A Small Situation

~>4<~

Optimus's pov

"You guys might want to see this..." I hear over the comm. I start in the direction of where Smokescreen was searching. As I walk up to them, I notice I'm the last one to make it there. What I see is quite shocking though. Bumblebee is now the equivalent of a 4 year old human now instead of a sparkling. He's about 3ft tall and a little wobbly on his pedes still. I force back a smile as I remember what it was like when he was this young back on Cybertron.

"Awcee!" He exclaims and points at her. His voice has returned. Interesting...

"Bukhed!" He continues down the line. Next is Ratchet.

"Watchet!" He says. We all just look at each other. He looks up at me and his smile widens.

"Sire!" He yells and hugs my leg. My optics widen, my cover might be blown. I look over to Ratchet and he just shrugs, unsure himself about what to do. I pick him up and look at him. Everyone is looking at me expectantly, Bulkhead and Smokescreen both curious as to why he called me sire instead of Optimus.

"I'm... I'm not your sire..." I say, and even though it hurts me to, Smokescreen and Bulkhead don't look as suspicious of me anymore. He looks at me in confusion.

"Yes you are silly!" He says laughing as he pokes where a nose would be on a human. I glance at Arcee and she looks unsure about what to do.

"Why don't I take you outside?" She says to Bee and he smiles.

"Can we go racing?" He asks, excitement and joy completely emanating from him. Arcee smiles.

"Sure." She says and he practically leaps out of my arms. He grabs hold of her servo and starts dragging her towards the main room. I mouth a thank you to her and she nods. I turn to Ratchet.

"We need to talk." I say and he agrees. Bulkhead and Smokescreen go after Arcee and Bee to race with them. Ratchet and I walk into the main room and he looks at me expectantly.

"This can't be right, is it." I say and he just shakes his helm.

"For a sparkling to grow that fast... if whatever Megatron did to him doesn't kill him first, when he finally goes back to his normal age, he'll probably be almost completely unable to move. And when he does, there will be a lot of pain along with it. Plus, knowing Megatron, there's probably a catch to this. The whole, growing up way too fast thing probably isn't the only bad side affect. Optimus, I know you want to give him a second chance at a better life but... it's just not going to work out. I need to start working on a cure. I'm sorry." He says. I lower my helm. This is all my fault, isn't it? I look back up at Ratchet.

"Thank you." I say and go outside to see what's going on there. Bumblebee is in his alt mode, doing doughnuts around Smokescreen. He transforms and waves at me. I slowly and unsurely wave back. He goes back to his alt mode and starts racing Smokescreen. I notice the rookie slow down a little, allowing Bee to finish first. I decide to go back inside the base to prevent the urge to play with him to get the best of me.

Bulkhead's pov

"Hey Bukhed, you wan race me next?" Bumblebee asks me. I look over at the little bot standing next to me and I smile. It's weird seeing him like this. I wonder if he'll remember everything when we get him back to normal?

"Sure Bee." I say and he jumps up and down.

"Yes! I'm going to beat you!" He yells in excitement. We both transform and he revs his little engine. Arcee does a count down from 3 and as soon as she says go, Bee peels away from the starting point. For such a small bot at this point, he's pretty speedy. I easily catch up to him and when I do, he speeds up. I speed up a bit more but not enough to stop him from winning.

"Haha! I knew I'd win!" He cheers. I smile and roll my optics.

"Yup, you beat me." I say and he smiles triumphantly. His smile quickly fades to a frown and he puts his servos to his abdomen. We all look at each other, unsure of what to do.

"What's wrong?" Smokescreen asks. Bumblebee looks up and whimpers slightly.

"My tummy hurts." He says and his optics start to water. We all look at each other.

"Are you hungry?" I hesitantly ask. He shakes his helm and starts to cry. Arcee scoops him up and we all go back inside. As we walk around the corner we can hear Ratchet grumbling.

"What did you guys do?" He growls and we just look at each other.

"Nothing. He just said his tummy hurt and started crying." Smokescreen answered. Ratchet sighs and walks off to get something. He comes back a few minutes later with half an energon cube. He crushes it into smaller pieces and put it down in front of Bee. He stares at it for a moment and then grumpily pushes it aside.

"Not hungy." He says. Ratchet pushes the energon back to where it was.

"Just try a piece. You're probably just hungry." He says and Bee picks up a small piece. He stares at it for a moment and then licks it. He narrows his optics and then proceeds to throw it across the room while sticking out his glossa.

"Blech!" He says and starts to frown again. "Still hurts." He says, optics watering again. Ratchet frowns and scans him. After a couple seconds of scanning and reading the results, he turns to face us.

"By the allspark... someone go get Optimus... now!" He orders and Arcee runs off to find him.

"Ratchet, what's wrong?" I cautiously ask. He sighs forcefully and pinches the bridge of an imaginary nose.

"Whatever Megatron did to make Bumblebee this way... it's given him some sort of illness... it's not one I've ever seen before though and I have no idea what kind of side effects it will have on him. I also don't know if it's deadly or not..." he trails off just as Arcee and Optimus walk into the room.

"What's wrong?" Optimus asks and as soon as Bumblebee hears his voice, he jumps up and runs to him. Optimus picks up the crying Bee, but looks unsure about what to do.

"Sire, my tummy hurts." He whimpers and Optimus immediately looks concerned.

"Ratchet?" He asks and Ratchet once again sighs.

"Optimus, whatever Megatron did to Bee is causing him to fall ill. It's not anything I've ever seen before though..." Optimus looks down at the young bot in his arms. He looks really worried... like, more worried than usual... he hands Bumblebee over to Arcee so that him and Ratchet can talk in private. As soon as they're out of audio range, Smokescreen and I end up speaking at the same time.

"Is it just me, or does Optimus seem to really care for Bee?" We both say. We look at each other and then back to Arcee. She looks unsure about what to say.

"Um, I think he cares about Bee the same amount that he does us. If this was happening to one of you guys, he'd be just as concerned." She says. We both nod our helms but I'm not buying it. There's something different about these two...