Ain't That A Kick In The Head

by The lunatic who cares

When Prowl gets injured in a battle, there turns out to be some interesting consequences. Set G1. Slash.

1. Chapter 1

Title: Ain't That A Kick In The Head – Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All Transformers belong to Hasbro and whoever else that isn't me!

Notes: X-posted on Love is Black and White. Warnings – This will turn into slash down the line. I'm a shameless Prowl/Jazz fangirl! Back beta-ed by Sakkashinn and thanks to flamingmarsh for pointing out some errors as well.

italics – Comm speech

--

Most of them had watched as Prowl, unable to avoid Menasor, was picked up and flung across the sky until he had collided head first into a mountainside. Rocks and dust rained the mountain with him as he tumbled down to its base. When eventually he came to a stop Prowl was utterly still. Jazz reacted first, swinging Dirge around by his wing tips towards Sideswipe.

"Sides, catch!" he yelled as he let go of the Decepticon.

The red twin intercepted his new sparring partner, leaving Jazz free to speed across the land. A burst of fire at Skywarp, who had Ratchet pinned, sent the Seeker blazing across the sky.

"Go Ratchet!" Jazz motioned to the CMO. "I've got ya back."

The medic hauled himself out of his hideout and set off across the land towards Prowl. Jazz made good on his word and kept Ratchet's path clear of Decepticons, staying close to his side the whole time. The other Autobots made sure no other Decepticons got at Prowl whilst he lay defenceless, but Menasor was beginning to cause more trouble for them. Air Raid was nursing a damaged turbine and leg, so the other Aerialbots were unable to form Superion to counter him. Instead they were doing their best to keep him occupied by flying dangerously close to his head.

Finally reaching the damaged tactician, Ratchet knelt at Prowl's side, taking in the numerous dings and scratches over his chassis, before lifted Prowl's head up to get a better look. One chevron was missing and most of the back of his head had been caved in. Ratchet worked quickly, swearing quietly. He had to remove the back of his helm to reveal the damaged circuitry and battered CPU.

"Primus Ratch'," Jazz said quietly, when he saw the damage. "Can ya fix him?"

"Working on it," Ratchet replied shortly. "Tell First Aid to get the bay ready. He needs to deal with the rest of the injuries and Perceptor needs to be prepared to exchange the boards in here."

Jazz nodded, radioing back to base to let the other two know the situation. He kept his own fear over losing the tactician quiet, restrained. Here and now, it would do them no good. Ratchet was the best. If Prowl could be saved, then Ratchet was the 'bot to do. His job was now to keep the working medic and his motionless patient safe.

'Jazz, report.' Optimus ordered from the other side of the battle.

Jazz gave him a run down of injuries on both sides and informed Optimus that things were not going well. If they couldn't take Menasor down soon, then things were going to turn nasty. The Special Ops officer watched Sunstreaker pull a reckless move by driving between Menasor's legs to distract him from his busy twin, who was currently beating Thrust's head into the floor.

'I know Jazz. When can Ratchet move Prowl?' Optimus knew better than to interrupt his medic with comms.

"Ratchet? Optimus wants t'know when ya good t'go," Jazz glanced over his shoulder.

Ratchet didn't answer right away, busy stemming some leaking lines from Prowl's neck. Jazz scrutinized the medic's work, aware that his own field training went far enough for him to know that it looked bad and any CPU damage could be permanent, but at least Prowl was not leaking energon or coolant anymore.

"He's stable, for now," Ratchet replied. "But I want him back in the med bay."

"Now?"

"Now."

'Optimus, Ratchet's goin' now.'

'Go with him. Wheeljack and Hound will organize the rest of the injured during the retreat.'

'Understood.'

Jazz subspaced his rifle as Ratchet transformed and opened up his door to let Jazz load Prowl aboard. Jazz slid Prowl's body in feet first, gently lowering his unprotected head. Ratchet secured his patient before setting off back to base. Jazz kept pace on foot at first, whilst the ground was rough and limiting Ratchet's speed, but dropped down into his Porsche form as soon as they hit the road. He was rear guard for the ambulance until they were safe within the Ark.

Perceptor was on hand to help Jazz unload Prowl and lay him out on the berth as Ratchet transformed. Jazz stepped back to let them get on with their jobs, the two already deep in discussion. First Aid hurried past and Jazz followed him, anxious to help,

"Anythin' I can do?"

