robothell | [ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

All things for what they are, watching Megatron beat the shit out of Tarn was intensely satisfying. And it's with the news that the likelihood of Tarn touching any of his crew has been brought down to zero that Rodimus intends to return to the clinic. Except then he steps inside it, ready to make his way towards Drift's side when he remembers.

Drift hadn't wanted to speak to him when he'd gotten his voice back. No, he'd been shoved out by Ratchet so that Megatron could. Because-- because Megatron could protect the crew and he couldn't. With one long look at Drift's form (sleeping, he thinks), he looks at anything and everything else, optics coming to focus on another bot he hadn't seen in all his time spent in the clinic.

But one he knows all the same.

"Nautica?"

When the hell did Tarn find the time to do this?

There's a dark irritation that enters his expression as he's talked about like he isn't there. Were Megatron currently not occupied with connecting Drift to the line of energon, he'd probably have something to say himself.

But for now, he just ignores Rodimus' comments as he carefully slips his now energon-stained hands out from under Drift and wipes them clean. It's then that he inserts the attachment into the energon line port in the forearm, what with his wrists being clearly shattered from trauma. He positions it to avoid tangling when they flip him back over again.

While Nautica's injuries hadn't been outright life-threatening, that other universe's Megatron had done enough damage to her slight frame that she'd needed surgery to preserve her ability to transform (into a submarine. On nearly waterless Cybertron) and was trapped in the clinic while her self-repair finished what the medics had started.

She was lying on her side, head pillowed on the arm that didn't have an IV line going into it, not really thinking about anything and idly flicking one optic on and off to watch her fingers jump around from the parallax effect.

"Rodimus? Hi, Captain!" Cheerful though Nautica generally was, that was the greeting of someone high as a communications satellite on painkillers.

"No, he just has half of his face blown off!" Rodimus will continue to talk about him like he's not there for as long as he's going to be a shit about this. Which is for as long as Drift isn't in a stable condition. "He's still a Megatron, Ratchet."

Rodimus remembers coming face to face with him before, with a Megatron that looked mostly like this. He remembers what he told him, and more importantly, he remembers the order to execute Bumblebee. If that Megatron can give that order, then who's to say this Megatron won't be perfectly capable of doing the same thing.

But he at least stumbles further away, being petulant out of stress and worry more than a deep desire to put up a strong fight. And sort of collapses into a heap close enough to be grabbed if something were to happen with Drift but far enough that he - amazingly enough - won't trip anyone up.

"I've gotten no news at all, I'm afraid." With no network in place, the only method news had to travel was by word of mouth. Aftermath didn't have anyone's personal frequency asides from Megatron's.

"What DID happen?" he asks, taking a seat on the remnants of a public advertising board, the metal creaking under his weight.

"Hey," he replies, something close to a smile tugging at his lips. It disappears when he has a chance to fully take in the situation, hands curling into fists. "Look, whoever did this to you--" And Rodimus has a very, very good idea of who did. "We'll get him. Again, I guess."

He has no problems telling Megatron to beat up Tarn again. Anything for his crew, & so on and so forth.

Drift hasn't quite managed to say anything to Megatron yet, just watching in a kind of numb, wide-eyed shock as Megatron -- Megatron, although definitely not the one Drift talked to just recently. He looks younger, unburdened with the same ancient weight Drift's contemporary is. Drift doesn't move the entire time Megatron's checking him over, looking alarmed and deeply bewildered. It doesn't help that it looks like half of Megatron's has been melted off.

Megatron lays his massive hand over Drift's wrist and asks a totally innocuous question that nonetheless makes Drift question whether or not he's hallucinating. He stares for a long moment before he cranes his neck to look around Megatron toward the door, raising his voice even though it strains his freshly repaired vocalizer.

"Ratchet!"

Yeah...yeah, he'll be okay. Drift knows it, just in the way Rodimus relaxes against him even as he holds on tight, even as his spark still flares and whirs in his chest. Better him than Rodimus, he thinks -- Rodimus is lucky, only losing an arm. He got it reattached straight away, anyway. Drift lets his head tip back slightly, slowly lifting his other hand to cup the back of Rodimus' helm. He can't speak, and he's certain Rodimus isn't even remotely chirolingual -- but right here, it's not like they need words. Drift thinks the warmth flooding his aura speaks for itself. He'd like to believe Rodimus can feel it. Drift curls his fingers around the back of Rodimus' helm, his other hand rubbing in slow, loose circles over the other mech's back, and he vents out slowly. Yeah, he'll be okay.

Megatron's staring him down and maybe once, in another lifetime, Drift might have backed down to it -- but after what he's just been through with Tarn, even the renewed power in Megatron's aura doesn't make him flinch away. Maybe it would later, maybe at any other time, but not now. Now Drift just stares right back, his face slack once again.

He's silent for a moment. There's a lot he
could say -- that Megatron shouldn't have let
this happen in the first place, that if Megatron was going to wait until he'd already lost the war to have a change of heart then the least he could have done was clean up his mess before he went gallivanting off into space, however noble the quest... Drift knows those circumstances might not apply here, but nonetheless he knows Megatron didn't do anything to dissolve the Decepticon movement besides make some paltry announcement before he arrived on this Cybertron. It's not enough. Drift's not sure it'll ever be enough. He would know.

But air hisses slowly from his vents and he sits back, his expression unchanging. "No," he says, his voice quiet and flat. "No, there isn't."

June knows Cybertronians are pretty resilient, but she still looks sort of alarmed. Sweet of him to kneel, though. June frowns and reaches out to press her hand to his plating, a surprisingly fond gesture. She likes baby Megatron, okay.

