Bumblebee Fanfiction Draft

I don't normally show people my rough drafts, but here's one of my fanfiction. I won't get around to editing it up to be all shiny until next week probably. I'm not too attached to it yet, so don't be shy about giving me your opinion.

Also, it switches tense someway through, which is intentional but it just confuses things and I don't like it. So my question to you is, should it be in past or present tense the whole way through?

Oh, also also, any suggestions for a title?

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

*

It was the perfect afternoon for a Sunday drive. Bumblebee rolled down shaded roads lined with trees beside a park where families were having picnics. Their children were playing together, making new friends. There were no signs of the Decepticons and under the late afternoon sun everything was washed in a yellow light of a kind only found on Earth. Moments like these reminded Bumblebee how much he loved the Earth and its humans. He wished he had lungs to expand, a stomach to fill, so he could take part in the world, take it inside himself, but defending the planet and its people was enough.

The road was coming to an end, and a choice between right and left needed to be made. Bumblebee didn't care where he was driving, as long as his wheels were turning and there were people around him. He turned left, away from the suburbs and towards the city. It would be evening soon and everything would light up brilliantly around him and he could drive all night. He would make sure the people were safe tonight.

Bumblebee stopped at a red light, behind two more cars. He was on a road full of restaurants and bars and cafes and there were people outside each of them. He’d never been inside a bar or a restaurant before; he couldn’t fit inside.

Further down the road, there was a woman eating dinner at a table outside in the open air. Bumblebee zoomed his senses in as she twirled her food around a fork. Her lips were painted to look darker. She chewed and laughed with her friends. Her delicacy and beauty reminded Bumblebee of a soap bubble, with all its colours swirling together.

The light changed and the cars started moving again. Bumblebee moved with them, keeping his attention on the woman. He was thinking of bubbles, simulating them in the digital reality of his imagination. In his mind bubbles did not pop, they just bounced off each other and floated away again.

The woman was too far away to see now but she was the loveliest thing Bumblebee had seen all day. He decided to go back, so he turned left. He played a recording of the woman and watched her laugh again and again. He turned left once more and considered the elemental nature of humans: on the inside they are mostly liquid, they are self-heating, self-repairing and self-replicating. They are both water and fire. They are alive, and while Bumblebee has a living spark inside his chest, his body is a solid, lifeless shell. He does not feel pain, he only registers a simple on/off understanding of pressure and damage. By comparison to humans, Bumblebee is not a alive, but being their guardian is enough.

He turned left and slammed on his breaks. His wheels wailed against the asphalt. A human rolled up onto his windscreen and tumbled back off. She did not pop, and she did not float away; she cracked like glass. The digital simulations stopped, and Bumblebee did not know what to do. His gears and engines locked into place and began the transforming protocol, but he changed his mind. He was frozen.

And he is still frozen. It was not his fault, she stepped off the curb right in front of him. He plays the impact again and his parts move involuntarily, his doors locking themselves and tires turning to one side. His breaks pump again and again but the recording does not change. The person he hit is a young woman in a black dress. In the recording he isolates the face and compares it to the woman in the restaurant, but they are not the same. For a moment he is relieved and is then sickened by himself; she was still human, she was more alive than him.

Is she dead? People are running towards her. A man kneels down next to her and calls for help. Another woman is standing with her hand over her mouth on the sidewalk. Bumblebee tells himself it was not his fault. He plays the recording again from the beginning, watches the young woman hold her skirt down at the sides as she looks both ways. That is when he came around the corner, he did not see her then. Her face did not register shock, or fear. Her head hit against the reinforced glass. There is still a small amount of blood still smeared across his windscreen. He did not see her.

If the humans found out that he was an Autobot, what would they do? They needed the Autobots to protect them. What would Optimus do if he knew? Bumblebee wished he had lungs to fill with air and scream and scream.

The man was on his cellphone, his fingers to the woman’s neck. He looks up at Bumblebee, at the empty driver’s seat. They could not find out. Bumblebee reserves away from the man and the body of the woman. He turns sharply, his tires slide as he rotates completely and he accelerates in the opposite direction faster than a real volkswagen beetle possibly could.
Bumblebee drives away until the roads are clear of other cars and then stops. He wanted to be a hero, a beloved protector, but what does he know about love? He is just a heartless machine pretending, a robot in disguise.