This is my entry for the Phobia square for tfrarepair's Fall 2016 Bingo.

Ratchet exited the operating theater, and crooked a finger at Optimus.

"What's his status?" Optimus Prime fell into step beside him, culling his longer strides to keep pace. They walked down the hall, guided by Ratchet's need to move after eight hours of stationary hunching, but didn't stray from the aft section of the ship, where the clinic was located.

"In a word? Bad," Ratchet grunted. His fingers twitched beside his thighs. He clearly wanted to go back into that operating room and cut and splice and solder until the problem was fixed. "I get the impression that Shockwave, ah, didn't expect him to survive. Most of the changes look… accidental."

"You mean," Optimus glanced down at him, "Shockwave didn't intend to do this?"

Ratchet snorted. "Oh, he intended it alright. I'm just not sure he knew what would happen if he did. He was experimenting—poking and prodding until he found something that worked."

"Wouldn't that be unwise? A waste of," Optimus fought down a wave of revulsion and spat the word, "resources."

"Why bother?" Ratchet paused, and looked through the glass pane, down into the operating room. Grimlock was still sedated, and slept like stone on the medical slab. The crown of his head was clean, shiny in a way the rest of his rugged body never was. High powered sterilizers, of course. Made everything clean for operating. "He had four spares."

"No more tests," Grimlock growled and pushed the datapad away. He spoke noticeably slowly, with distracting pauses between every word. Perceptor took the datapad back and stowed it away in his subspace. He sat in the chair next to Grimlock and gently touched his upper arm. Grimlock shrugged his hand off and stood up. He walked to the center of the lab, then paused, paced a full circle, and walked back over to Perceptor. Perceptor caught a glimpse of desperate confusion on his face, before he sat down and pressed his forehead into the heel of his hand.

"Used to hate thinking," he grunted, "and it didn't used to be so hard."

There really wasn't anything to say to that, so Perceptor kept quiet.

The endless battery of tests—modified from the basic sentience tests, and a few entry level schooling exams—put Grimlock at a decently functional level. Ratchet had confirmed the physical damage to Grimlock's brain, but it was left to Perceptor to determine exactly how that damage manifested. It had been centuries since he'd taught anything other than postgraduate lectures, but all of his teaching protocols were intact. It was demeaning and degrading, to treat an adult like a protoform, and it disturbed Perceptor to need to queue up his elementary education protocols for Grimlock.

"Are you having trouble remembering things?" Perceptor rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forwards.

"Not remembering," Grimlock waved his hand around near his head, "I can't think of the right, uh, words. Trouble with them."

Perceptor nodded. "I've noticed you tend to repeat words and phrases. Does it help if other mechanisms say them first?"

Grimlock mouthed the word 'mechanism' and shook his head. "It helps."

"Can you tell me how?"

Grimlock glared at him, then stood up and started pacing. Grimlock had never been one to sit quietly and stew in his own thoughts, but now it seemed what little patience he had once had was simply converted into more frenetic energy.

Ninety-eight point seven percent. Grimlock hadn't remembered the number, and it wasn't until Swoop's debriefing that the full extent of Shockwave's experiments had been revealed. Less than three percent of his energy was funneled into his brain. By the time Perceptor had shut himself away to devote his entire being to the mysteries of deep space, he was putting upwards of eighty-five percent just to thinking, and he had been pulled, unconscious and emaciated, from his work multiple times for his foolishness. A normal transformer split their energy about fifty-fifty between the physical and mental. Either extreme, his or Grimlock's, was courting danger, either from wasting away, or from the processor lacking the wherewithal to keep energon pumping.

"If I hear the words," Grimlock paused by the lab bench and squinted at the dissected Insecticon laid out over the metal, "it's easy. I don't have to think of them by myself. Where's this… from?"

