insert one arm joke here

[lifepersists]

Who: First Aid and U
Where: Red Alert's clinic
When: Post-Pharma cutting off his arm
What: wow the medics are gimpier than the rest of you guys
Warnings: mild robot gore, a sad cinnamon bun



[ Closed to Ratchet ]

Leaving his arm behind was the last of First Aid's problems. His run in with Pharma left him a bit more damaged up mentally -- and physically -- than he'd care to admit to himself. At the very least, he hadn't lost a wheel, something he was grateful for as he speeds off. Parts of his altmode still dragged as he drove through the city, uneven from the loss of a limb, leaving a trail of sparks and energon puddles behind him.

He had nowhere to go except away from the clinic, no ability to comm someone else to locate him. Eventually, he stops, ducking into a half collapsed building, and weeps privately. Seeing Pharma again brought back the rush of emotions he felt after killing him, making him feel drained for more reasons than the loss of energon.

Well, he's a rightful pathetic scene.

First Aid vents raggedly as he reaches up and brushes his fingers over the shredded joint where his arm used to be. He hisses in pain, pinching at a few ragged lines and clamping them closed, before he starts the arduous task of welding broken parts together. It might make the reattachment harder in the long run, but he'd be bleeding less.

It's a few hours before First Aid returns to the clinic, faint and tired, dirty with grit and sticky with drying energon. Even longer he waits outside, making sure that Pharma had left the premises long enough for him to slip back inside. He's tired-- he really wants to sleep, but he knows well enough that it's pain and energon loss, so instead he drags himself into the main clinic, clutching his shoulder.

"Ratchet?" he asks, trying not to be too loud so he doesn't wake the other patients.

-------

[ OPEN ]

Having only one arm proved to be difficult in accomplishing anything useful. It was a significant blow to First Aid's self esteem, and sometimes he spent ages just staring down at his work, feeling helpless. He couldn't lift with ease, but he could clean as much as he's able with one hand and take care of basic maintenance tasks, such as changing fluids and updating charts. Nurse work. He felt so humiliated.

First Aid touches the stump where his arm used to be, rubbing it thoughtfully. Sometimes he thought he could feel it still. Not really uncommon-- it was a psychological phenomena. Sighing, he drops his hand and begins piling charts, looking over each carefully to make sure that he hadn't missed any details. They didn't have a sophisticated database here, so it was important to keep manual records at the very least.

He picks them up holding them delicately in his hand and attempting to balance them against his chest, but they just end up slipping out of his hand and clattering to the floor.

"Oh--" he makes a soft sound. "Slag."

Comments

[chickscream]

Slipstream had been wandering without purpose-- she usually didn't have much of one, which was fine by her-- and had passed wherever she wanted without anyone seeming to pay her much mind.

The place was still dead and deserted to her Earth-trained eye, lacking in the bustle and the beeping and the foliage and fauna of the place she considered her home, though there were Cybertronians just all over the place. Weird, that.

Anyway. No one had stopped her from wandering into or out of any building she pleased, though perhaps that was because most of the buildings were completely abandoned, and so she doesn't even hesitate to enter one of the lit up and almost-living ones, just in time to hear someone drop a whole pile of things and swear.

This is literally the most interesting thing that's happened since she arrived, and she wanders deeper into the building, folding her wings back so they don't scrape the walls and sticking her head through doorways until she finds the other robot.

"Drop something?" she asks the stranger, her voice harsh but her tone mostly bored, looking him over-- an Autobot, she thinks, but not one she even remotely recognizes.

[lifepersists]

Wow, she's big. First Aid looks up at her from where he was kneeling, trying to pick up some items that he'd dropped. When he gets back to his feet, it doesn't make her look any less tall. It doesn't necessarily bother him; he's fairly used to looking up at people.

"Um, yes, it slipped out of my hand."

Best to take it in stride and try not to feel too badly about it. Adjusting took time, didn't it? Hopefully sometime he'll have his arm back too, since they didn't have the resources to build a new one.

"Do you need assistance?"

[chickscream]

She gives his stump of an arm a faintly incredulous look, but doesn't comment on the single-handed-ness as she comes into the room fully. (There are Decepticon brands on her wings, and she is not even remotely shy about the Autobot seeing them; Autobots don't fly, after all, so her mere existence marks her as a Decepticon, right?) (She's been here for like a day, and if the rules are different she hasn't noticed yet.)

"Naw, I was just exploring. You look like you could use an extra servo, though." She stoops down, and picks up a stray... something-or-other, she has no idea. Some kind of information, but looking at it makes her motherboard glaze over in incomprehension. Turning it idly in her own perfectly functional servos, she asks, "What is this building?"

