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They were bickering again.
Windblade paid no mind to the actual words being traded. If it were actually a serious matter, there wouldn’t be nearly as much haughtiness and gesturing of both servos and wings. It was the usual theatrics she had grown used to seeing with Starscream, but now discerning optics were privy to the second participant of the conversation. Bumblebee’s own door wings flicked in amusement as he took on an air of nonchalance. Through gritted dentae, Windblade can read the thrill that Starscream felt.
After finally meeting Bumblebee and seeing them interacting, Windblade concluded that if you wanted to get a measure of their relationship, you should not look at what they say, but what they do. And so, Windblade had observed. She ignored the swapping of scathing critiques and snide comments, and she paid no mind to the rebuttals given with blunt declarations and derisive snorts. Windblade focused on the space between them. The space they both shared. Before she had learned the truth of Starscream’s “hallucinations,” she had been aware of his habit of always leaving a space. The seat in front of his desk or next to him. How, when he walked, he would always be just off-centered, as if there were another next to him. Doors held open for a klik too long. Small things that one could overlook if they weren’t searching. Throughout everything, despite arguing, Starscream always left a space for Bumblebee to inhabit just like Bumblebee did for Starscream.
She didn’t know them in their totality. Even if she had shown Starscream who he could have been, she doesn’t know him like Bumblebee knew him. She doesn’t think anyone knows Bumblebee like Starscream knew him either. She would have thought that closeness be hated by Starscream, to not be able to hide behind the masks he employes, yet here he was letting Bumblebee into his space. It is not actual touch, she doubts either of them were quite amenable to that, but cohabitation of personal space that had once been rebuffed violently if encroached.
She watched them, now, in her office as they argued and bickered. Yet, the space remained in a way that could not be lost on anyone with working optics. She didn’t know exactly what they were to each other, she doubted they themselves knew, but she knew Starscream and Bumblebee may as well share one spark.