"The Insecticon?" Perceptor pushed himself up from the chair and walked over to the bench. Standing next to him, instead of sitting or watching him pace, Grimlock seemed even taller. Perceptor had never been physically imposing—he was tall, yes—but he never had the stature or the bulk Grimlock possessed. "It was caught in the ship's drag as it launched, and clung to the hull when it went through the wormhole. Same as you and the Lightning Strike Coalition Force."

"Dinobots."

"Hm?" Perceptor leaned over the table. It made something curdle in him to think it, but Shockwave truly was brilliant. Perceptor had seen him in-between classes occasionally, and mingled when he bothered to go to conferences, but he had never managed to speak with him concerning his progresses in genetic manipulation. Now, of course, he regretted that on more than a scientific level.

"We're Dinobots now. New name."

"Is that so? Pity, I was rather fond of the old one."

Grimlock looked down at him, grunted an affirmative, then returned to staring at the Insecticon. "I don't like this."

"I'm afraid you'll need to be more specific, Grimlock."

"This," he gestured at the body, floundering for words, "this… bug."

Ah. His aversion probably stemmed from whatever torture—he was taciturn on the subject during his debriefing, so much so that even Optimus, who could never call a lie, recognized that he was hiding something—he suffered at the hands, or rather, tarsi, of the Insecticons and Shockwave. Or, perhaps it was a more instinctual fear, some species wide phobia. Even Perceptor had had to fight down a habitual shudder before the dissection, and the Insecticon was very clearly dead by the time it was delivered to him.

"What's this?" Grimlock said gruffly, then jabbed his finger into the mechanical guts of the Insecticons. He shuddered, almost imperceptibly. It was clear that he was confronting his fear the only way he knew how: head first, with more punching than strictly necessary. Perceptor made note to suggest that Ratchet bring up trauma treatment at Grimlock's next appointment.

Perceptor guided Grimlock's hand out of the Insecticon. After some resistance, Grimlock let him.

"That," he plucked an anti-static wipe from the box on the desk and began wiping Grimlock's fingers clean, "is an Insecticon—a drone, we think. It seems to lack any egg laying organs, even vestigial or atrophied ones. If you look closely," Perceptor grabbed the sterilized forceps and pointed to a small structure in the abdomen, "you can see an organ; it looks a little like a sphere?"

Grimlock squinted, clearly didn't see it, but nodded slowly regardless. Perceptor weighed his options. Just for a simple question, that, in retrospect, Grimlock really didn't seem to care about, it wasn't worth removing the organ, not when Ratchet hadn't completed the toxicity tests.

"This is a venom gland. You recall how Slag and Swoop spent a few days in the medical bay after we recovered you from space."

"Yeah."

"They, and you, were suffering the ill effects of an Insecticon bite."

Grimlock narrowed his eyes. "I wasn't ill effected. Sick."

Perceptor put the forceps on a tray to be autoclaved. "No, but we found traces of the venom in your system. Ratchet thinks it has something to do with your new physiology. Perhaps the redirected energy gave your alloimmune programs—"

At Grimlock's blank stare, Perceptor backtracked. "Because of your new body, you were strong enough to not, er, get sick. Oh, it would cause, ah, coagulation—that's clotting of the energon—pain, plating destruction. All kinds of things."

"I'm real strong now," Grimlock said humorlessly, "and I still hate bugs."

Grimlock howled and drove his fist into the concrete punching bag. It swung wildly, narrowly missing Swoop's head, before it came back. Grimlock stopped it with his palm, and it creaked ominously.

"How's that?"

"Sigma, Grimlock," Swoop swiped at the side of his head, "thought I was outta the splash zone standing over there. I'm missing paint!"

Slug tapped the little sensor on his wrist. "Work, damn—ah, got it. Take a look."

He held his arm out. Grimlock lumbered across the room and stooped over. He squinted at the holographic readout and grunted. Swoop pushed his way to the screen and let out a low whistle.

"Three hundred pascs. That's crazy, Grimlock!"

Snarl whooped. "Dinobots or Lightning Force, we're still the toughest around!"

