Title: Mother Bee

Author: TeslaJo

Rating K+

One-Shot

Disclaimer: Transformers are the intellectual property of Michael Bay and Hasbro and co. I am simply amusing myself and possibly others with no other gain in mind.

Sam wasn't sure how yet, but he was going to kill both Ratchet and Mikaela. He didn't think Optimus was in on it. Ironhide usually mostly took his side in a way, course it was always possible he only did so just to goad Bumblebee into a spazz. This occasionally led to a mostly friendly brawl that Optimus in the end broke up, so he could definitely see the weapon specialist taking his side just as a tactic for his own enjoyment, but that currently kept him off Sam's hit list…unless he accidentally got too rough with Bee in their brawls again…

It had started out innocently enough. The autobots understood that the humans were just not as durable as they were, but they still hadn't known to the extent until after the battle. Its not like Sam hadn't taken his share of tumbles before the battle had even started. The couple dumps off his mother's bike hadn't felt great, but not serious damage and the slams he suffered from Barricade weren't really that much more.

The fall from Optimus, that had left him a touch sorer. He had had twinges in his shoulder from trying to hold Mikaela's and his own body weight. The well-meaning foot catch by Optimus himself had yes slowed his fall to earth even if it was another impact shock to his body that he was glad to take. It had meant Bumblebee had just enough time to make a desperate catch that had squeezed just a fraction too hard. Sam wasn't about to complain though since he wasn't a splatter mark.

In Mission City, he like everyone else had their fair share of getting thrown from explosions, dodging flying cars and decepticons. He did however have the singular experience of having to run up to the top of a building and getting thrown from it by Megatron destroying said building. Another lucky if not once again fraction too hard metal robotic hand catch that Sam was still not going to complain about. The bumpy but mostly protected ride down gave way to dodging brawling robots with only one not trying to land on him.

Finally it was all over and it was good. Everyone was sad of course about Jazz, but still thankful that there weren't more casualties amongst the strange group of friends. Sam was ecstatic to see Bee feeling well enough to get into the good type of trouble with Mikaela (AKA: kicking decepticon butt) and better yet to be able to talk. The newfound friendship was cemented when Bee asked and Sam consented to him staying on as his guardian. What a mistake that was.

Oh don't get Sam wrong, he had a new best friend that he wouldn't trade anything in the world for. It was that whole guardian thing. He knew Bee took it seriously and had proven it time and again with his actions up to this point. He had however severely underestimated how it would apply when in not life and death situations.

Sam partially blamed himself. If only he hadn't winced so much when Bumblebee had picked him up while still attached to the tow truck. The adrenaline was leaving him in a hurry and exhaustion was rapidly taking its place, so it was completely understandable that the pain he was in was also making itself known. However it tipped all the autobots off that humans weren't really meant to take that sort of punishment over and over. Ratchets lengthy, technical pronouncement of his condition scared the daylights out of him until it was retranslated to terms like bruising cracked ribs and strained tendon in shoulder.

Those didn't sound as life threatening as the earlier announcement. However it was not as comforting to his guardian and later his parents as it was to him. Looking at his bruises, Sam had to admit it sure didn't look real good and didn't feel all that nice to him, but if he was taking it in stride, he figured everyone else could, though the babying in the beginning he got was making it well worth it.

He got time off from school, his parents let him sleep in and play video games (with Bee) and brought whatever else he asked for and Mikaela offered to "kiss all your boo-boos better" so yeah it was nice to start with. He had almost a week of nothing but blissful bed-rest until it came to an end. He needed then to start getting caught up in his homework because he was soon going back to school and was getting stir crazy anyway. As much fun as it had been leveling characters on WOW with Bee, it was time to get out of the house.

He was recovering at a rate that made his parents and even a pretty young guy like Captain Lennox envious and that made a guy of Keller's age really jealous of the recuperating power of the young. About a month after life getting back to normal as it could be with giant alien robots as new friend's in his life that Sam's guardian started to take a more active role in his guardianship. Pointed remarks about homework, eating dinner on time and getting home for curfew so he got plenty of sleep became common. When Sam brushed these off, more effective measures were taken.

His parents thought it odd, but couldn't argue with Sam's new habit of doing his homework in his car after school each day. Little did they know it was because Sam was locked in his car without his permission until he had finished said homework to the satisfaction of his alien guardian. So far, Sam had little to no luck in getting out of said situation. Arguing got him no where, staying late after school until dinnertime also wasn't a great idea. Walking home also sucked and once Mikaela had been told she certainly wasn't offering him rides home or to hang out until he got his work done. She had somehow also gotten a hold of Miles and convinced him to stay out of it though Sam wondered if Miles's new after school job had more to do with it.

