robothell | step one: stop fighting robots

Entry tags:

step one: stop fighting robots

Who: Verity and OPENish
Where: Autobot Clinic
When: Noooow??
What: The fallout of this
Warnings: Injuries, TBD.

[ Once she shook loose from Arcee, Verity bagged out. She was not inclined to trust anyone let alone someone closely associated with Prowl, on good terms or not, but she trusted Arcee to run interference long enough for her to clear out of there. Running away happened to be one of Verity's talents and one she took immediate advantage of when the opportunity presented itself. ]

Shit - shit.

[ Burning rubber screeched on the metal floor of the clinic followed by a loud crash when a disoriented Verity slammed into a nearby steel utility table; spilling all kinds of equipment onto the floor. The clinic was dark - of course it was, everyone was off getting stupid at that party at the forum. Verity swore louder as she staggered up and waved her arm wildly in front of a motion sensor near the doorframe that brought the lights back on.

I fucked up, was all Verity could think while stumbling through the clinic wildly searching for anything that looked human friendly. ]

Enough people on this rock they should have painkillers or someth- hnng.

[ Verity stopped near a minicon sized gurney. She pulled herself up and once she was sitting felt the full force of what a little scuffle with something rip snorting pissed off and over thirty feet tall did. The plates of her armor retracted back until she was down to her clothes. Stomach rolling as she took rapid shallow breaths close to hyperventilating, pulling her shirt up to find angry red and purple bruising covering her entire right side. She cringed, looking down to see the inflamed mess that was her foot that twisted awkwardly at the ankle.

Winded, Verity collapsed on her back. Leaving her armor in pieces around her on the ground as she tried to steady her breathing. ]

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[ Verity's hand stills over the rim of the glass, eyes glued - frozen to the water that sloshed near the lip. Like that scene in Jurassic Park where time stops in that heart clenching scene where a glass of water adds to the tense feeling unreality of when the other, literal, foot drops. ]

Bullshit.

[ She takes her pills quick as if she were doing a line of shots. Laughing off the idea of having just had Megatron the Megatron fumbling with handing over her bra and changing her bandages. It just didn't happen. This guy's voice alone told her he was, what? Robot twelve - at least. ]

I'm all for dreaming big but whittle it down, kiddo.

[ Only her stomach just flipped over and she was sweating again. Was it a nausea? She did mental gymnastics over when she last ate. ]

I have no desire to start a war here, if that's what you're concerned about. I've been well informed of how deeply misguided it becomes.

[Not that he's saying he'd never push for violently removing the Senate, but that issue isn't relevant here where their commune was small and far kinder to its people.]

Verity? Are you alright?

[He notices her uncomfortable expression and wonders if she might have swallowed something incorrectly.]

You get off because time is weird.

[ Criticism was ineffectual when you were condemning someone for something that hadn't even happened - yet. Verity is dimly aware she is being disproportionately calm about the minor detail of being alone and helpless in a room with an autocrat in their adolescence.

Mostly she's concerned with why the air in the room feels dense all of a sudden, and why her stomach is suddenly lurching like she ate something disagreeable. Did she eat? When? ]

Weird.

[ Verity puts her hand on the edge of the gurney with her feet touching the ground as though she means to stand. Only her arms bend forward then everything goes black - her chest tightens and she chokes out a strangled, high-pitched sound before before she collapses in a heap.

The ensuing chain reaction is immediate and violent in her her arms cross at the wrists tight down the front of her chest with the muscles in her limbs uncomfortably taut as a ragged groan shakes in her throat with spittle rolling down her chin. It gets worse before it shows any sides of subsiding. Exaggerated convulsions start to wrack through her body in a terrible rhythm that picks up before it slows to a with her arms stretched out and her knees kicking out weakly. ]

"Do you think the more doggerel verses in Megatron's romantic phase was early fumbling or some kind of swipe at popular literature? Hell, what was popular during the Senate years?"

Verity looked up from the tablet she had balanced on her bent knees, end of a electronic pen still in her mouth. Back propped against the wall with her knees up and a blanket underneath her the spot on Ratchet's desk she annexed for herself was almost cozy. Almost if she weren't making increasingly obvious attempts to fill the stale and oppressively awkward air in the room with words. Ratchet was working, and Verity was throwing out her entire arsenal of conversation starters without much luck.

It had been a little more than a week since what had now been cleverly rebranded The Incident, and four days since her seizure. A lot had happened in that short span of time and while Verity had all but received a clean bill of health she had stayed in the clinic even after the line about staying for observation was exhausted. Truthfully, she didn't want to risk finding Prowl still sniffing around her usual haunts - and neither did she want to leave Ratchet alone when he was looking older by the day. If that were possible for a giant robots. Verity set her tablet and pen down. If just to make a noise.

"You're awful quiet."

