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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"What the fresh, slagging hell--"

Fortunately, Ratchet had left the party (such as it was) as early as he possibly could manage without upsetting Ironhide directly. He nearly tripped over the toppled table, feeling it foul his crutches as his foot slipped on the tools, hopping free and looking absolutely livid as he looked around trying to figure out who had knocked around in the medibay kicking things over. He freezes when he catches sight of the small, limp form on the table, his expression calcifying and the bottom falling from his tanks.

"Verity," he manages, voice ragged and shaky as he limps over as fast as he can, shaking his second crutch free of the mess on the floor. "What happened--?"

Ratchet shouting and knocking around the clinic comes in deluded; Verity hears it barely as though her head was half submerged in water. The pain drilling into her temples spikes then subsides when her eyes flutter open. Slowly, very slowly, she pushed herself up on her good side.

"Heey, Ratchet," Her voice cracks dry in her throat as she weakly gives Ratchet a half-wave and a wry lopsided grin, "We have to stop meeting like this."

"You damned, stupid--" Ratchet's vocalizer whines thin and staticky with fright as he stumps over to the side of the gurney and leans hard into his crutches to free up both hands, reaching down to cup the back of her head, his fingertips feather-light. They come away a darker red than before and his belly lurches.

"Lay back down, please," he says, his voice numb and weirdly calm now, his optics pale, pale blue. "I need to get the human kit. Move as little as possible."

"Reckless kid." Verity supplies weakly, arm waving him off before it weakly flops back down on the gurney along with the rest of her. She hisses sharply through her teeth when she does because robot gurneys were in want of padding.

"Ribs." Verity said thinly, hiking up her shirt up and motioning to the dark bruises lashed across her side to Ratchet before he could work himself up into a fit.

Ratchet scoops up the kit and comes back--he doesn't look like he's close to a fit now. He doesn't look like he's close to an anything. His face is blank and smooth as he works almost mechanically, slipping a pad under her head and touching slowly, carefully, checking her for broken bones with delicate fingers, unwilling to use untested diagnostic scanners on her more delicate frame. The frozen look in his optic is far removed from his usual loud rancor as he works, and he barely says anything at all, except to ask questions.

"Broken, or cracked?" he asked, pressing soft fingertips to her side, unwilling to push too hard to check. "Can you tell?"

"Cracked." She rasps with a slight slur in her words and eyes barely dilating or reacting to the light held over her.

Blinking slowly, Verity watches with distant interest as Ratchet shifts back into the cool under fire surgeon that earned him the reputation for being the best of the best.

"Ankles twisted." She bonelessly motioned to the swollen mess she made of her left foot while fighting for consciousness.

"Stay with me, Verity," Ratchet says sharply. "Don't fall asleep." He has next to no idea how he's going to enforce this, but he cups her head and shoulders in one hand and tapes her ribs meticulously, then moves his hand down to touch her shin. His jaw sets as he feels very carefully at her ankle, carefully not looking at her face as he shifts it gently back into alignment then sets her down so he can wrap it into place too.

He draws back once he's done, staring down at her face, the helpless disfocus of her eyes, his tanks churning as he slips a hand under her again to prop her up a little.

"Stay with me."

Optimus had been keeping tabs on the medical bay since everyone returned, wanting to make sure everything was accounted for and taken care of. Call it one more responsibility added to his list in this place, but certainly one he didn't mind. But hearing a crash like that certainly didn't sound good, and Optimus's earpiece perks up in alertness as he follows it, making sure to watch his footing. Came with the territory when you're one of the taller members of the species.

But he doesn't expect to see a human there--and more importantly, one he knows.

"Verity."

Yes, Optimus, you're good at this. "You're here? You're...injured." Oh god, and pretty badly too. He hurries over, kneeling down at a slight distance to make way for his size, to get a closer look. "We haven't had contact from you in ages...is anything broken?"

He guesses, but...best to let the human tell him instead of being an ass of u and me. Hands gesture out to attempt to get her to a better place than the floor.

"I'm not asleep, jerk." Verity somehow managed to sound bullheaded even as her voice was a slurred whisper with her eyes half shut and nothing more than a ragdoll limp in Ratchet's hand.

In outstanding defiance to common sense, licking around the universe with the Wreckers she had someone managed to walk away without being seriously injured. Not even after Garrus-9. Having a long shadow by the name of Ultra Magnus probably had something to do with it, but she had been lucky - it had never been this bad. There was such a disconnected feeling in being in this kind of pain. Her senses dulled while her limbs still burned with residual energy even as she was totally laid out.

And then, miraculously, she was breathing. The sudden pressure alleviated from her lungs as if Ratchet did a shunt filled her chest with burning, wonderful air. Verity gasped and jolted up, doubling over and coughing up a lung.

