(The Bumblebee that answers the door is lively and smirking devilishly… compared to the tired, shrinking Bumblebee that’s at his back.) “HEY LOOK, it’s Megatron here for pity hangouts! Guess Rung wasn’t available today, huh?”
(Bee looks ashamed, and the devilish Bumblebee shoves him back in the house and leaves the door open.) “Come in, come in! He can prattle on about his pets for a couple hours until you get bored and go home!”
“Truly a mess, thought it seems this time of year is always fraught with something. …What hallucinations?” He drinks the center from his own treat before crunching down the outer layer with his teeth. So very satisfying.
“Not more magic?”
Frag, I don’t know! You touched my weird doppelganger! And I man-handled Smokescreen’s! Stabbed it, too!
That gets another hearty laugh out of him.
“It would seem we share the instinct! Did yours produce the same result?”
Nah, man, it was WAY bigger than me. I think I just annoyed it. But it FELT GOOD, damn it! (Bee takes another enthusiastic bite.)
“Ah ha, very good! Perhaps if we teamed up against it, the fraud would succumb as yours did?”
Maybe! YEAH! Anything we team up on goes down hard! It’ll be AWESOME! IT-
(And he sees it. Out of the corner of his optics, a shape flickers. The clone, smirking, judging him… shaking his head while that smile never leaves.)
(And he knows, instantly. He can’t do a thing about it. He’s never been able to help Smokescreen, and he never will. This is a problem just for Megatron to solve, someone important with real power and sway. Not him. He’s never mattered.)
-it… maybe… maybe it’ll pass…
(He takes another bite, and the taste is gone.)
Just like that, the joviality is gone. He can see Bumblebee visibly deflate, back to the posture he’d first had when Megatron had opened the door, back to those distant, hopeless optics. He glares.
“It’s still here, isn’t it?”