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.

[chickscream]

She looks at him, then down at the data pads, and then back at him. Kind? Curious, more like, but she's not going to turn down the thanks, as weird as she feels getting them. The pat on the shoulder is also weird, but Autobots are a different breed, she supposes.

Now, the really weird thing is the last name he mentions, and her look turns into staring.

"Megatron. Leader of the Decepticons, Megatron? Big, grey, competent, tries to kill Starscream? That particular bot?"

He's one of the few people she can imagine following; the image of him, what, putting robot bandaids on people's boo-boos? make her snort a disbelieving laugh. "Nurse Megatron. Allspark, you've got to be pulling my leg."

[lifepersists]

First Aid tilts his head, horribly amused by her disbelief. He gives a little chuckle himself, turning away to get back to some work while he talks with her.

"I suppose he is doing nurse work at the moment, but he's training to be a full doctor. He's not quite... built for it, but we'll see how he does. I have to say, he excels at what he puts his mind to."

And what a mind.

"But yes, Megatron."

[chickscream]

"You have to be messing with me," she tells him. "I'll believe it when I see it. Is he around often?"

Yeah, okay, you sound so disbelieving, Slipstream.

"Doctor Megatron," she murmurs to herself, and giggles. How absurd is that?

Absently, she picks up all the rest of the data pads and sets them on the desk, then props herself against it. "So I guess there's no war happening here, huh? 'Cause I can't imagine Megatron being let into an Autobot clinic under combat circumstances..."

[lifepersists]

"Fairly often. He's in training, so... he needs to be around to learn."

And they had no shortage of patients to work on, thanks to Tarn and the other Megatrons and so on. Reminded him of the flurry of activity on Delphi.

"The war is over," First Aid murmurs absently as he starts taking inventory. "Megatron was my captain prior to arrival here. He found a loophole, you see, in the laws. We can't proceed with his trial until we find the Knights of Cybertron."