[lifepersists]

The war is over, and First Aid had never been particularly picky when it came to patients, save for a rare few exceptions. He notes the symbols, but he doesn't even flicker his visor at them.

"Oh, thank you. That's very kind," he murmurs as she picks the pads up, his remaining hand patting her shoulder with his appreciation.

"This is a medical clinic. My name is First Aid. My colleagues are Ratchet and Red Alert. Oh-- and Megatron. He's in training."

A bit... strange for him to acknowledge, really.

[planate]

Pipes was looking down at the medical drone Sixshot had given him when he wandered into the clinic, just giving it another check over to make sure it was still clean and that a murder device hadn't magically attached itself in the last ten seconds. When he hearts the clatter, of course, his first instinct is to help - so his general line of vision goes from the drone, to the datapads on the floor until finally... First Aid. Missing an arm.

"Oh-- my goodness! First Aid, what happened?" he yelps, running over to help gather them up. Pipes considers asking if it was Megatron again, but decides against it - shifting the drone under his arm and fixing the medic with a Very Concerned Look.

[lifepersists]

Goodness! Pipes!

First Aid knew he was around, but actually seeing him was a different story. He stares at him for a full few moments before he gathers himself together, shaking out of his surprised spacing.

"What happened?" he repeats, then looks at the scattered datapads. "Well, they just sort of fell..."

[planate]

First Aid! Goodness!

Pipes hesitates before continuing... maybe First Aid doesn't want to talk about his missing arm. He decides to ask later, if he's not told.

"Y--yeah. They did." He can't help but frown slightly behind his visor while gathering them up. Of course, he doesn't know what First Aid has been through with Trailcutter and Pharma, but assumes he's acting strangely because of missing his goddamn arm. It's worrying, but he still doesn't want to press.

"I, uh. Have something for you..." Trying not to look at the stump...

[lifepersists]

First Aid feels a rush of heat through his frame as he tries to ignore Pipe's heavy stare at his missing arm. He resists the urge to reach up and touch it and instead levels his gaze back, gathering up as many data pads as he can.

"What?" He sounds very surprised, standing up and nearly dropping the pads again before he settles them on a table. "You do?"

[asafepairofhands]

"First Aid?"

Of course Ratchet isn't recharging, but it's dimly lit in the medibay. Ratchet stops and stares when he gets a good look at First Aid's plating, the odd absence where his arm should be. He curses softly and limps over, his optics pale with something like fright.

"What happened?" he hisses, already starting to inspect the wound.

[lifepersists]

First Aid hadn't thought he'd be angry, but seeing Ratchet's face almost makes him wish that he'd run into another medic besides him. Of course Ratchet wouldn't be resting, though. Ever vigilant, never getting enough recharge, even when he was hurt. He turns his head to the side as the older mech checks over the twist of wiring and broken metal at his shoulder, venting softly.

"Pharma."

He wish he'd gotten the chance to kill him again. He wished that Ratchet hadn't just let him go. He feels frustrated-- which is all he can really feel right now that doesn't involve more anxious weeping.

[asafepairofhands]

Ratchet's hands actually falter, stilling for a moment as he stares down at First Aid, lightheaded and sick. There's a dull roaring in his audials as he struggles to process, his ventilation a stalling and his lips parted.

"Hell," he says, woefully inadequate, and he shudders a little before he forces himself to move again, patching carefully, his hands gentle. "Anything else, besides the cuts?" He gets to work on those as soon as the shoulder isn't leaking, his face weirdly calm, almost empty.

[lifepersists]

"Well, my arm's off?" At least he was trying to have some sense of humor. First Aid is tired though and his visor dims after. "Been a few hours. Did what I could to stop the bleeding."

That's a hint that he should probably lay down, since he was feeling somewhat faint, his plating unusually cool. First Aid starts moving towards a berth without waiting for Ratchet's response, wobbling slightly.

"He was hanging around outside the clinic."

[system_dp]

While Miria wasn't horribly injured, she had figured that the medical building may need some protection. Especially considering the fact the one medic she's personally met was missing a limb, the earth built transformer doesn't have much faith in the Cybertronians not getting themselves killed. So whilst she is carefully sulking about the area, mostly outside, she happened to go inside at the right moment for First Aid's mishap.

"Do you require assistance?" She asks in her monotone as she heads towards the source of the sound, aka First Aid. Also don't mind her staring when she gets there, really.

[lifepersists]

She's tiny. First Aid isn't sure how long he stares, but when he shakes himself out of it, that's the first thing he notices. His only experience with humans were what he saw in movies and holomatters. Seeing a real human -- what he thinks is a human -- is a whole different experience.

"Hello," he says then looks down at the scattered patients' charts. "Usually I'm the one asking that. I think I have this though. I just need to not try and overdo it."