"Holy shit!"

"I've been seen."

Verity said thinly before the wide shadow at the door filled the room followed by the massive figure stitched to it. Ratchet went above and beyond a patch job, but she was still fatigued and not doing anything more taxing than sitting up. And yet the hard way her eyes case the room then fall on Optimus.

"Optimus."

"Verity!"

Ratchet's hands came around her, propping her head carefully and staring down into her face, touching her jaw with one fingertip as he struggles to brace her, the corners of his mouth crimped.

"Easy."

Verity could not budge an inch with Ratchet's hands around him which steadied out her breathing. Leaning heavily on him, Verity regained some lucidity.

"Ratchet," She smiled weakly before it waned, "Hey."

"Don't," Ratchet says, cupping the back of her head very gingerly, settling one hand against her to hold her still. "Don't do that to me." He's silent for a long moment, just holding her carefully, his thumb settling very lightly over her heartbeat.

"What happened to you?"

"Ratchet, I assume," his voice is soft as he gestures to the handiwork, slowly approaching.

That gaze could pierce even the toughest armour, and Optimus can't help but soften his own at it. He knew Verity, and knew how tough she was--knew how RESOURCEFUL she was.

This had to be something to get her swept up like this.

"I was unaware of your presence here. But it's good to see you, all things considered." He just hopes the feeling is mutual.

"I'm okay." Verity says, more to Ratchet than anything.

Breathing still ragged with shallow breaths as though she speaking through a lungful of boiling water, she still needed more than the emergency care that brought her out of the woods. Stable and intelligible was good enough for the time being.

"I'm okay, Ratchet." Hand over his thumb she can almost feel the heavy beating of her heart through that thick layer of metal against the palm of her hand.

"I just got into a fight." Puncturing that sentence mid-thought hocking up a wad of red flecked spit on the floor. "It's what I do, right? Get into trouble."

"What can I say," She said, "Those hands are magic."

Verity still had that sandpaper roughness to her voice. The swelling around her face was still aggressive red and bruised purple, leg from the ankle down in a splint. Only her eyes were alert and zeroed in on him. Making Optimus figuratively sweat under pressure was an achievement not many could claim.

Still, Optimus she never did get a read on even back on Earth when it was just her and the other tagalongs the likes of Jimmy and Hunter getting swept up in something too big from them. Back when Machination was their most immediate, clear cut problem and the Earth wasn't totally on fire. Optimus was this distant man on the mountain Verity gave a wide berth even as she flagrantly ignored his wishes to keep humans uninvolved.

Now she didn't much seem to hold him in that almost reverent view she used to.

"Are you still in charge?" She asked, curtly. "Heard you bailed. Then something about Megatron changing colors."

"I've said the same thing on numerous occasions."

Now that's a heavy subject, Verity. One he's going to have to take a seat for. Thankfully, any height he chooses will be just perfect for you. "It was complicated after the war. When you've been Prime during wartime, it's hard to know what to do when there's peace. You become a symbol of war, and the unaligned didn't want that in the new world. So...I respected Cybertronian wishes and left."

...

"I lead the Autobots. Cybertron, however, is under a different hand. I'm Prime to those who wish to see it."

His eyes cast down, hands touching by the fingertips almost humbly. "Not the most glamourous story, but then again, I was hardly the textbook definition of a leader back in the day."

It was strange being at eye level with the guy that lead his species into total war for the last four million years whose position was sanctified, if now notably so. Stranger still was this was the most one-on-one time they had between them, and Verity was almost a little let down that she wasn't seeing stars the way some of the Wreckers did every time they so much as said his name.

"Rough." She said, the word clipped, encapsulating their darkest hours in what amounted to an awkward pat on the back.

Then, rather coldly - "Prowl must not have liked you cashing in on those overdue vacation days."

It's also strange being eye level with her. He hadn't gotten the interaction the others had with her on Earth--not enough time, too much at stake. Prowl had been sanctioned Earth, after all. Still, he can tell she's got some bitterness to her, and understandably so.

Those eyes turn up to her, finally looking back with the same level of intensity as she was, only instead of coldness, there was a certain...weariness to them.

"There's a lot Prowl doesn't like about me, that's for certain. We don't always see eye to eye...no matter how much I trust him." It was true, too. For all the stuff Prowl has done, he knows it's always been in the best interest of the species. His methods were questionable, and that's where Optimus always stepped in.

"Trust him?" Verity echoed with a curl to her lip that made it seem saying that put an almost palpable taste her in her mouth, and an unpleasant one at that.