"Three hundred isn't that much." It was preening by Grimlock's standards. Preening was usually a good thing, but Slug had known Grimlock long enough to know when he was hiding something. He frowned.

"Here," Slug caught Grimlock's arm and clapped the program to him before he could pull away, "check mine."

He hauled back and gave a half-hearted punch. Grimlock fumbled with the program, but managed to take a reading.

"What's it say, Boss?" Slug caught the punching bag as it gently swung back down. It took both hands, and he needed to brace himself to keep from skidding backwards.

Confusion flashed across Grimlock's face, before he quelled it under cockiness. "Less than mine."

He closed the program and shoved it off on Swoop. The punching bag shuddered under his fists. Slug frowned, then clapped Swoop on the shoulder. Snarl stared at him, curiosity written on his face.

"Don't let him overwork himself."

"What do you mean?" Swoop craned his head back to look at Slug. "He's all healed up now."

Slug looked up at Grimlock. He was hunched around the punching bag, holding it in place with one fist as he demolished it with the other. The vents along his back were wide open, hissing steam and heat.

"Just keep an eye on him."

Slug let the door slam behind him. He didn't stomp down the halls, but it was a close thing. Really, they were only even here by chance, and bad luck with physics. They should have been back on Cybertron fighting the Decepticons, but instead they were stuck here, fleeing their home with the other Autobots. Swoop and Snarl… honestly didn't seem to genuinely care. Sure, they'd gripe about it if Slug got them started, but those two had always been the easiest to get along with among the Dinobots.

Still… if they were back on Cybertron, Grimlock would be worse. Swoop was a competent medic, yeah, but he couldn't fix everything. Underneath the physical damage from Shockwave's exploding space bridge, there was a whole host of brain problems that Slug barely understood.

He noticed he'd slowed to a mosey and shook himself out of his thoughts. He was, more so than the other Dinobots, inclined to melancholy. His latent anger occasionally manifested as brooding, and the more he thought, the worse it got. Slug paused outside of the medical bay. The door automatically slid open when he stepped close enough to trigger the sensors. He frowned, then walked inside.

The medbay was pretty big, as far as shipsized things went. There were four slabs, a glass enclosed operating room, and a small storage room towards the back. Slug could see First Aid napping on the operating table through the glass. Two CR tanks were tucked against the back wall; one was empty, the other was filled with greenish fluid, and a hulking body.

"Hey, Sludge," Slug crossed the room and slapped the glass viewport of the long term CR chamber, "how's it floating?"

Sludge didn't answer. He hadn't said anything since they'd been swept up and away from Cybertron, however many months ago that had been. Sludge had arrived at the ship before the rest of them, having been extracted and evacuated by a team of Autobots once Cliffhanger and Jazz found his body in the Insecticon tunnels. Ratchet dumped him in the CR tank and hadn't touched him since. Said he was too unstable for surgery.

"I'd say you were looking good," he continued, his tone forcibly casual, "but I'm a bad liar."

The door to the storage room in the back slid open, and Ratchet stepped out with an armful of sticky mesh pads.

"Slug," he grunted and started restocking the cabinets, "what happened?"

"Huh?"

"I've never had one of you in my medbay unless you're half mangled and bleeding out. And even then I need to haul you in."

"Just visiting Sludge," Slug tapped the glass with his knuckle. He paused, glanced at his reflection in the glass. "Actually."

"What?"

"Grimlock. How bad is he hurt?"

Ratchet glared at him. "That's confidential patient information. In other words, none of your business." He snapped.

Slug stared him down. There were very few people he couldn't intimidate into giving him what he wanted, especially since he had been reformatted into his current form. Ratchet was not one of those people.

"Fine," he spat, and conceded. He turned back to Sludge and pressed his palm flush against the glass. For a long moment, he searched Sludge's battered face for any sign of cognizance. He remained still, like he was sleeping off a bad crash. Slug turned and left without another word.

