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Feb 20, 2024 22:54:52 GMT
Post by Nicholas Bee on Feb 20, 2024 22:54:52 GMT
Characters Appearing: Nicholas Bee, Bumblebee, Ironhide Location (s): Malto Residence Timeline: November 22nd, 2023 Plot Summary: Nick gets the best birthday present of his life.
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Feb 20, 2024 23:13:07 GMT
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Post by Nicholas Bee on Feb 20, 2024 23:13:07 GMT
Nick wasn’t really sure what to expect that day.
Birthday’s had never really been his “thing”. Or at least they hadn’t been a big deal when he’d been growing up. His uncle had never really had the money to make it special, and towards the end had barely remembered it. Of course the former he had understood, and by that time the latter had happened he’d basically been used to it.
But now that he had a dad who was actually attentive who knew?
That said; he definitely wasn’t getting his hopes up. Nor had he really made a big deal about pointing it out either. He’d just gotten up like it was any other day and started up some chores. “Maybe if I get them done fast enough we can catch The Marvels,” Nick murmured. That was certainly one way to spend the day.
At least that’s what he thought as he tossed the last of the trash in the dumpster.
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Mar 13, 2024 1:52:59 GMT
Post by Bumblebee on Mar 13, 2024 1:52:59 GMT
Birthdays weren't something Bumblebee celebrated often, but it wasn't a completely unknown concept to him either. He remembered long ago back when the war was ongoing on Earth helping to celebrate Spike's birthday a time or two, but the idea of gifts wasn't exactly something he picked up on. Humans were different from Cybertronians in that way. Sure they might've celebrated an activation day long before the war began, but even then they didn't receive the kinds of gifts humans got. Humans treated birthdays almost like a second Christmas in a way, only it was centered around a single person and not everyone in the family. The gifts could range from anything from clothing, toys, movies, video games to even whole new cars apparently.
That last one Bee still thought was kind of weird.
He hadn't really had the time to think about birthdays while he was on the run, but it was something that was back on the forefront of his mind. Twitch and Thrash just had their first mere weeks ago, and he still had to factor in the rest of the Maltos as well. Hashtag, Jawbreaker and Nightshade's were coming up shortly too, but even then there was still one more birthday in between.
Nick's.
Bumblebee honestly had no idea what to even do or get Nick. Sure he did the hat thing for Christmas last year, but he didn't really know what to get then either. It'd taken a lot of thought and a lot of talks with bots, but he had finally settled on what he wanted to get. He had the gift set aside in a box while he worked on setting up a small number of decorations near the pen where Fluffyears and her family lived when she wasn't hanging around the Maltos. It wasn't anything overly fancy but there were plenty of balloons tied to a couple of apple trees and a small table with both the gift and a reasonable looking birthday cake that did have a few chunks swiped out of it while trying to set the thing on the table. It wasn't perfect, but Bee thought he'd done an alright job.
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Mar 16, 2024 5:11:58 GMT
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Post by Ironhide on Mar 16, 2024 5:11:58 GMT
Ironhide was excited.
As head of Reunificaiton he got to oversee a lot of adoption officiations. But it wasn’t every day that the adoption in question involved someone he was so close to. To think, he hadn’t even known how to initially react when Bee had expressed interest in Nick. He was so young, and he had been so unsure of himself.
But clearly something had made it work. Because he was coming down to work in place of a judge due to the quiet nature of this adoption.
When he pulled into the scene he grinned at Bumblebee’s decorations. It was nice to see the kid had gone all out. “Bumblebee! I’m here!” He called out friendily. “Primus I’m excited kiddo. Just think, this time last year you weren’t even sure you’d like the job… Now here we are making it official.”
He gave a light pat on the scout’s back as he grinned receptor-to-receptor. “So where is the man of the hour? Does he know what ye got planned?”
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Mar 16, 2024 5:17:52 GMT
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Post by Nicholas Bee on Mar 16, 2024 5:17:52 GMT
Nick was definitely not expecting what he saw.
Was that Bumblebee with… Birthday decorations? And a cake? Sure, he knew Bumblebee loved him. He was his dad, and had told him so after all. But he hadn’t… Expected any fanfare like he’d said. So the fact that Bumblebee had gone out of his way to give him a little celebration?
Though he did have to question what Ironhide was doing here.
Bubbly as ever, Nick was bounding up with innate curiosity. It didn’t even look like he’d taken any notice of the smear in the cake. Too focused on the fact he has an actual birthday cake for the first time in years. Something that had seemed to go away when Dave had begun his downward spiral.
“Wow! Really, dad? For me?” He asked with wide eyes. “This looks so good! I had no idea!”
He tilted his head toward Ironhide in double curiosity though and added. “Hey, ‘Hide. Not that I’m not happy to see you too… But what’re you doing here?”
