This won't make sense unless you've read my 9 page comic called Nightmare (link's on my profile) However I should warn you it is quite a triggery sequence...(mech-pregnancy, slash, a few pages in violence and gore dominates)

similar themes in the following fic, but without gore/violence, just dealing with the aftermath of the nightmare... and it's underlying issues.

Main pairing: Bumblebee x Starscream, and Prowl x Bumblebee if you squint.

When Bumblebee's soft clicking fell silent and his shivers subsided, he looked up to Prowl meeting his visored gaze, blue optics wide and desperate.

"Promise me you won't tell anyone!" he whispered fearfully, his gaze desperately searching Prowl's for any hint on what was going on inside the motorcycle's mind.

This only served to intensify the ninja's confusion "I don't understand! What is it Bumblebee?"

Again his optics flickered over the younger mech's form seeking some kind of clue in his body language, when no answers came forth he continued in a softer tone "…What are you not telling us?"

Bumblebee whimpered at the soft sound of Prowl's vocals, not at all reassured "Please!" He gasped softly gripping the older mech's shoulders tightly "Promise me!"

Prowl frowned, withdrawing slightly from the yellow mech in his arms as he became more wary "What is this secret you're keeping? Will it bring us harm?"

His questions were only met with silence and wide blue optics, the light powering them shimmering slightly from the force of Bumblebee's emotions. A hurt look crossed Bee's faceplates as Prowl's stern countenance returned, and he looked away, retreating to the other end of his berth as he clammed up and refused to look at the cyberninja.

"Bumblebee, Please!" Prowl tried again, reaching out and placing his servo on the minibot's shoulder, causing him to tense.

Still, Bumblebee refused to look the ninja's way "I can't" he muttered "…Not unless you promise."

Prowl sighed, withdrawing his servo and considered the pros and cons during the tense silence that followed. If he didn't promise to keep whatever secret Bumblebee was hiding, the mech will never open up to him again, even if he decided to come back and make the promise later, it could well be the only chance he had while Bee was still in this vulnerable state of mind. Not that he really wanted to take advantage of that fact. And if it turned out that this secret was a threat to their team, he will have to break his promise and alert Optimus…

"Fine." He sighed, startling Bumblebee out of his own thoughts and peer back at him warily.

"I promise I won't tell anyone else…" If it isn't dangerous.

No need to give Bumblebee reasons to omit any important details.

The yellow minibot hesitated, looking uncertain, Prowl could tell the secret was quite a burden for the younger mech for the need to share it to be so strong, yet it was perhaps a dubious thing to share for Bumblebee to be so fearful of his response.

Suddenly Bumblebee fixed him with a piercing stare "You can't tell anyone!" he demanded sharply, narrowed optics staring the cyberninja down challengingly.

Prowl raised his servos in a placating manner "I promised, didn't I?" he asked softly.

For a while, the younger mech didn't answer, his stare fixed on the taller mech's faceplates. Eventually his expression softened into something more tentative, and he looked away from the other mech as he spoke "…I don't want to lose it."

"What is it? What do you fear losing so much?" Prowl asked carefully, fearing any sharpness in his voice would cause Bumblebee to clam up on him again or tell half-truths.

Prowl watched as the younger mech fidgeted, hesitating again, clearly anxious now that he was about to reveal his secret.

Finally the fidgeting ceased and the yellow shoulders slumped "… The sparkling" he mumbled barely loud enough for Prowl to hear him.

A sparkling? Where had Bumblebee gotten a sparkling from? Where was he hiding it? He hadn't seen one around anywhere… Unless… No. It was impossible for Bumblebee to be carrying one, he was not in a relationship with any of them. And there was no way to hide such a relationship amongst their team, they were too tight knit for such things to go un-noticed.

It had brought up many questions in Prowl's processor, but he settled for silence, at this stage questions would only overwhelm the younger mech, instead he waited for Bumblebee to gather his thoughts and explain it further.

After some time of silence Bumblebee glanced up to gauge the ninja's reaction, expecting to hear questions from the older mech, but Prowl's helm was tilted slightly to the side, indicating he was waiting for an explanation.

"I'm carrying" The minibot murmured, watching the cyberninja's reaction closely now. There was none, Prowl's faceplates remained stoically blank.

Prowl didn't believe him, Bumblebee realised belatedly, frustration welling up to replace his earlier anxiety.

"I am carrying." He repeated "A sparkling!" his vocals trembling slightly as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

Prowl didn't look all that impressed. "I heard you the first time, Bumblebee. And I don't believe you. Now what is this actually about."

The yellow mechling bristled with frustration and anger, glaring at the other mech he reached forward, grabbing Prowl by the wrist and pulling until his servo rested upon the barely noticeable swell of his abdomen. Underneath the visor, Prowl raised an optic ridge, Bumblebee was trying quite hard to convince him of his little story. When they consumed excess metals than what their bodies needed for growth or repair, it is stored in the protoform for later use. Due to the higher concentration of trace metals in the earth fuel they were consuming, the team were 'gaining weight' at a faster rate than normal, of course the areas where it's stored is different for each bot so Prowl wasn't too concerned about Bumblebee being slightly thicker in the torso.

Suddenly the yellow mech's chest plates parted, revealing the bright blue glow of Bumblebee's spark. The black and gold mech cried out in surprise and turned away, horrified embarrassment quickly overwhelming his shock.