[system_dp]

The armor-y bits might help in making First Aid reconsider that train of thought of her being human. And she doesn't reply at first, just watching him for what probably felt like too long.

"Is it a requirement for Cybertronian medics to be missing limbs?" she asks, blatantly looking at the area where his arm should be. And hey, if he doesn't try to stop her she will attempt to help and she's actually taller then a human should be.

Kind of closer to minibot sized, really.

[lifepersists]

To be fair, he's never seen a human in the flesh before to tell him he's wrong in assuming. She looks like a human well enough.

First Aid raises his hand to the vacant stump of his shoulder awkwardly, brushing his fingers against it.

"My arm will be reattached once it's recovered."

[phase6kindofbot]

There's a giant robot dog head peering at First Aid from the clinic's back door. You know, whenever the poor medic decides to look in that direction. Sixshot doesn't exactly call out.

He doesn't say much of anything really. The Sixer just crouches there, blocking up the entrance with his massive bulk, paws tucked under his chest.

Watching.

How long has he even been waiting there?

[lifepersists]

The back door was a source of quite a bit of stress for the little medic lately. When he turns and finally looks towards the back door, he nearly jumps out of his plating, his venting stuttering. He recovers quick, clutching his remaining hand over his spark.

"Sixshot!" his tone was scolding. First Aid ignores the mess he made for the moment in favor of marching over to the phase sixer.

"You startled me. How long have you been there? You should have said something!"

[phase6kindofbot]

"You were busy," Sixshot intones neutrally, although the sight of First Aid marching over does make him lower his head slightly, mollified.

A normal mech would have walked over and helped First Aid, but Sixshot didn't really have that kind of manner trained into him. In fact, walking over and helping had mostly been poorly received, what with the whole 'Phase Sixer' thing.

[gimmicky]

For lack of anything better to do, and to keep an eye on Nautica as she was recovering, Trailcutter had been making ins and outs of the medical bay, softly dodging the Megatron that worked there. Not that he didn't think he was friendly but...awkward conversation was immensely awkward. This time, though, is different.

First Aid is there doing paperwork. That's already strange. And...the fact that First Aid has one arm.

Yeah. That's new.

"F-First Aid?!" His exclamation is knocked short by the charts splaying across the floor. And despite his bulk, he could not have moved faster if he tried to pick those up. "W..What happened to you!?"

[lifepersists]

First Aid appreciates the concern, but he had to admit to himself that every time he laid optics on Trailcutter he switched automatically into fretting mode. He meets the other mech's worry with his own, glancing over his frame as he bends to gather the chart, and then places a hand over his shoulder.

"I was attached, but I'm all right. It doesn't hurt anymore."

It's true enough, physically at least. His right hand had been his primary hand, and while he could use his left fine, he found himself trying to utilize an arm that wasn't there anymore often.

"Pharma's alive."

[gimmicky]

He knows First Aid tends to care more about the patients than his own wellbeing, and maybe that was the cause of the worry. Either way, they were both locked in fretting over the other.

"Can you get it fixed? I mean...hard to do surgery with one arm."

His eyes keep darting to it, that frown becoming ever more apparent. If there's one thing that gave Trailcutter away, it was his facial expressions. And it shows in the way it goes from sad to shocked, almost knocking the same data pads he'd just picked up.

"WHAT?!"

[rodders]

Rodimus either has the best or the worst luck in the world - it probably depends on where you're standing and what's just happened. He'd gone out looking for two somethings while Drift had been sleeping, reluctant to leave the place where so many of his crew were laid up to begin with. But then he sees First Aid fumble with the datapads and the empty joint where an arm should be and--

"Not you too." Rodimus says with a groan, tempted to drag a hand down his face if he wasn't holding onto Drift's swords that he'd gone and fetched for his friend. And brought back into a clinic because he doesn't see a problem with this plan. "Are you kidding? Please tell me this is now a joke between medics."

Why is everyone intent on de-limbing and maiming his crew?!

[lifepersists]

First Aid shoots Rodimus a mildly annoyed look, but it's brief. Rodimus can't help the fact he says some stupid things sometimes. He can tell he means well, even if he-- brings weapons into their medibay.

He stands straight and walks over, giving a tap to the swords in his captain's hand.

"Have you gotten clearance to bring these in here?" Because that's what was important, not his arm or lack there of.

[rodders]

"What-- I'm the captain, I make the clearances." Or whatever it's called. Had Megatron banned weapons? Probably not, he'll override it if he did. "And anyway, I'm here to give these to Drift."

Yeah, sorry, the missing arm is kind of important to Rodimus because it is just one more limb people keep ridding his crew of. And himself, but he seems to be in the minority that his actually could be reattached.

"Who did it? Tarn? The crazy Megatron with no nose?" Just lay it on him, First Aid.