The mech seemed to whistle to himself, and give Bumblebee one of those looks of “You wanna tell him?” Looks with his eyes.
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Apr 6, 2024 21:36:50 GMT
Post by Bumblebee on Apr 6, 2024 21:36:50 GMT
Oh thank Primus. Bee was hoping that Ironhide was going to arrive well before Nick did. It would've been a little awkward with no guests or anything, and Ironhide kinda needed to be here given the circumstances. Bumblebee waved over to the red mech.
"Yeah, well a year ago was a completely different story, Ironhide. I had a lot I had to handle all at once, and while things haven't entirely changed.. I dunno I thought it was maybe the right time? I still don't really know if I'm cut out for this, though. Some days it's like 'oh hey I have a kid now' and other days it's like 'Primus.. there's a kid'. Sometimes I still feel like that big brother figure, you know? I just feel like if I don't make something official happen then I'm just gonna keep questioning things forever. Maybe I always will, but I dunno." Bee was still a kid himself in the optics of so many Cybertronians, and he hated that honestly. He was by no means a sparkling or anything, and he could take care of himself. The others just had that advantage of knowing what 'normalcy' was like.
"And no, he doesn't know. I wanted to keep it a surprise. That's.. kinda why it's just you and me, Ironhide."
It didn't take long for Nick himself to wander on in, completely baffled by the decorations and the lackluster cake. Was it the cake? Did the cake look bad? Should he have done more? Invited more people?
But then.. he proclaimed he liked it. Phew!
"I, uh.. Primus I did not prepare for this. Why don't you open your gift first, Nick? I think that's a good starting spot." Just rip off the bandage and get it over with. Inside the present was the actual documentation that he would be officially legally adopting Nick. How was this making Bee more nervous than staring down an army of armed Decepticons?!
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Apr 7, 2024 3:50:14 GMT
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Post by Ironhide on Apr 7, 2024 3:50:14 GMT
Ironhide could feel how nervous Bumblebee was.
And Primus, he knew that feeling too well. A million thoughts had gone through his head like that when he first adopted Orion. But he also knew that everyone at the center, and all the Autobots agreed with one thing: “Bee, you’re a great dad to Nick. All of his social workers at Reunification say he’s thrived since you took him in,” He poked Bumblebee in the chest gently. “Nick came to you with so many abandonment issues, and scared out of his wits. Now he’s turned out to be a fragging genius, and he’s happier than most kids who’ve been in this program way longer.”
He put a hand on his shoulder. “You should be proud of him. But even moreso, you should be proud of yourself. You did that just as much as he did.”
When Bumblebee suggested Nick open his present, well Ironhide tried to play very coy. He wasn’t sure how Nick would take it. Some kids loved the idea, others took time to process it. But he definitely had high hopes that Nick would want this as much as Bee did. “Yeah, open it up, the suspense is killing me.”
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Apr 7, 2024 3:58:52 GMT
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Post by Nicholas Bee on Apr 7, 2024 3:58:52 GMT
Nick raised an eyebrow.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen his dad nervous like this. Except maybe when he’d come to find him when Soundwave had kidnapped him. Was he really that nervous over a gift? Heck, he was the kid who geeked out over a t-shirt for Christmas. It wasn’t like he had high standards. So as he grabbed the gift unknowingly, he only grinned and cracked a joke: “Come on, dad. Don’t be so nervous. I’m sure whatever you got me…”
His voiced hitched in his throat when he opened it up and saw the papers.
Nick didn’t know what to say or what to do in that moment. Bumblebee was… Was he serious? His hand was shaky as he held the papers. “Dad…?” He asked, trying to keep his cool. “Are you sure…?”
”Of course he is. You don't think I’d be here if he wasn’t, do you?” Ironhide teased. A wink sent Nick’s way. ”He called me up about it a while ago. All you have to do is say the word and it’s done. No more screwy family, you’ll be one of us kid. If that’s what you want.”
Nick felt tears stain his eyes as he tried to grasp this. A real family… Not whatever shitshow that he’d gotten himself stuck with. He never thought he’d actually get that lucky. He’d just assumed Bee’d foster him until he was eighteen and that’d be it. “Are you kidding me? I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
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Apr 25, 2024 16:57:45 GMT
Post by Bumblebee on Apr 25, 2024 16:57:45 GMT
Ironhide made it all sound so easy, but realistically it wasn't. Bumblebee already had the pressure of needing to stay hidden and train the Terrans, and then along came Nick while Bee was cruising down the roads one day. He sighed as the older mech continued to heap on the praise, speaking of how Nick thrived in ways that no one else really had in the whole Reunification program. "It's not like I had much of a choice, you know. He didn't have family and was about to lose his home, and he was already working a job at his young age.. and lemme tell you I know a thing or two about being thrown to the wolves right from the start. The war was my intro to Cybertronian life. I didn't get to experience the Golden Age or even the Age of Rust. From the second I was created it was just Autobots versus Decepticons on a dying planet. I couldn't just turn a blind optic when Nick was dealing with the things that he was. He.. deserved a chance too. A chance I never got."
