step one: stop fighting robots

[wreckers]

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. ]

Comments

[wreckers]

Didn't say it was a weakness. Just a strength not a lot of us understand.

[ Verity doesn't tense up and pats Bumblebee reassuringly on the arm. Maybe Ratchet had her used to physical reassurance now, or simply she did like Bee and saw him as friend. Occam's Razor cut through the barriers that made tête-à-tête difficult. ]

Not a bad stopgap. Draw a smiley face on it and I'll even ask him or maybe even Impactor to tattoo the brand on my other shoulder or something. Somewhere easy to see.

[ At first she sounds like she turned the comment into a lighthearted - until now she actually thought about it. ]

Or I should to Optimus.

Thing is - I do want to fight. Even if I have to upgrade my armor enough times to fund a new cyberformed planet. Thing is even five years ago I thought about it, and there's only two ways to go out for me now. Dead in fifty years which isn't even a blip on your radar, or a smoking crater where I lost a game of tag with an ion blaster.

War or not I still want to fight. I don't connect well with other humans, never did - moreso now, and even though I'm not made of tougher stuff at least I chose to. No one put a gun in my hand and watered down data packets about a planet I never hope to see the moment I woke up. Roadbuster? He's big enough not to stand tippy toe with Magnus, but he couldn't even read the documents telling him he was an Autobot. MTOs don't after the luxury of choosing sides like I still do.

[ Verity laughed despite herself. ]

Shit, now I'm the one naval gazing.

[taselikeabee]

[ Verity's right, to a degree. it's something that Bee thinks they all need - someone to see the best in things. that sort of thing passes hope onto them as well. a little anyway.

Bumblebee does fall silent when she starts to talk. if Verity thinks that Bee is against it - ]

If you want to fight, then fight. [ shrugs. ] But know that there's a time to fight and then there's a time to lay down arms. You've got to know how to balance it.

[ after all, it had been Bumblebee that said that they need to defy Prowl's orders and go to that abandoned base with the humans. Bee never has thought of them as a weak race or unworthy to fight alongside. ]

Didn't one of your presidents say "speak softly but carry a big stick?"

[ meaning he totally thinks it's okay for Verity to want to fight - but when it's appropriate to. ]

[wreckers]

Theodore Roosevelt coined the phrase over a century ago and later applied to his foreign policy. People throw it around a lot but at its heart even then you're leaning on some more Machiavellian logic with that approach.

[ Maybe not the point you were trying to make, Verity but curb your pedantic need to get a word in edgewise. ]

I can play nice.

[taselikeabee]

[ at least Bee doesn't seem to mind. he's still grinning either way. he has missed this. more than he's realized. ]

No, you really can't. [ Verity is the fieriest out of the humans they had encountered. ] But that's fine, you being you.

[wreckers]

Alright. [ She takes it for the compliment that it can be condtrued as. ]

War over officially or not, conflict in and if itself doesn't exclusive involve willing participants. Were that the case you and I would never have met.

[ Even if she was grateful instead of bitter, Verity remembers clearly how Earth coldly transitioned from peripheral to a primary theater of war. ]

[taselikeabee]

I know. To be honest, I think that's been one of the few positive outcomes of the war.

[ because Bee has encountered plenty of different races. he's made plenty of friends too. ]

Well. Besides kick Sentinel and Zeta out of Primacy.

[wreckers]

Not dying in a halfway house is an acceptable price for joining up with a suicide squad kicking around since the mesozoic era.

[ Verity was speaking in hyperbole, but no Cybertronian ever had to go unwanted through an uncaring foster system. Enough that homelessness and hitchhiking seemed and preferable alternative. ]

Sentinel...Zeta...

[ Her brow furrows, drawing up half-remembered names from old texts. ]

Zeta was Optimus's predecessor and Sentinel was the dumb muscle, right? Just one more reason a title like Prime leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

[taselikeabee]

Guess there are worse ways of dying. Personally, I like my job. But then again, that's probably why I wouldn't be good on that squad. Although, I probably have more near deaths than they do.

[ Bee gets shot at. a lot. his little frame is still lucky to be standing.

however, he nods at Verity's recognition of those names. he also agrees about the whole Prime thing. ]

You can see why our people, upon being called home, were weary of Optimus. It doesn't matter how noble the guy's spark was... The people don't trust Primes. It's unfair, really. Sentinel was bad, but he wasn't as batshit as Zeta.

[ after all, Bee did work under Sentinel for a while. ]

[wreckers]

I shouldn't have outlived any of them. Any of you - but it didn't work out like that.

[ Again, not that she was bitter. ]

Read something about Zeta being the fulcrum for rights for the Disposable slave caste and so on. You know; history has a way of introducing the worst tyrants with the most admirable intentions.

I'm familiar enough with Megatron's edict that I'd like to believe it's happened enough in one lifetime. That Optimus can do better.

[taselikeabee]

That's... Unfortunately our luck is kind of like that. Who knows. You might get to see some of the others again. You know. Here. Death doesn't seem to mean much.

[ just in case she wanted to see them all again. Bee would like to think so, but you never know. ]

Zeta had been a good guy at one point. Optimus, as Orion, vouched for him and everything. He, just like Megatron, kind of lost the vision. He basically created an energon sucking weapon to try to get rid of the Decepticons. It just drained it from people too.

[ that had been... way too extreme. Bee doesn't understand how it happens. but then again maybe leadership and having such things on someone's shoulder just chips away at the spark. slowly. like rust. ]

As for Optimus... Yes. He could. I think that the people need to realize that first. He needs to as well.