[Megatron feels his spark sink as she goes from speaking normally to collapsing on the floor in a convulsing heap in a few seconds. There's a moment of panic where he drops the tools in his hands to hover over her - uncertain what to do.]

[After putting himself together, he pushes the gurney away to avoid having her limbs get entangled in it, and seizes his communicator, voice forceful through the link.]

Ratchet, Verity needs you here now! And bring June if she's with you!

[But nearly as soon as the seizure started, it slows to a stop, and he sits there with comm open and a look of poorly contained dismay.]

-'m ff.

[ It was a little over a few minutes later when she started coming around. That I'm fine was both a blatant lie in the face of surmounting evidence to the contrary but also poorly executed. Verity was barely string together two consonants together that vowels would just be an act of hubris at this stage.

Sprawled out on the floor with no recollection of how she got there, all Verity could figure was that the floor was both cold and uncomfortable. And that coming too with bright fluorescents burning through eyelids squeezed shut and Megatron shouting over her was also deeply unpleasant. ]

Belay that.

[ Apparently Star Trek lingo was where her vernacular cleaved to after a seizure as she waved him off and started trying to fruitlessly reach for the edge of the gurney. ]

"Not sure," Ratchet says in absent answer to her question. "Never read his poetry. Not really my thing."

Ratchet looks up from the tools he's cleaning and sets them down, easing up into his crutches and limping closer, smoothly now after so long on them.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, not really answering her question, his optics intent on her face as he stops next to the countertop she's curled up on.

"Fine." Verity answered automatically because at this point it was an almost conditioned response to snub personal questions about her own well-being. Even when it was Ratchet and she didn't want to in the first place. The heavy sigh that followed was long, drawn out and absolutely unnecessary.

"Ignored wasn't a symptom last time I checked." Fingers drummed on the countertop to fill the spaces fissured between them by the silence. "How're you feeling?"

Ratchet actually has the grace to look vaguely guilty.

"Sorry. We're just still getting set up here. More supplies are coming in by the day, and there's a lot to organize--and the more organized we are, the faster we can move in a crisis."

It's a bullshit excuse and he knows it, but it's the only one he's got just now. He looks away from Verity's face briefly.

"I'm all right. Getting good enough on these crutches that my bum leg isn't slowing me down too much." By 'bum' he means 'missing entirely', and his shoulders and elbows and wrists and his remaining leg ache, but he glosses over that entirely. He shrugs a little into his crutches. "We have enough supplies, and fuel, and space. Can't ask for much else, besides a few problem elements to spontaneously be swallowed by the ground and never seen nor heard from again."

"'Taking stock' - got it. You know I'd be happy to help with that."

Verity's gaze carefully tracked Ratchet when he looked away. Making some attempt to gauge him. Navigate where the line was drawn before the topic prodded too deep and he slammed the veritable door in her face, shutting down. Then find that line again and cross it with brazen impunity. Like you do.

"Maybe I'm not a doctor but given the brain trust kicking around here sitting on their hands let alone the run of the place we have resource wise..." Verity leaned forward, head titled and crossed arms on her knees, "Can't you get a new leg? Bit of snarl if our best physician can't get around, isn't it?"

A-5. You sunk my battleship. Verity casually broached the subject right where it hurt.

"Ratchet," And she kept going. "What's going on?"

Ratchet stiffens, but surprisingly does not open his sufficiently large maw and bite her head clean off. His jaw does tighten, overtaxed gears grating slightly.

"These things," he shifts a crutch more firmly into the ground, "are lighter, faster, and more easily replaceable than a prosthetic would be, and my leg is... currently damaged beyond what we have the capability to repair." His vents heave in a sigh. "Because I had to strip out a lot of the more delicate internal wiring to repair somebody else's vocalizer after Tarn ripped it out with his bare hands. A lot of the important components--including the ones that would let me shift into alt mode--are hollow inside at this point."

His optics narrow a little. "At any rate, there's no consensus that I'm the best physician here, and I can get around just fine, so don't you worry about it, all right? It's just--we have more pressing problems wandering around than my damn leg."

"No consensus?" Verity echoed with a sour look the wrinkled around her scrutinizing gaze. "Compared to who? Nurse Megatron before cyber-puberty skyrockets isolated dissent into universal genocide, or the one other human with the good head on her shoulders? You out pace all of them."

Were it not for the twisted ankle, Verity would have shot up to her feet to challenge Ratchet's attempts to stonewall her again. Instead she attempted to make sitting down look tough. Hard to be intimidating when sitting criss-cross applesauce. Even glaring.

"And why can't I worry? You did more than your fair share of worrying on my behalf." She snapped. "You're our best buffer to most of these 'pressing problems' one of them was suffocating on her own lungs while laid out on a gurney a week ago. We're screwed without you. Deal with it - and me."