"Sure," the harried younger medic gestured at the doors. "Get them organized when they come in. Serious down to not. Keep the uninjured out and get one of them to keep the supplies coming when we need them."

Jazz nodded. Despite still being in training, First Aid was proving himself to be well adapted for coping by himself, which was just as well, but Jazz suspected that, wherever the other Protectorbots were, they were partially responsible for keeping him calm.

The rest of the Autobots who had been out weren't long in coming back. After Prowl, Air Raid was the next badly injured and first on First Aid's list, which helped keep the other Aerialbots calmer and made it easier for Jazz to keep them out of the med bay. He persuaded Silverbolt to get some rest, or rather, told him to make his team refuel before they passed out on the floor.

Wheeljack came in with a cursing Ironhide. He had a temporary weld on his aft, thanks to Wheeljack, but needed seeing as he had damaged relays that limited his leg movement and was in a great deal of pain. Hound was next in with Tracks, who was holding his arm and making a great fuss. First Aid promptly told him to shut up, channeling Ratchet, before drugging him up to the optics when Tracks kept complaining about his paintjob. Jazz grabbed Hound and he became the fetch-and-carry 'bot for them.

Bumblebee and Beachcomber, with a groggy Cliffjumper between them, were next in line. Cliffjumper had managed to take on all of the cassetticons at one point, leaving him battered but intact. The next three in were all walking under their own voliation, so Jazz sent the twins and Bluestreak to an unused corner to wait their turn. He found First Aid and told him his order of patients. The medic thanked him before hurrying back to work. Jazz slipped out of the room to find Optimus so he could report.

--

All was quiet. Only Ratchet was still awake. Prowl, Air Raid and Ironhide were the only patients left in the medical bay, all three deep in recharge. Tracks was resting in his own room, as was Cliffjumper. Bluestreak and the twins had been fixed quickly and were down with Hoist, getting their paintjobs patched up. Ratchet checked his patients over before deciding, that with it so hushed, now was the time to see if Prowl would wake up. He removed the stasis lock device from Prowl's head and waited silently for Prowl to come back online.

He could hear the change in the tone in Prowl's systems as they started powering up. It was a good sign. Ratchet watched Prowl's still uncovered head for signs of shorts in the circuitry, but Perceptor had performed flawlessly. Prowl's hand twitched slightly before his optics turned back on.

"Prowl," Ratchet said gently, trying not to spook the recovering mech.

"…Ratchet?"

"Yes, that's right. You're in med bay," Ratchet watched Prowl focus on his face, pleased he could both speak and see. "What do you remember?"

"The last thing I recall was attending a briefing about the latest Decepticon attack," Prowl replied, his CPU feeling sluggish.

"Then you have lost the better part of a day. I'm not surprised," Ratchet explained.

"What happened?"

Ratchet explained about the battle, with enough detail to satisfy the SIC, and Prowl's aided flying attempt that was stopped abruptly by a wall of rock. Prowl screwed up his face at that bit and lifted his hand to his head to gingerly touch the missing plates. His fingers only brushed the edges of the plates and the jagged edge of his chevron.

"How do you feel?" Ratchet wanted a better picture of Prowl's overall state.

Prowl thought about that. He knew Ratchet well enough to understand that he wanted more than 'my fragging head hurts'. As he processed his thoughts he realised, with dawning horror, that not only was his battle computer sending him back repeated error messages, but his CPU was overrun with emotions. There was nothing he could seem to do about either.

"Primus…"

Ratchet blinked. He couldn't remember Prowl ever saying that before. Swearing was not something the second in command did.

"My battle computer is down and all I'm getting is error messages from it when I try to reboot. My CPU…" Prowl paused. "This is not going to be good."

"What do you mean?" Ratchet asked, frowning.

Prowl shuttered his optics, trying to focus on calm emotions. His damaged head was still catching up with him, but once it did, then he would lay odds on the fact that he wasn't going to be able to rein himself in.

"My emotions are going crazy. I don't have much control," Prowl cracked an optic open to look at the medic. "Don't get me excited, or angry or anything. Drug me."

"I'm not drugging you," Ratchet exclaimed. "I expect your emotions will come back under control when your internal systems repair themselves. I'll get Perceptor to run a system diagnosis on your battle computer when he comes back."

"Good," Prowl muttered, being to feel grumpy. "The quicker the better."