"Must have been some looter," she remarks, frowning. "I'm glad you were around, then. I can't imagine supplies are plentiful right now."

June's eyes narrow as she listens to Rodimus, even as she feels a strong tug of sympathy. Whoever Drift is -- not someone she's ever heard of -- he's obviously important to Rodimus. "Tarn did this," she says in understanding, her voice surprisingly flat, but then her face softens. Megatron made allusions to Rodimus being reckless and impulsive, but there's obviously a reason for it. She draws in closer as Rodimus gestures helplessly, laying a hand gently on his plating.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

"Rodimus," she said with exaggerated patience, "if you keep fighting, no one will ever stop fighting." Nautica frowned as she realized, dimly, that she wasn't making a lot of sense. It was all quite clear in her head, though.

"No revenge." There, that was better.

There's a long pause before some of his deep frustration slips out of his expression, all the fatigue being replaced with a cold acidity.

"Tarn."

Megatron crosses his arms,"He's here, and I was fool enough to believe he'd listen to reason and stand down. Now Ratchet is missing his leg and his friend has been nearly torn to pieces."

"I want to do something, but I need to help them recuperate."

"You're going to hurt yourself."

The hand lifts off his wrist, despite interrupting Megatron's readings, but he doesn't quite back off. He's ready to restrain Drift if need be, but he doesn't suspect it will come to that. Rodimus had a similar reaction - a little explanation might help calm this Autobot down as well.

"I volunteered to help Ratchet and Red Alert tend to their patients - I'm here to help you."

Edited 2015-02-08 22:57 (UTC)

"He had a gun."

Nonetheless, that was done and over with, and Megatron let whoever it was run off - sans weapon. Whatever trouble they'd do in the future should be significantly hampered.

"All the supplies are scavenged, yes. There's enough right now for the three patients we have, though."

But he doesn't know if they have sufficient amounts of supplies should more people get themselves injured, and the worry for that - among other reasons - seeped into his frame.

The name makes Aftermath go very still.

"Tarn," he murmurs softly, covering his face mask with a hand. "We never did talk about him properly, did we?" And Megatron had been... talking to him? Primus. Primus.

"You're doing plenty, Megatron. There's not much else you can do that wouldn't be reckless or dangerous." Letting his hand drop to his lap, curling it into a fist for a long moment.

"It's not revenge," it kind of is, "it's making sure that he doesn't touch my crew ever again." And really, how else are you supposed to get the message through to Tarn? By sending him a nice letter written in Magnus' best handwriting? Hah.

"You're okay, though." A pause. "Right?"

"Yeah, yeah he did." She didn't ask for a confirmation but he has to give it anyway, sounding uncharacteristically defeated for a moment. He vents sharply, hand dragging down his face and smearing more energon over it before he catches himself and pulls it away - staring at it with an expression of almost horror. Yeah, guess what didn't click what he was covered in until just then.

But his expression darkens when she says she's sorry and he throws her a childish, surly look. "So am I, but that's not going to help anyone, is it?"

He is a shitty teenager. Accept him into your heart, June.

"No, I needed surgery and there are no books." Having entirely failed to assuage the guilt she didn't realize Rodimus was feeling, Nautica tried to lever herself up on her elbow so she could talk to something higher than his waist, then gave up as the motion pulled at her fresh welds and patches, making her wince even through the circuit dampers.

Okay, lying down and talking to Rodimus' midsection it was.

"It's not that bad. I lost an arm earlier and Ratchet put it back good as new." Who is the worst at comforting people? It's Rodimus. Rodimus is. But he's at least self aware enough to sit down so they're roughly at the same level for a proper conversation. And hey, Nautica gets a smile for that - one of the few he's had in the last few days that it almost takes him by surprise.

"Anyway, Megatron and I just came back from dealing with Tarn, so he probably won't uh. Do whatever he did to you again."

Megatron notices Aftermath's reaction, and gives him a look of concern. That's right, Tarn went after defectors, and Aftermath would absolutely qualify.

"If he's threatened you..." he starts, stepping off the wall. He'd given Tarn his chance to be trusted, and he was done doing nothing about the outbursts of violence if he could help it.

Nautica was studying both of his shoulders to check for welds--she tried the wrong one first--when Rodimus started talking, apparently at random, about Tarn.

"Tarn?" She would have been confused by that regardless, but the painkiller haze made it worse. "No, Megatron."

Now they could both be confused, even though Nautica thought she'd just cleared things up. "Sorry about your arm."

"The first day I arrived here, he threatened me. But he let me go for the sake of obtaining more information about this place." His spark still sometimes ached when he thought of that encounter.

"It's one reason I've been keeping on the move. Without Kaon around, Tarn can't really hunt down people quite so well. He's slower than me and ambush tactics don't work well when you can't predict where your victim will be." Aftermath quietly loosens his fist, staring unseeing at his hand for a moment.

"What did Tarn tell you?"

"He told me he was part of a unit that executed traitors that endangered other Decepticons. Considering what you'd told me, I assumed it was worse than that..."

He begins to pace around the old bot's makeshift chair, growing agitated with the news. If this chat was supposed to be relaxing, it seemed to be having the opposite effect.

"Regardless, he seemed loyal - a fanatic, yes, but one that would listen to me. So I told him to work with the Autobots as I intended to."

"Wait, what?"

Swear to fuck, if his co-captain or the one running about the clinic did this he's going to literally burst into flames.

As for his arm, he just shrugs. "I've had worse." He's been blasted straight through by his co-captain before the co and the captain came into being and got out of that fine. Thanks to the Matrix.

[ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

FOR NAUTICA

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