Sulking about it and just not doing it also wasn't effective because Sam still had to do it later and Bumblebee would tell Mikaela on him if he managed to get out of him without doing it. So Sam was stuck with doing it at a responsible time instead of late at night which had been his previous method. After a while he was forced to admit it wasn't so bad. Anytime he had questions he always had a study partner that even if he Bee didn't know the answer could look it up on the web until it was answered to both of theirs satisfaction. No more trips to the library or interruptions and his parents were beside themselves with his academic performance to end his junior year of school.

Summer came and only saw more authority exerted over Sam and his lifestyle. Mikaela's complaints about Sam and his junk food eating habits were researched and taken seriously. This led to changes in Sam's order from the drive-through when he arrived at the window and found out that the voice the workers inside had picked up wasn't his because of some audio tricks Bee had used. Sam was suppose to eat snacks during the day that were more healthy than he was comfortable with, and breakfast was no longer something he was allowed to skip. Mikaela just egged Bee along with the whole thing.

Bee instigated checkups by Ratchet only reinforced the fears of his guardian. They were always mostly satisfactory to the autobots but Sam swore that between them Ratchet thought up more things to put Bee into fits about as after the last one with summer just getting started and shorts becoming more common in Sam's wardrobe. "Yes, everything is in acceptable ranges Bumblebee, you have done a good job with him, even his sugar levels and cholesterol are where they should be. You should know that I have done research into the change in the weather and have found out some shocking results that humans can suffer from adverse effects from too much sunlight." Sam at this point was feeling like he was Mojo being taken to the vet and watching his mother fret about some new possible problem he may develop.

It was after getting all sorts of pertinent information and more independent research that one of their current disagreements started about sunscreen. Now Sam was also being locked in the car until he had applied the protective lotion to the satisfaction of the autobot. It didn't even end after summer disappeared and school had started back up. Sam was unhappy to find out that Bumblebee had found studies had been done that recommended using the protection all year round.

So one morning he was late to school as he had stubbornly refused to do so and the Camaro refused to relinquish its driver to the rest of the world. He ended up telling everyone after he had finally given that he had slept in. Lord knew he wasn't going to say anything about his crazy over-protective robot guardian that was starting to make his parents look sane to him until they noticed the new trends and happily condoned his new "attitudes." He tried to drag Mikaela into this one since he knew she faked baked during the off season. All Bee had for her was "I'm very disappointed in you Mikaela. I had hoped that you would learn on your own from the examples I'm setting with Sam."

Further complaints made about the fact that Mikaela got off scot-free while Sam had to endure all these things in her earshot had put a strain on the friendship between Bee and Mikaela. The explanation that she witnessed about Sam being his driver and not Mikaela and that he was Sam's guardian and not Mikaela's had hurt feelings. This was only compounded the day they were to pick Mikaela up and she had a cold. Bee refused to allow her entry citing that she could spread germs to Sam making him sick. He restricted the contact between the two until she was given a clean bill of health by Ratchet a week later.

If the whole thing weren't driving him crazy Sam would have had to laugh about Bee when flu season crept up because he was sure that Bee was about to fry his own CPU. Of course he was taken to get a flu shot as soon as a clinic was set up at one of the local college campuses. When a large amount of the school was overcome with sniffles and coughs, Bumblebee had taken to bringing him to Ratchet for checkups almost daily. And everyday Ratchet declared him fit, but always had some new tidbit of advice, "perhaps an extra amount of Vitamin C would be beneficial," and "make sure he is getting at the very least 8 hours of sleep," and such. Ratchet even had the audacity one-day to make a comment about the sunscreen. "I see you read up about possible overexposure to UV rays even in winter, it's nice to see he has been habitually using it."

At this point, Sam tried to talk to Optimus about it but it didn't yield the results he had hoped for. All it had really accomplished after Optimus's questions trying to ascertain the whole story was guilt about giving Bee a hard time about him trying to help and acting like a child with some of the fusses he had put up. It did have the positive that Optimus agreed to talk to Bee, but with Bee and Ratchet both impressing on Optimus the veritable life-threatening nature of the dangers Sam faced everyday he knew that it just wasn't going to be highly effective. He was right. Optimus came back with that as Sam's guardian; Bee had the option of taking whatever means he found necessary to save his life so Sam should try to acquiesce to "Bumblebee's safety measures."

At least in the nicer weather he had not taken as badly to Bee "exercising" him. It was more of games they played with each other that gave him a good dose of exercise, so most of the time it was fun. Chasing each other in a game of tag was also good at keeping his reflexes sharp. And when the weather wasn't as nice and Sam didn't want to, then the threat of walking home was still exercise. A blow out occurred though that had Sam screaming at Bee.