Sometimes it was easy for Bumblebee to forget that, but when he remembered that he was the last bot created on Cybertron it made it a little more obvious.
Soon enough Nick came along and was fairly curious about what was going on. It hadn't exactly clicked that this might have been one of the first birthday's he'd really even celebrated, but that had been in part due to Bumblebee's nerves about the situation as well. He just hoped that Nick enjoyed his gift.
What he wasn't prepared for was Nick's reaction. Even now tears weren't a thing he was used to. Humans could cry when they were sad, angry, happy.. dealing with allergies. Sometimes they were hard to read in that way, but given the situation and his experiences with Spike, Bee wanted to assume it was the happy sort of cry.
"Yeah, I.. I mean it. I thought that was the whole deal with this program to begin with, but for the longest time I didn't quite know what we were. If I was meant to be more of a big brother figure or if it was a parental sort of feeling. You know I got thrown into the war basically the day I was created so home life isn't something I really know, but I've seen it with Sparkplug and Spike and the bond they share as father and son. I'm.. not entirely sure if we're that or not, but I'm gonna have to make that decision at some point, right? That and, heh.. you already call me dad anyway. Kinda makes that choice easier. I can't promise you the best life cause I don't even know what I'm doing and if I'm doing things right, but I can at least promise the best I can do. Certainly better than the alternative."
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Apr 26, 2024 6:39:12 GMT
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Post by Ironhide on Apr 26, 2024 6:39:12 GMT
Ironhide chuckled.
Sure Bumblebee may have thought he didn’t have a choice. But Ironhide saw so many fold given the same choice in his time working in the program and he definitely felt that wasn’t the case at all. “Bee, we always have a choice, you could have left him. Gotten him help. Done whatever you could,” Ironhide explained honestly. “You chose to take him in and love him instead and give him that chance.”
He then admitted. “There are so many bad parents out there, I’ve seen some of the worst in humanity doing this slag,” He explained. “I’m so happy that I get to be here to see a success like this.”
When Bumblebee had said his peace with Nick, however, he did clear his throat. After all, he was looking forward to this - like he said. “Well then, I think it’s as good a time as any to do this proper,” Ironhide explained with a smile. “I just gotta remind y’all of a few things.”
Ironhide knew that Bumblebee probably expected most of this. But he did have a job to do. “When you sign this paper, you’re legally Bumblebee’s kid. No turning back. Your birth family ain’t got any legal claim to you,” He explained making sure Nick was aware. “Bumblebee’ll have claim on your land until you turn eighteen. And you’ll be given certain benefits. Like being able to enroll in the academy in the city if you want.”
He then turned to Bumblebee. “And you? Well, you already know how this goes. Once this is signed, Nick’s yours. Ye ain’t got to worry about GHOST, or the humans, or anyone else taking him. But it also means he’s in your hands until he’s ready to be on his own. You’re responsible from here on out,” He explained warmly. Putting a hand on his friends shoulder. “Plus you get to be part of the coolest club there with Wheeljack and I.” He joked.
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Apr 26, 2024 6:49:11 GMT
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Post by Nicholas Bee on Apr 26, 2024 6:49:11 GMT
Nick was still swimming with a lot of thoughts and emotions.
Bumblebee’s words touched him. For the first time in his life, in that exact moment Nick felt wanted. Like maybe, he wasn’t just the mistake he’d almost completely considered himself before Bumblebee found him. Sure, none of this had ever been the plan, but maybe it had just never been his plan. Because something inside him told him everything had lead him to this moment.
Nick placed a hand on his father’s leg plate as he spoke. “Dad, you’re too hard on yourself. I never asked for a perfect dad, but you’re perfect to me.” he said with a lot of honesty in his voice. “I didn’t even know what it felt like to be loved until I met you… You’re all I’ve ever really wanted. Someone who cared… Someone like you.”
He then added. “You’ve been a great dad already. I always wanted to ask, I just. I never knew if you’d want that,” he admitted. “I know I have my issues and I’m not easy either. But I’d love to be able to call myself your actual son.”
He could see that Ironhide was trying (quite badly) to hide the fact that brought a small energon tear to his own eye. But didn’t even hesitate to take a pen and sing the form. In fact when he’d done it he felt like a large weight lifted off his shoulders. Letting out a small exhale. “All that build-up for it to just take a signature,” he joked lightly. “Almost unreal.”
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