world he was forged into was one of exploitation and enslavement. Knowing that he was only fortunate because he was one of the last Cybertronians to come from the Well of Allsparks.
He threw it all back in their face. He had no choice but to. If the world was going to be set right, he couldn't stand by and do nothing. He had to trust in Optimus. They were going to do the right thing. Not like Starscream, or the Cybertronians who wanted to merely move the power into their own hands.
Bee grit his denta so hard he swore his jaw would snap. A guard, Bee thinks his name was Darkwing, had Bee shoved into a wall by the back of his neck, pushing his face hard, and he was electrocuting him with the stun set to the highest setting.
"Not so loud now are you, convict?" Darkwing growled. Bee wasn't going to survive this. Not after everything his body had been taking, with no rest or healing. He failed. After all that, he was going to die in this prison.
The pain stopped, and Bee thought it was over. He slumped down, optics fading as his vision flooded with error after error, his fans whirred, trying to cool down his overworked, overheated body. Behind him, he heard metal on metal, and then he felt himself being dragged and then nothing.
When he came to, he was in the infirmary. He should have been here more often given how frequently he was injured in a fight or by the guards, but he refused on the basis that if anyone was going to help him, it would be any other medic that wasn't under the government's control. He looked at the figure sitting by his side. It was his cellmate.
"Why does it seem like you're set on dying here?"
Bee turned away from him. "I don't want to die." He checked his systems. Low energon, low energy output. The machines connected to him were keeping his vitals steady for the time being.
"Doesn't seem like that to me." The bot leaned back.
"I'll die one day," Bee said. "But I won't die here. I can't."
"Keep it up and you're going to," the big bot scoffed. "Do you think your life is the only terrible one? Do you think you don't deserve to be here because you've done nothing wrong? Get in line. You're not the first and you're not the last."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Bee groused.
"How would you know? You haven't even bothered to learn my name. You don't know why I'm here."
Bee blinked. He didn't. All this time here, and the only person he cared about was himself. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be in here this long.
"I'm here," Bee's cellmate—and his rescuer—said. "Because I was accused of killing a senator."
Bee's optics widened, and he turned to face his cellmate. "You killed Decimus?"
"Accused of killing him," the bot said. "I had nothing to do with his death, but I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong and now I'm here."
"Breakdown," Bee said, almost uncatchable had they not been the only two mechs in the room.
"So, you know of me?" Breakdown said with a small smile.
"Your trial was everywhere. The amount of evidence was staggering. No one had any doubt that you had done it."
"And yet I didn't. I thought the justice system could protect me. I thought that there was no way they would would get a guilty verdict because there was no where near enough evidence. And then there was, and there was nothing I could do about it."
Bee was quiet. And then he said, "I'm sorry. I've been selfish."
"A little," Breakdown laughed. "But I don't blame you. I was angry for a long time, too. Self-destructive."
"I don't want to die," Bee said, like he was trying to convince himself.
"Then stop trying to kill yourself." Breakdown looked into Bee's optics, his bright yellow almost hurting Bee's. He must have processor damage. He could have sworn he saw a fondness there.
Bee smiled. He looked down at his battered body, and he thought they must not be alone, because Bee wasn't even tied down. They didn't think he was going to try to run away. They didn't think he'd be able to. Bee laughed. It hurt, but he laughed. Breakdown tilted his head but it only made him laugh harder, until his vocalizer cracked and rebooted, but still, his mouth was spread wide as he silently shook.
When he was done, he looked at Breakdown, who was squinting at him. "My name's B-127," Bee said. "But most mechs call me Bee."
Breakdown smiled. "Bee, then." Bee's smile faded.
"I'll get you out of here," Bee said. "If you'll forgive me for all the trouble I've caused you."
"Deal," Breakdown said. "If you promise me one thing?"
"What's that?" Bee asked.
"You'll make it out with me. Alive."
"I promise."
Fifty-two solar cycles into his stay, and Bee almost didn't care about getting out. He'd been so concerned about the state of the world, that he didn't have the chance to live in his own world. He'd been exposed to nothing but its darkness, its corruption, its hatred. He hadn't seen this side of it. The side that could smile freely at one another, that could work together to turn something like a prison, into a fairground.
Breakdown whooped as he drove around the mess hall, transforming into his alt-mode for the first time in a hundred stellar cycles. Bee was up on a table, jumping around, bouncing on the heads of the guards, offering a plain distraction for Breakdown to drive freely. When Breakdown talked about his time on Velocitron, Bee had seen the the way his optics brightened. Bee had no choice but to grant Breakdown the gift of transformation, something stripped from before the verdict of "guilty" had been put upon him.