"Bumblebee! What are you doing!?" The spark is the most intimate part of their anatomy, their very soul so to speak, one does not simply bare their spark for all to see.

"Just look!" The yellow bot snapped, grabbing the mortified ninja's helm in an attempt to get him to look "It's there next to my spark! If that's not a sparkling, I don't know what is!"

With growing apprehension, Prowl reluctantly turned his helm to peer into Bumblebee's spark chamber, if he were willing to go this far to convince him then he must've been telling the truth all along. Prowl gasped, just as the younger mech had said, there was a much smaller, dimmer spark orbiting Bumblebee's, a white tendril connecting it to its carrier's spark, feeding it with energy with each gentle pulse.

"By the Allspark…" The cyberninja breathed, tearing his gaze away from the bright glow of Bumblebee's spark, prompting the smaller mech to gently close his chest plates.

A heavy silence followed, neither mech looking at the other, the black and gold cyber ninja ashamed that he had not believed or trusted that Bumblebee had been telling the truth, and the smaller mech anxiously waiting for the other's judgement.

"Who is the sire?" The quiet question was not unexpected, but its implications still made Bumblebee tense.

He could not look the other mech in the optic, it was impossible, knowing the moment he spoke the mech's name he would be labelled a traitor… But he would know, they would all know, the moment the sparkling was born. Luck was rarely on his side, so he did not doubt for a moment that the protoform growing in his gestation chamber would have its sire's characteristic wings.

"…Starscream" The young mech uttered the name with great shame and hunched shoulders.

Beside him the cyberninja's vents hitched and his frame tensed, the answer had caught him completely off guard. He had been expecting the designation of one of the Elite Guard mechs that had visited, not one of a Decepticon. It was little wonder Bumblebee had been so hesitant, and demanded Prowl keep his silence. Bumblebee was visibly ashamed of having the Decepticon sire his sparkling, which spoke volumes of the loyalty he had to the mech, or lack of. He hoped, and it was such a horrible thing to hope for, yet he hoped that it had been conceived from a forced coupling. Primus knows how it would complicate things if Bumblebee has been seeing the 'Con willingly!

Bumblebee jumped slightly when Prowl placed a servo on his shoulder, still facing away from the other bot, he couldn't bear to see what expression the mech wore on his faceplates.

"Did he… Did he force you?" the tentative question, like the previous, was not unexpected, yet it made him flinch away all the same, a soft whine slipping unheeded past his vocals.

If only it had been that simple!

"Yes… A-At first…" When the yellow mech spoke it was barely a whisper, guilt swamping his processors and causing him to squirm under the visored gaze of the black and gold mech.

"… B-but then it felt good" It hadn't helped that the seeker was attractive, or that he had acted so tenderly that first time, seducing him with endearing words of praise, stroking and petting him in all the right places, distracting him from the thoughts that he didn't want this, drowning them with pleasure… No one looked at him that way, he had never received such attention from others before…

"...It felt t-too good… And I went back to him…" He had sought out the seeker in hopes that he could feel like that again, for his efforts he had received a lewd smirk from the rogue Decepticon and was promptly pinned to the ground. The much larger mech had laughed and begun to toy with him, all tender seduction from their previous encounter gone. He had returned from that encounter and countless others with a limp to his walk, and sometimes a few dents and gouge marks from the Decepticon's talons.

"… Vector Sigma." Prowl muttered as he ran a servo down his faceplates, it was as he had feared, Bumblebee had formed a rather… Complicated, or as the humans would say, 'fucked up' relationship with the seeker. He could tell the young mech was quite aware of it too, yet that hadn't been enough for him to end it, apparently.

Was this a threat to the team? He supposed it could be if Starscream wanted to take the sparkling, it would definitely be dangerous for Bumblebee…

"Does he know? About the sparkling?"

The younger mech shook his helm "No... He might offline us if he finds out! …Or take it away" he trembled fearfully and hugged himself in a bid to shield the sparkling from his imagined assailants.

The cyberninja nodded in agreement, the seeker may well offline Bumblebee and subsequently the sparkling to hide the evidence, or get it in his processor to raise the sparkling himself, as his successor… or something.

"A-and-and if the others find out.. they might force me to terminate it… Because it's sire is a Decepticon" Bumblebee whispered, his wide optics searching Prowl's gaze again, the desperation from earlier returning "You mustn't tell them!"

"Bumblebee…" Prowl sighed, trying to reason with the fretful minibot "You can't hide the fact that you're carrying for much longer… That protoform is going to get big, especially if it takes after Starscream's coding. The others will notice." But he did not like the idea of others demanding the youngling terminate the life growing within him, no matter who its creators are, the sparkling was innocent.

"… I'll… Cross that bridge when I get to it." The smaller mech murmured tiredly, shifting closer to the cyberninja, longing for the soothing comfort of the other mech's arms around him again.

Prowl reluctantly let the subject drop, allowing Bumblebee's smaller frame to press against him

"I'll keep my promise to you, Bumblebee" Prowl murmured into the minibot's audio sensors "If you promise me you'll never return to Starscream again."

Bumblebee nodded as he snuggled closer, trying to get comfortable "I promise" He whispered back to the other mech.

Relieved, Prowl lay back onto Bumblebee's berth, pulling the smaller mech with him and waited for him to get settled back into recharge. He sighed as he wrapped his arms protectively around Bumblebee's smaller frame, silently declaring to himself that he would do all that was in his power to protect both Bumblebee and the sparkling he now carried as he drifted into recharge.