She sat back, moving in slow increment like every inch was moving closer was a literal stitch that could be popped, leaning away from Optimus as if she found his just as if not more justifiable weariness and guilt noxious.

"Optimus." She breathes out, some emotion cracking through the ice; disbelief, ache, resignation. "How many more people is he going to have to beat into the ground before I trust him gets second guessed?"

Edited 2015-05-28 05:15 (UTC)

What she says is...strange. The tone she says it in, it catches his attention, ears slightly flicking in slight curiosity. Prowl was...brash to be sure--he'd often got on his case for taking it one step too far. It was just how Prowl calculated things--coldly, but efficiently. But Verity wouldn't know about that. She was MIA for all he knew.

"He only wants the war ov--"

...

More. She said 'how many more'. His eyes cast to her, looking up at the injuries that Ratchet had mended, the bruising on her side. The way her voice cracks at this.

It was more personal than that.

"Verity. Who did this."

That voice, which had only held weariness of an old soldier only meant to tell stories, was now firm and commanding, as it had been. Because right now...something isn't right.

"It-"

And in an instant all that directionless anger boiling over her until it was overwhelming was snuffed out. She swallows a lump like ice with sharp corners that goes down hard in her aching throat and looks down. Not since she was a small child; ten, maybe as far back as five - back when her problems were more domestic and less a universal theatre of total war.

Long enough she can map out that distance from then and now where she's never felt the need to shrink. Reticent in front of someone in authority questioning her with more reason than just to scold her. She doesn't look back up at him.

"Who do you think?"

Optimus grows silent for one moment, an awkward veil of quiet draping over them as he stares at the ground. Attempting to collect his thoughts. He wasn't close to Verity by any means, but he'd often stretched his spark to encompass all of humanity. He had to keep his distance--or it just worked out that way--but he truly cared about the human race. Verity...moreso than she knows. His eyes narrow, a rare emotion bubbling up in Optimus's spark.

Anger.

"Prowl always has a reason for what he does. But I can't think of one that justifies this." And whatever it was, it didn't justify attacking her--attacking their friend. His eyes go back up to her, a fire lit in them now. "There's a lot you haven't deserved, Verity. Many of which I think we need to discuss now that you've been found. But...this I'll handle."

Prowl, despite what HE might think, is Optimus's responsibility in many ways. He helped create what Prowl is, if unintentionally, and now he has to look out for him before he takes it too far to even justify it for himself.

"Do you know why he attacked?"

Verity looked up at Optimus with some of that wonder lacking the first time around. For the first time in a long time, wanted to think that maybe. Just maybe - one more face in this wide galaxy, one more than she could count on one hand. Actually gave a damn about the person sitting limp and bloodied on the gurney. Not the track record or the information that came with the package, but her. Even after Ratchet, Magnus and the Wreckers...it was still a strange and unfamiliar feeling to be regarded in any capacity that didn't regulate her to nuisance or asset.

"It..." And she was loathed to admit this, "Wasn't so cut and dry as if he attacked me out of the blue."

Verity looked over at where her armor was packed away on the other side of the room. Neatly stored with no one the wiser the data artillery she carried. When she locked eyes with Optimus again it almost engendered a feeling she could trust him with full disclosure. Almost.

"I've been carrying sensitive information since a deep ops mission with the Wreckers - all Prowl pulling the strings, of course." Her smile was almost genuine as if time made the bitterness dull. "I don't know if he wanted it back because it's still the ticking time bomb it was five years ago

Or maybe he's like the rest of us deep down and can't let go, but when he found out and I said no. Well."

Verity lifts the ankle still in the splint and motioned to the mess that was the rest of her.

"If I wasn't with my exosuit you and I both know we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

His eyes pierce her with something invisible--maybe it was pride...no, pride would require some familiarity. Maybe it was recognition, Optimus impressed that she had gone through so much for their race and still could look upon them without any of the vitriol the rest of the human race had. And a sliver of thankfulness at that, if it was true. Verity, Jimmy, Hunter...by a strange amount of coincidence, they had been their first human contacts. Their first view of the human race, and by far were trustworthy ones. Ratchet had trusted them, Prowl had, and by default, Optimus did too.

"He always has his reasons," that didn't mean they were good, but they were reasons. "I don't always understand them, or him."

But he listens, the information about the Wreckers and her presence takes a moment to match up the right ops (they had a lot of missions with sensitive info okay). And with Verity holding information regarding it, he can see why Prowl might be...upset.

"I trusted Prowl to cause no human casualties, and even more to ones we call friends." His eyes narrow. "Whether he likes it or not, he's answering to this."

And then, they're right back to her, staring her straight in the eye.

"Can I trust you to keep that data safe?"

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step one: stop fighting robots

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