Bee couldn't have that.
He'd spent enough time in the infirmary and, despite how much the staff disliked him, they mostly left him alone, giving him ample time to pick everything he needed. Bee wasn't an engineer or medic by any means, but he'd seen Ratchet do enough field work—that is, fixing up protestors brutalized by corrupt cops—to get the job done. Breakdown had nearly forgotten how to transform, but with Bee's help, they got there.
Breakdown drifted around tables, and most of the other mechs cheered him on. He tripped Darkwing, and immediately three prisoners were on him. Bee laughed, jumping on Breakdown as he passed by. Their fun didn't last long, and they were thrown into solitary. Breakdown's ability to transform was once again taken away and Bee's access to the infirmary restricted, but they laughed all the while.
"You know," Breakdown said. "Maybe we're not so different after all." He could see Bee through a small flap on the door. It was meant to provide the mechs their energon. He'd pulled his down to look at Bee, and Bee was looking back at him, blue optics upturned in a smile that Breakdown couldn't see.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, at first I thought you were a follower. I thought you only went along with what your 'rebels' said. That you were the kind of mech that found a group and became like them just to fit in."
"Oh, and you're this unique, never before seen mech that does whatever he wants."
Breakdown laughed, "I sure thought so. But you're like me, Bee. I like that. You make a mess of things, you do what's right for others because you really believe in it, even if it means you're going to get hurt." Breakdown bit down on his derma. "I admire you. I'd given up, to be completely honest with you."
"Breakdown…"
"You gave me hope that I'd survive this. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Bee said, because that's all he could say. Breakdown leaned back, out of Bee's line of sight, and he smiled.
They'd be out of here soon.
Every day the unrest grew with the number of wrongly imprisoned Cybertronians. Bee no longer cared about waiting for his friends to save him, instead, Bee and Breakdown were formulating a plan to free everyone. A base-wide event that would overrun the guards' forces. They wouldn't stand a chance. The guards had weapons, but the prisoners had numbers.
Over two thousand prisoners, less than five hundred guards. It was almost too easy.
Almost.
On day ninety-seven of Bee's imprisonment, there was an accident. Bee would call it an accident, but anyone else would call it an attempt on his life. Bee was being a bother, as usual. He'd been distracting a guard who had decided to pick on the new arrivals. He was being noisy, annoying, loud. He'd learned to make this high pitched buzzing noise that was unstoppable, and the more he did it, the more he was able to control his vocalizer to do it longer. Eventually, he was able to do it while speaking, and that infuriated the guards the most.
Usually, when Bee picked a fight with a guard, that guard turn their attention to Bee and would either begin to beat him—in which Breakdown step in to stop it—or they'd immediately drag him to solitary. No one had expected what happened. No one could have predicted it.
The guard, one Bee was unfamiliar with, had began to drag Bee away, along with two others Bee vaguely recognized. He buzzed all the way, swinging his helm around while Breakdown laughed and corralled two other guards away from the new arrivals. Bee let himself be dragged along, knowing where he'd end up.
They took him to the left.
"Ah ah ah!" Bee sang. "Solitary's the other way."
The guards were silent. They continued dragging him to the left. Bee's spark began to beat irregularly.
"Where are you taking me?" Bee asked, laughing nervously. Silence. Bee began to struggle.
"Hey!" Bee shouted. "We're going the wrong way!" Bee kicked his legs and tried to pull his servos free. Bee opened his mouth to speak again, but he was hit hard across the face. He was dropped and the three guards surrounded him.
Bee was no stranger to being ganged up on, but this was different. Bee stood, and the guards let him. One of the guards shoved Bee and he fell into the arms of the other guard who punched Bee hard across the face. He tasted energon. He was pushed into the range of the third guard, and he pulled his arms up to block, but his leg was kicked out from under him and he fell, taking a knee to the face.
He groaned, rolling onto his side. "Is that all you got?" He flashed a smile at them, not a smile of his own, but Breakdown's smile. That cocky smirk that said, I can do whatever I want. The buzzing started low in his vocalizer. Something in the guard's face twitched. Bee was shoved onto his back, and the guard yelled, "Stop that noise! Now!"
Bee didn't, he only said above the buzzing, "Take me to solitary!"
The guard pushed his face into the floor, pressing his knee to Bee's chest. He forced Bee's head to size, and then he pulled up, forcing the wires in Bee's neck to be exposed.
"What are you doing?" Bee asked. That uneasy silence again. The guard took a knife, where he got it from, Bee didn't know. The guards were only supposed to have stun weapons.