Ratchet snorts. "There are other medics here, you know. And I'm not CMO anymore--I mentioned that before. Gave up the job just a little while ago. Seemed time, after--"

He cuts himself off, lips tightening. Verity has had a rough enough couple of years--she certainly doesn't need all of his accumulated baggage on top of her own.

"After everything," he concludes firmly. "Anyway, worry about it if you want, but it's hardly necessary. You were the one seizing recently--spend that energy on not doing that again instead, it'll be more productive."

"To the little guy missing an arm?" Jaw tightened to a point with her arms crossed tight enough to pop a stich, Verity clearly was not going to budge. "Not going to second guess the guy, but this kind of downsizing is more than absurd."

In an instant, she sniffed out thread of a sentence that Ratchet dropped and jumped on it. For whatever ails her, she could put that aside when it was more than a little obvious these last few years had really put Ratchet through the gauntlet. Even though being reminded of the seizure had her hard stare suddenly falling to the floor.

"Brain isn't as easily replaced," She shrugged as though it were no big deal. "Take it up with the hornets nest on four wheels that shook it around."

Looking back at Ratchet, bottom lip sucked bloodless between her teeth, she shored up all her energy for this argument.

"What fresh hell has been going on with you?"

"Oh, I intend to," Ratchet says with deadly calm, thinking of wrapping his hands around that 'hornet's nest's neck and shaking until his brain module rattled around in his head like a penny in a tin can. It didn't do much to inhibit Cybertronian function, but the human gesture of strangulation had an odd sort of satisfaction to it nevertheless.

"In the meantime," he continues mildly, "that 'little guy missing an arm' is one of the most intelligent, competent, and creative field medics I've ever met, even if his personal choices tend towards the eccentric. And he's not above scut work, either, which is a rarer trait than all the others I listed put together. I wouldn't knock him if I was you."

But clearly his room to prevaricate had run out. He heaves air into his vents on a rough sigh.

"Verity, my hands... they just--" It's still surprisingly difficult to talk about. "They just... quit. Nothing was broken, nothing to be repaired, they just slowly, and then not-so-slowly, at the end, stopped working almost entirely. I tried to keep going, but--well. A patient died--at least one patient died for my stubbornness." He still remembers that NAIL who'd transformed himself to death, his face and his alt mode and his name, laid fresh near the top of a heaping pile of five million years' worth of failures and maybes and almosts. A last straw. They sag Ratchet's shoulders now for a brief moment, wishing he'd been able to fix it, if only to let the other mech be a thorn in Bee's side another day. Thinking of Bee is too painful altogether and he shakes his head, lips pursing.

"Anyway, I joined up with The Lost Light to see if I could find a new CMO, since by the time we took off I could barely hold a glass, let alone... y'know. Anything else. All but useless." His optics slide away. "I thought I'd found one when we passed Delphi--and old friend of mine from university, name of Pharma. That didn't work out so great. But it's where
I found First Aid, so--"

He stops abruptly, optics jerking back to Verity's face.

"Listen to me," he says, suddenly urgent. "I don't know if you've run into Pharma yet but if not please--please I am asking you, just steer clear of him. He's a jet, little taller than me, blue and white with a red helm with orange accents. He's the direct reason First Aid is missing an arm, all right? He's crazy, and he's dangerous."

"He's--..." You caught him mid sentence, Verity. Okay, maybe...maybe he needs a new way to phrase that. "He's changed, certainly. But he's still Prowl, the way you remember him. ...Somewhere."

It's almost as if Optimus is searching for that too. The Prowl that didn't insist the fight was still going, enough to chase Verity down and harm her. They'd been friends, and in the end he'd still hurt her.

Although a small part of him does raise a fist to imitate hers, if...out of pure curiosity. YEAH GO DEMOCRACY he can hear Prowl groaning from here.

"Everything said now will be kept confidential, Verity. Whoever you want to know about this is your decision. I"m just one of the choices." Although that didn't mean Prowl was off limits. He certainly already knew. "Do you need anything?"

Dad's going out.

Verity bit her lip and tucked her head with her chin touching her chest in an effort to stem the smile creeping across her face when she saw Optimus attempt a power fist that bordered on self-effacing. It made him look meek. It made him look as vulnerable as he might very well be under all that plating. Made him human. She blew air through her teeth in a suffocated laugh and raised her head, nodding.

"Just one thing." The small hint of a smile faded. "Whatever happens - I'm the closed loop. Prowl nearly datamined more than the trials and I need you to know that it stays with me. Away from anyone looking to raise hell on this rock."

Verity pointedly did not specify any potential hellraisers as simply Decepticons - or Autobot.

"I think Prowl believes loyalty is really his last saving grace - and on that, we agree. You and I will share words later."

