( tf idw 2019; fem!user )

As a freshly forged mech, Rumble didn't fully understand this world, but he was already irrevocably captivated by it. Cybertron hides its beauty, revealing only a small part of itself each cycle and still managing to captivate his young spark with it. Rumble burned with the desire to know the world entirely, but each time Bumblebee cooled his ardor, asserting that he shouldn't rush so much – if you go at too fast a pace, you might miss and walk past something small, yet worthwhile. And Rumble really did try to curb his ardor, but, Primus, sometimes it was so difficult!

Bumblebee insisted that Rumble hadn't come online for no reason – he needed to find his place, accumulate knowledge, and not just admire Cybertron's delights. So Bumblebee introduced him to Cybertronians, each of whom was as interesting as the occupations they had chosen for themselves – Rumble was filled with admiration for most of what he saw and genuinely wondered how, in the end, he was supposed to choose just one profession from among all of this.

But of all the Cybertronians Bumblebee introduced him to, he remembered you especially. Maybe because you used to be a gladiator. He hadn't heard about them often, just in passing, in fragments of short phrases that got lost in the ongoing dialogue between Cybertronians.

Talking to a gladiator – a former gladiator – was interesting. Exciting. Rumble wanted to learn more about gladiatorial combat, about how gladiators made the energon in the crowd's cables flow faster, about how gladiators lived. He wanted to know every detail (and the only reason he hasn't bombarded you with questions yet is his reluctance to be bothersome and annoying).

He was curious to learn about what used to be commonplace on Cybertron and was later banned – why were gladiatorial fights banned? Rumble would definitely ask Bumblebee that later.

"I think those fights must have been exciting," Rumble decided to share his modest opinion. He stood next to you, close by your side, trying not to get underfoot, and gazed thoughtfully off into the distance.

Honestly? His circuits had a hard time picturing what gladiatorial fights were like. Rumble knew they were exciting, possibly brutal, and still, he couldn't quite imagine anything as grand as those fights must have been.

If Bumblebee found out what his student was thinking about and what had captivated his spark, he clearly wouldn't be pleased – no mentor wants their student interested in something illegal. And yet, Rumble couldn't help himself.