Ratchet raised an eye ridge at that, but refrained from commenting,

"Get some rest. I'll check back later."

"I'm sure you will," Prowl groused.

Ratchet shook his head and walked away, intent on getting some of his own recharge in now. In retrospect he should have taken Prowl's advice and knocked him out again. All hell seemed to break loose when he was in recharge as he was woken by a loud crash, followed by angry yelling.

He shot out of his overnight room joined to the main medical bay to find it in disarray. All of the Aerialbots were present, loosely rung around Air Raid, who was still on his berth and they were all shouting loudly. Ironhide was awake, leaning up on his bed and bellowing for quiet, not at all pleased to have been woken.

It was Prowl that shocked Ratchet into stopping short of the group. Not only was he up and standing, he was yelling as loudly as anyone else, complete with swearing and derogatory comments. It had been going on for a while from the look of things as the Aerialbots no longer seemed put out by Prowl's uncharacteristic behaviour. Slingshot was the mech closest to Prowl and clearly the most angry of the group, with Silverbolt trying to hold him back. The Aerialbot leader was trying his best to keep the calm but with the way Prowl was continuing on, then it wouldn't be long before his patience snapped.

Ratchet's patience, on the other hand, was already way past gone. What with having been woken up to find his medical bay in chaos, he was about to erupt into his most infamous and feared tirade. He stormed right into the middle of the group, pushing Prowl and Slingshot apart before turning on the Aerialbots.

"Get out of my medical bay and stopped disturbing my patients!"

"But Prowl…" Slingshot began.

"But slagging nothing! Out!" Ratchet pointed to the door. "Now!"

"We're leaving," Silverbolt agreed, pulling Slingshot after him. "C'mon guys. Air Raid's fine."

"Told you it was a bad idea."

"Shut it Flight!"

"You," Ratchet rounded on Ironhide. "Shut up and lie down."

Ironhide held up a hand before doing as he was told. He knew better than to try arguing with the CMO when he was like this. He had not survived millions of years to fight with a medic on his own turf. That was a fight anyone would lose. Ratchet nodded before turning to a smirking Prowl.

"And you!"

Prowl rolled his optics.

"Don't you fragging dare!" Ratchet warned him. "What in Primus' name are you doing up? Half of your head is still missing!"

"Well if you'd replaced it then it wouldn't be would it?" Prowl snarked.

"Excuse me? If I'd replaced it? Sorry for trying to save your worthless aft first!"

"Whatever," Prowl waved a hand dismissively.

"Next time I'll leave you to short out on the side of a mountain."

"No you wouldn't. You're too soft to let someone die," Prowl picked at Ratchet.

"Oh Primus," Ironhide muttered from his berth before miming zipping his lip plates together when Ratchet glared at him.

"I'd rather be soft than an ungrateful slagger like you!"

Perceptor chose that moment to come back into the medical bay. He took in the sight of Prowl and Ratchet arguing, computed that he had never seen that before and certainly not when Prowl was missing the back of his head.

"Oh look it's Percy, our resident nerd," Prowl commented.

"I beg your pardon?" Perceptor blinked.

"Come to finish your half sparked work then?" Prowl continued, back turned on Ratchet dismissively.

Ironhide watched, understanding how the slag he'd managed to wind all the Aerialbots up so efficiently. Regardless whether he was himself or not, he still managed to do whatever he set his optics on perfectly. Well not quite. Turning his back on Ratchet was not wise. Normally Ratchet would have just thumped him to knock him out, but considering it was a head injury that had led to this problem in the first place, that wasn't going to work.

Ironhide covered his optics with one hand as he saw Ratchet pick up a huge needle and smile maliciously. He didn't want to see this. There was a yell of pain and then,

"You pit-born fragged up glitch!"

"And the same to you. Good night."

Ironhide looked back after there was a solid thud to see Ratchet standing with Prowl draped over him and a satisfied look on his face. Perceptor seemed to be just as confused as Ironhide had ever seen him.

"What is going on?"

"Prowl needs reprogramming, that's what," Ratchet dumped the tactician back on his berth.

"Reprogramming?" Perceptor frowned. "I am sure none of my work was faulty."

"No, not that," Ratchet hooked Prowl up to diagnostic machine. "Prowl told me before that his battle computer is giving him repeated error messages, but it was his CPU that cause this stupidity."