"I hope you know I'll probably get sick from being out here!"

"If you would hurry up and do your exercise we could go home and I could take care of you!"

"What if I don't want you to take care of me?!"

The shocked silence was heavy and painful to both of them. Sam kicking himself and Bumblebee hurt. Sam watched his guardian transform back into a car and thought for a moment that Bee was going to drive off and leave him, but he didn't. Instead the car pulled around and the door opened the passenger door. Sam got in noticing the significance of the side he was getting in. On the ride home, whenever Sam tried to apologize Bee would play static over him. When they pulled into the Witwicky driveway the door sprang open and seatbelt unclipped itself. Static still overpowering Sam's voice he finally climbed out to have the car immediately peel out of the driveway without hearing Sam's apologies.

Bumblebee had gone to the others and Optimus was trying to comfort him and explain to him about being young and not always being logically about it bringing up some memories that Bee had hoped everyone would have erased about himself. Optimus also brought up the fact that in anger, sometimes things were said that weren't really meant. Bee had finally calmed down and was ready to go back and have a talk with Sam when Mikaela drove up to the overlook.

To say she was steamed, was putting it mildly. She also gave him an earful about the phone call she had gotten from Sam. Sam had been in tears from what she could tell not that he would admit it to her. The part that had gotten her so angry was when Sam's voice broke while trying to tell her that Bee hadn't wanted to listen to him apologize and just up and left.

"I know that Sam doesn't always act mature, but you Bee were the one who just now acted like the child." Bee cringed as he had been told such by Optimus but in a much gentler fashion before she showed up, but it had still stung.

"I think you two need to talk this out. Like adults BOTH of you. I would hate to see a friendship like the two of you have end like this."

When Bee pulled up into the driveway, he found Sam was sitting on the steps waiting for him. The evidence of tears was apparent on his face yet. When the door popped opened on the drivers side he dove inside and hugged the steering wheel. New tears started and broken "I'm sorry I didn't mean it. Please don't leave me."

"I know Sam. I'm sorry I left like I did when I know that's what you wanted to tell me. I was upset and acting irrationally as well. I apologize."

"I just get so fustrated with you sometimes Bee. You have been so strict and at times I know its what I needed and I know you are just trying to do what's good for me, but even knowing doesn't always make it easier. I even have grown to like some of them if it makes you feel better, but sometimes…you take it too far."

"You have?"

"I'm pretty sure that when I get to college next year, I am going to really appreciate the new study habits and they have certainly made this senior year much easier than it probably would have been otherwise. And if you noticed I'm not arguing with you about the sunscreen anymore."

"I thought you had just given up on that. You don't mind that now?"

"After Mikaela admitted that she never had a boyfriend with such smooth, nice feeling hands instead of the usual brillo pad hands of guys pawing at her. I really didn't mind anymore. And although I'm not quite convinced all your preventative measures were necessasary , I haven't been sick in a long time.

It's just that, you have to realize at some point that you need to loosen up some. I hate to say it, but humans are suseptable to everything. At least in some fashion I'm sure that somewhere some study group is right now proving that somehow we can get cancer just from existing. You can't just put me in a bubble Bee."

"I'm sorry Sam. Humans have such a short life-span that I just wanted for you to live the longest and healthiest that you could."

"I hadn't really thought about it before, but how long do you guys live for? I take it from the way you talk it's a lot more than humans."

"Do you remember the homework about the mayflys?" A nod. "It would be comparable."

"Oh. So how old are you Bee?"

"In my people's reckoning I would be considered rather young actually. I'm not sure how old the others are, but I do know that they were already "grown up" when I was created. In comparison of human years and age I would say that I would be considered to only be a few years your elder in actuality of how my people see things."

"Really?"

"Yes really."

"So that's why you are so strict with me. You must have been one of those perfect kids and have been annoyed with my attitude this whole time." This was met by laughter from the speakers.

"Actually I would have been considered quite a 'hellion' as Optimus reminded me and says I can still be."

"No way! I don't believe it."

"Oh yes, I'll admit that the war has tempered much of my earlier 'hellion' tendencies, but they do show up on occasion. If you ask Optimus I'm sure that he can tell you of some my less than shining moments."

"Oh yeah, you know I will. Let's make a deal Bee. I'll try to keep following your 'safety measures' and you stop being such a 'mother hen' all the time. Every once in a while loosen the reins a little bit and I'll try to follow every crazy thing you come up with.

"Alright Sam. I'll work on being less of a 'mother hen' to you."