Work Text:
"Achoo!"
The Minibot sniffled a little bit and continued to read his datapads, learning about seeker schematics and trying to learn how to get advantage of them while in battle. He had swiped the datapads the last time he was infiltrating the Nemesis, and Jazz had no idea he took them. Usually, whenever the Spec Ops were done with a mission they had to fork over whatever they had found to Jazz, who then handed it to Prowl for further use. But this time, Bumblebee had been sneaky enough to get them past Jazz's optics.
Bumblebee had been trying to learn how to win in a battle against the seekers for a while now, they seemed to always go for him instead of the twins or Ironhide. It was probably something to do with the Decepticon's and their unfair fighting techniques, but in war, nothing was fair. Bumblebee had finished his second datapad, moving on to the next one when-
"Achoo!"
Jeez, what was wrong with him? His HUD wasn't telling him that he contracted something, although he had been hanging out with Spike all morning in the rain, if anything it should be Spike who contracted a virus! Could Cybertronians even get sick from the rain? Best bet there was something in his olfactory making him sneeze so much.
Bumblebee paid no mind to it and continued reading, unbeknownst to him that his core temperature was rising. Bumblebee checked his internal clock, it was almost midnight. Putting the datapads away, he rubbed his optics and called it a night.
———-
Jazz had been in this meeting for at least three groons, and he had been trying to get ahold of his little spy for at least two of them. Trying again, the comm was dead on Bumblebee's end. Jazz needed to get out of this meeting to go check on him, but Prowl wasn't going to let that happen anytime soon.
"As I stated before, we can't keep our relationship with the humans and loose battles against the Decepticons simultaneously!" Prowl argued, the SIC was not one to argue with Prime, but there's always a first for everything.
Jazz let out a small groan when Bumblebee left his comm unanswered for the hundredth time since the meeting started. Unfortunately, the groan was loud enough for Prowl to hear it and he quickly shot a glare in his direction.
"Anything to add, Jazz?" Prowl asked with spite, clearly annoyed by Jazz's disrespect.
"Prowler-" Jazz started.
"Prowl."
"Prowl," Jazz reluctantly correct himself, "Ah just don't see why we can't take a break from-"
"A break?!" Prowl yelled, Jazz winced as his audio receptors were assaulted by the SIC's voice box.
"Prowler!-"
"I am your COMMANDER. I rank ABOVE YOU!" Prowl roared, standing up to tower over the TIC, his doorwings flaring up as he yelled. "You will address me by my designation or rank, and not by some silly made up sparkling name that you-"
"ENOUGH." Prime's bellowing voice could be heard throughout the Ark, stopping Prowl's rant to Jazz immediately.
Jazz looked down, avoiding eye contact with Prime, Prowl, and all of the other commanders heads as Optimus stood. He felt ashamed, but he had bigger concerns to worry about than Prowl's mood.
"This meeting is over." Optimus had commanded. "You will all return to your shifts and duties at once." He had began to grab his datapads and walked out without further discussion. Ratchet and Ironhide following close behind to return to the medbay and weaponry.
Jazz picked up his datapads with haste, not wanting to be alone with Prowl in the meeting room alone after he had just pulled his rank like that. He subspaced them and made a light jog to the door. Prowl watched as he left, a slight tinge of regret sunk into his spark, everlasting there.
—-
About half a groon passed before Jazz had tried Bumblebee's comm again, he was walking to the spy's quarters but wanted to make sure he still wasn't picking up. To no surprise, there was no answer. What was causing his scout to ignore his comm? Turning the corner to Bumblebee's quarters, he walked up to the door and gave a few hard knocks.
No answer.
He tried the comm again, "Bumblebee!" He yelled out, nothing. Jazz signed and entered the override code to Bumblebee's quarters, the doors opened and there he found his spy on his berth unmoving. Was he recharging? Jazz got closer and noticed the beads of energon on his plating, as well as the moisture fogging up his optics and wetting his faceplates.
"'Bee?" Jazz had put his servo on the young bot's shoulder and shook it, causing the spy to wake up.
"Huh? Jazz, what're you doing here? Why- why am I s' hot?" Bumblebee slurred, his optics were dim. Jazz quickly got his spy's thermo blankets off of him.
"I don't know buddy, we're gonna get ya to Ratch though," Jazz said, picking Bumblebee up and moving quickly to the medbay. "Try to stay online, 'Bee."
Bumblebee whined, all of his cables ached when Jazz made a sudden move.
"Ahm sorry, buddy." Jazz said after making a very sharp turn to the medbay and Bumblebee had hissed at the pain.
Quickly opening the door, Jazz saw Ratchet look up in surprise at the sudden sight. He quickly ushers Jazz to set him on the med-berth, Bumblebee feels his back cool down by the metal on the wall once he's propped up by it.
"Bumblebee?" Ratchet asked, noticing Bumblebee's optics flicker and dim. Ratchet quickly hooking him up to a coolant IV to try and chill his systems enough. "He looks like he's about to overheat!" Ratchet exclaimed, looking at Jazz.
"Ah just found him like that in 'is quarters."
"How could he have gotten li-" Ratchet stopped, noticing something on Bumblebee's servos. It was some sort of purple, flaky substance. "Jazz, come look at this."
"Wha' is it?" Jazz asked, looking at the Minibots servo. Noticing and recognizing the substance immediately, Jazz backed up a bit.
"What is it?" Ratchet asked, backing up with Jazz as a precaution.
"The 'cons put this stuff all over their datapads incase they were taken, but Bumblebee hasn't been on a mission to the Nemesis in forevea!"
"Had 'em since—" a shiver racked Bumblebee's weak form, thinking if he just told the truth now, maybe Jazz would be a little less hard on him, hopefully. "Since, th' last mission,"
"Wha— Bumblebee!" Jazz erupted.
Well frag.
Jazz had put his servos over his visor, head in his hands as he let out a deep sigh. "Bumblebee, we 'ave these exact protocols 'or this exact reason," Jazz's accent was getting increasingly thicker the more upset he got at the Minibot.
Jazz crossed his arms, optics narrowing in worry as his scout looked away in embarrassment, and had his servos clenched against his hot plating. "Alrigh', where ar' they?"
"In m' quarters, on m' desk," Bumblebee admitted, looking down now in shame.
Jazz left the medbay without another word, swiftly moving to the scouts quarters to deal with the datapads.
Ratchet turned to the young minibot, his symptoms seemed to be getting better now that he was on the coolant IV.
"Bumbl—" Ratchet started, only to get interrupted by the scout
"Yeah yeah, I know. What I did was irresponsible and I shouldn't have taken the datapads, and should've just given them to Jazz," the bot slummed against the medway wall, crossing his arms and huffed.
"Nothing I haven't heard before, Ratch, so save me the lecture."
The teenage attitude from this bot...
"Well, since you already know what I was going to lecture you with, why don't I get Prowl or Prime in here to give you a new one?"
"Wait, wh—" his protest was drowned out by Rachet's comm, signalling that it had already been done.
Well FRAG.
———
“—Okay, Scout Bumblebee?” Prowl had finished his, incredibly long—disturbing long, lecture to the Minibot.
“Yes, Sir.”
Prowl left the medbay after his speech, returning back to his duties. He still needed to find a way to apologize to the TIC, but just didn’t know how to.
He fragged up, royally.
———
The next morning, Jazz awoke to organic flowers from the planet they currently inhabited, as well as a handcrafted letter from the SIC.
Jazz had a light smile on his face, how thoughtful.