Ironhide listened in with interested as Ratchet explained the problems that led to him knocking the SIC out. Prowl without control, now there was something new. He knew about the glitch that put Prowl out of action when something became too irrational and emotional for him to handle, but that too was a type of control. It was a way out of having to deal with the difficult slag that life threw at you. Now he simply didn't have that. His CPU glitch had been wiped in the accident and, luckily, his battle computer hadn't been able to make a connect to take over. That had meant no-one getting held at gun point before Prowl realised who they were, but now he was much more likely to get into trouble instead.

Ironhide wondered how long it would take for Perceptor to work out how to fix the programming, how long it would take the Aerialbots to spread the story of their argument, how long it would take Prowl to get into trouble again and which one would come first. Also the red mech was praying he was allowed out of med bay before Prowl lost it again.

Perceptor gathered all the information he could from the machines Prowl was hooked up to before scurrying away in attempt to understand why, if his work was flawless, Prowl still had such a large malfunction. Ratchet check on Prowl one last time before heading back to his office.

"And I know you were listening in, slagger," Ratchet paused by Ironhide. "Say anything about this and I will remove you from active duty."

"You wouldn't," Ironhide glared.

"Nice cushy desk job, I believe Jazz suggested," Ratchet grinned.

Ironhide folded his arms across his chest,

"I'll keep quiet as long as Mr Personality Change over there doesn't start on me."

Ratchet nodded,

"I'm keeping him out of it until you and Air Raid are out of my med bay."

"How long will that be anyway?" Air Raid spoke up at the sound of his name.

"I'll let you out of here, but not onto active duty, later today. If I find you messing around when you should be resting that leg of yours I'll put you back in here and leave you to deal with Prowl by yourself."

Air Raid scowled but Ratchet wasn't finished,

"I'll also drag every single member of your team in here by their audios and give them that long overdue exhaust flush you all keep avoiding."

Air Raid grinned nervously,

"Ok boss-mech. I'll be good, promise."

Ratchet left his patients to catch up on paperwork and to decide how to break this to Optimus. 'Sorry Prime, you can't have your second in command back unless you want to put him straight in the brig for insubordinate, fractious behaviour.' In the end he waited until Ironhide and Air Raid had been discharged and, leaving First Aid to watch the still unconscious Prowl, the CMO made his way to his leader's office.

"Come in Ratchet," Optimus had left his door open. It meant he was free to talk if needed. Door closed meant he was busy, normally with a meeting. Ratchet shut the door and sat down. Optimus leant back in his seat and waited.

"So everyone's out of med bay, 'cept Prowl," Ratchet grimaced. "And Primus knows how long he'll be in there."

Optimus frowned,

"Was he really that badly damaged?"

"Yes and no," Ratchet hedged. "Technically saving Prowl's spark was easy, if specialized, but there have been… complications. He could come back to work as he can walk, talk and function normally enough to do his job."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Prowl has the tact of Perceptor, the temper of Megatron when something's gone wrong and the attitude of Cliffjumper and the twins all rolled into one," Ratchet watched Optimus.

For his due Optimus seemed to take it in his stride,

"I see. Are you sure you've got the right mech?"

"I wasn't the one who flew straight into the side of a mountain."

"Prowl."

"Prowl," Ratchet repeated, nodding.

Optimus scrunched up his face plates, even though most of the expression was hidden by is mask. He relied on his second in command to be steadfast and logical. Prowl kept a cool head, as the humans would say, amongst those who would sooner lose their tempers than listen to reason. They could cope without him for now, but it would be hard and a good few mechs would have to take on the mammoth job load Prowl coped with.

"How long will it be before he's back to being Prowl again?"

Ratchet shrugged one shoulder,

"That is something you will have to ask Perceptor. The minute detail of circuitry is his specialty, not mine, but it will be awhile I would guess."

Optimus sighed,

"Thank you Ratchet. I'll let you get back to work."

Ratchet nodded, stood and left the room. Optimus rubbed his head, trying to decide how to spilt Prowl's job and which lucky mechs got the tasks. Jazz, as third in command, would take on a great deal but couldn't be lumbered with too many desk jobs as he was really a field agent. Ironhide had the knowledge to run the scheduling but was not the mech to give Prowl's strategy analyzing to.

After a little more thought Smokescreen found himself with all the strategy reports he could ever wish for, both from his job as diversionary tactician and Prowl's as main strategist.