Edited 2015-06-05 03:01 (UTC)

Seeing that smile, no matter how well hidden it was...it was reassuring. Proof that he was doing at least one thing right here. Although what she says does make him contemplative. It would be safer out of Cybertronian hands, certainly. It had been so far.

If they could just keep that secret, then there'd be no issues.

"Alright. I'm trusting you with it's care. Maybe if I can talk sense into Prowl--" There's...slightly less confidence in that sentence, but he's certainly putting on his best act. "--it'll be between us."

...

There's a soft vent at the mention of a talk. "I guess we will. But until then..." he glances at the armor that's...probably seen better days. "You might want to put in an order for an upgrade. Just in case."

[Ratchet explodes into the room, moving faster on his crutches than he looks like he should be able to, his optics flicking wildly to Megatron's face, then following his gaze to the floor near the gurney without pausing. He stops at Megatron's side, slamming one crutch down onto the nearest bare, flat surface and slipping the other one out from under his arm so he can grip the handle and bend down swiftly, scooping Verity up one-handed. He draws her in against him, hand under her thighs and against her back as he presses her to his chest and straightens until her head is lolling onto his shoulder and just holds her there for a long, frozen moment before he can feel her breathe against his plating.]

You have an incredibly misguided definition of the word 'fine.' [The words are scathing but his tone is low and almost soft as he manages to limp very unsteadily towards the gurney again, ready to put her back down if necessary. He keeps her close for a moment, though, as he looks up at Megatron. His tone is sharp but without accusation.]

What the hell happened?

"I know his type - in love with what he does come hell or high water." Verity leaned back on her hands with her eyes drifting towards the other end of the room but looking a thousand miles away. There was a twinge of guilt in her less than charitable first impression of First Aid now that it stirred up an that yawning chasm in her chest called nostalgia with the easily drawn comparison between him and someone else like him.

"You know how to pick him."

Her ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she rolled back up on her feet. Mindful of the ankle in its brace as she hobbled slow over to Ratchet.

"Ratchet." Her hands weren't necessarily small, but both of them barely wrapped around the narrowest joint of his littler finger. She looked up at him and squeezed, tight as she could to be sure he felt it.

"Pharma had something to do with these, didn't he?"

[ you know how word gets around, yeah? so it really shouldn't be too surprising to see one minibot finding his way to the clinic.

he doesn't say much. Bee doesn't have to kneel to get low to the makeshift bed. honestly he sits down next to it. this could be a little awkward, considering Bee hadn't really had much contact with humans in the last oh... what is it now? year and a half? two years? something like that. maybe even longer where Verity herself is concerned. ]

It's been a while since I've seen your happy face around.

[ a light ribbing, honestly. yes, Bumblebee could ask how she is doing, but that's probably obvious isn't it? besides... he doesn't remember her liking the 'fragile human' treatment very much. might as well try a different direction, right? ]

[ Verity was buried down deep somewhere under the haze of painkillers and the near constant checkups from Ratchet or June. Eyes screwed tight she sits herself up on the gurney part blanket nest, rubbing her eyes around the dark circles strained under them. She blinks slowly against the bright lights until the voice and the dark shape beside the bed takes on a more familiar countenance. And the name just falls out of her mouth. ]

Bumblebee...?

[ The gears unstick themselves and start turning. Verity is suddenly up and alert. ]

Holy s- Bee!?

Edited 2015-06-07 18:59 (UTC)

[ pfft. that makes for kind of an amusing scene. okay, so the circumstances are horrible and getting injured like that? horrible. not laughing at that. just the sudden surprise and bedhead. that's what the half laugh is for. ]

Don't get up too fast. Might make yourself dizzy and then I really will get in trouble with our favorite medic.

[ still. nice to see some excitement. ]

[ Verity waved him off, pulling herself up to throw her legs over the side of the gurney. Enough room to close the gap and while she couldn't feasibly hug someone that big, even a minicon, she could awkwardly get an arm around with the gesture close enough to still hold its intent. ]

Shut up, I'm not made of glass. Ratchet's all hot air.

[ Covered head to toe in bandages with an IV bag attached to her arm made that statement a hardsell. But she wasn't in any immediate pain, and more importantly it was good to see a friendly face out here. ]

It's been...Christ, it's been a while.

Megatron had mentioned that Verity had been admitted to the Medical bay, and although Ratchet had probably suggested he not touch anything (at this point he was nurse only in title thanks to First Aid), he couldn't help but peek in to check up on her. She was...after all, someone he knew. Maybe not now, but further down the line.

He's curious, okay.

He wanders in, without making a sound from his mouth, although his footsteps are another matter entirely. He's not the most graceful goose on the lake. "You awake?"

Well if she isn't, she probably would be now. These are his bedside manners aren't they great.

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Page 3 of 5

step one: stop fighting robots

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for Ratchet

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>_>; yeah lets go with like a day or two later

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days later