"Stop," Bee begged as the knife drew near to his neck. "Stop! Stop!"
Bee cried out again and again as the object buried its way into his voice box. And the guard didn't stop until there was nothing left. Until no noise escaped Bee at all, except for the dripping of energon onto the floor, where they left Bee to bleed out and die.
Bee was wrongfully imprisoned for one hundred solar cycles. Breakdown was wrongfully imprisoned for over a hundred stellar cycles. Today, they were free mechs. The event was as disastrous as they'd hoped, and they escaped from the chaos mostly unscathed—the facility behind them burning as mechs streamed from the open doors. Most of the mechs ran. Bee and Breakdown chose to drive.
They drove far, so far that nearly ended up on the other side of the moon. They'd figure out a way down, but for now they transformed, falling flat on their backs as they looked up at the sky. The moon had no atmosphere, so they could see no stars, but they could see Cybertron, bright and glowing. Alive.
"It's beautiful," Breakdown said. Bee didn't respond. He couldn't. So instead he smiled, and Breakdown understood.
Bee was frantically signing at Breakdown to Stay, please. We can talk about it.
"Talk about what?" Breakdown said, optics veering back to the information on the screen. "About how you lied to me?" His helm swung towards Bee, his red face morphed into one of anger, rage. His optics, usually so bright they were blinding, were dull. They almost looked orange.
I didn't lie to you, Bee signed. I had no idea.
"Yeah, right," Breakdown said. "That was my life! Your friends, the Autobots, they knew and they did nothing! Nothing while I was sent to rust, to die for a crime I didn't commit. You're saying that you had no idea that they were protecting the real killer all along?"
Breakdown was yelling now, brow ridge lowered, servos clenched into fists. His fans whirred loudly, but Bee knew it was useless. Breakdown was so worked up, Bee could see the heat coming off of him.
I'm sure there was a reason. They wouldn't have let an innocent mech die, that goes against what we stand for. Bee was signing so fast, his arms creaked. He looked devastated. He looked like he was about to cry.
"But you can't say for sure, can you?" Breakdown asked. He scoffed. "You spent three solar cycles in prison, and you were ready to die. I served a century, taking the punishment from a mech on the Autobot's side. At the end of the day, they're not so different from our current council, are they?"
Breakdown moved to turn away from Bee, but Bee grabbed him.
What's the alternative? Join the Decepticons? You can't, Bee signed "can't" so hard that his digits sparked where they came into contact. The Autobots made a mistake, but they would have rectified it, I'm sure of it.
"They take care of their own," Breakdown said. "And I'm not one of them. I never will be."
Don't say that, Bee said, tears running down his face. We have to be on the right side of things.
"The right side?" Breakdown said. His vocalizer crackled. He was so angry, the metal in his face wrinkled at how hard his brow ridge was pressed together. Then his face relaxed, and Bee knew it was over. "Maybe we are too different," Breakdown said. "In the end, you'll pick them over me. That's fine."
No, Bee cried.
"Then choose," Breakdown said. His optics, beautiful and dull, his face, angry and sad. So many emotions across his face, in his optics. Optics that Bee never thought he'd want to look away from. Now, he couldn't look Breakdown in the optics at all. It felt too real, too sudden. It was too much.
I'm so sorry, Bee signed.
Breakdown's derma lowered at the ends as he nodded. "I'm glad I got to know you. But the next time I see you, don't expect us to be friendly." And then he turned and walked away.
When the war started, Bee could only think about Breakdown. Wondering where he was, if he was safe, if one day he might stumble across his body on the battlefield, optics gray. He thought about their last conversation almost every day, usually before shutdown, but now he thought about it before every battle.
If I saw him, Bee thought. Would I kill him? Or would he kill me?
He didn't know. All he knew was that he missed his friend. He didn't want things to end the way they did, he didn't want to be on opposite sides of this war. He hated what happened to Breakdown, but the Decepticons were vicious, they attacked innocent mechs, they didn't care about the damage they caused. Sure, the Autobots and Decepticons wanted the same thing: liberation. But they were going about it completely different ways. That's why Bee chose the way he did. He couldn't compromise his morals because the Autobots made a mistake that Breakdown paid for.
It's not that Breakdown didn't deserve to be angry, but in the end he chose wrong. Bee had to believe that. Breakdown had been right. They were different. They were strangers. They started that way, they ended that way. And there was nothing Bee could do to change that, no matter how much he regretted their last conversation. When the war was over, maybe they could be friends again.
Now, on the battlefield, blue optics locked onto golden-yellow ones, Bee had to wonder if they'd survive it first.