Ratchet wouldn't give him what he wanted, sure, but Ratchet wasn't the only one in charge of Grimlock's records.

He headed towards the science block.

Grimlock didn't like talking about his myriad medical treatments and for the most part, the other Dinobots didn't care to learn about them. However, despite how skilled he'd once been at plotting and scheming, he now lacked that cunning. He said things now without intending to, and he let certain secrets slip. Like, for example, the fact that he saw Perceptor once a week for educational therapy.

Slug hadn't even known that Perceptor had ever done anything but maintain the city infrastructure and act as a pseudo secretary to Prime, but it made sense that he taught, given how much he rambled. He was a bit of a blowhard, in Slug's opinion.

He knocked on the laboratory door.

"Give me a moment, would you?" Perceptor's snobby voice called from inside. Slug made himself comfortable against the wall. "I've just got to get a bioactive field up around this specimen. Really, it's—"

The door slid open and Perceptor stuck his head out.

"—absolutely fascinating." He continued without stopping. "As far as I can tell, the venom is both neurotoxic and a coagulant, which explains the sequelae we observed in the Dinobots—"

Slug grunted. Perceptor blinked and refocused on him.

"Ah, Slug. My apologies, I was expecting Ratchet. How may I help you?"

"Had some questions," Slug stepped past Perceptor into the lab. Perceptor looked nearly shocked, but shook it off and followed him.

The lab looked, well, like a lab. There were various instruments Slug didn't recognize, a long bench stretching across the middle, and cabinets labeled to hell and back with 'robohazard' lining the walls, with a few empty spaces for the windows.

"Guh," Slug squinted at the bench.

"Ah, this is what I was discussing," Perceptor gestured to the flayed Insecticon, "I've had to erect a holofield, on account of having accidentally introducing the venom to my person."

Slug squinted, rearranged the words, and broke down the polysyllables.

"You okay?"

Perceptor brought his forearm up to eye level. The thick metal plating was bubbled and blistered; it looked for all the world like slag metal.

"I halted circulation to the site of the introduction, essentially quarantining the toxin. I intended to call and inform Ratchet, but I seem to have lost track of time and it slipped my mind, considering he hasn't come. The toxin's progression is fascinating; frankly, I'm surprised you had no other ill effects. That Sludge is the only one suffering from long-term exposure suggests a mild immunity was a byproduct of your reformatting."

"Huh," Slug said, mostly just to fill the silence. Maybe he should have tried harder with Ratchet. Perceptor went slagshit when he got on these… science things. "That healthy to let it chew up your arm like that?"

"Oh, probably not, but now that I've got the opportunity to see the venom's progression, I shouldn't waste it. Besides, if need be, we can always acquire antisera from Grimlock, given that he was able to practically negate the effects on his primary exposure."

"Sure. Hey, you mentioned Grimlock."

Perceptor rested his arm back on the desk. "Ah, yes, I did. I believe he's in the combat gym."

"I know where he is. Just had a question about him," Slug rolled back his shoulders to make himself seem broader. Perceptor wasn't exactly short, so Slug couldn't quite loom over him, but he was much wider. "I need to see his medical records."

"Oh? Well I'm sorry, but I don't have the authorization to give you access. Perhaps Ratchet could help you?"

"I wasn't asking."

Perceptor frowned. "Ah. Intimitation. How crass of you. Regardless, I cannot give you Grimlock's files. Why do you even want to see them?"

Slug rolled his eyes and sighed through his nose. "Look, you're smart, right? But you don't know Grimlock like I—like we—do. He's trying to hide stuff from us, but he's slag at it. And if he hides from us, Primus knows he's hiding from you."

Perceptor patted the back of his hand. Bits of his arm flaked off. "I understand your concern, but I'm afraid I can't help you."

Slug brushed the red metal off himself. "Can you help him? Hell, he didn't even tell us he couldn't read anymore. Swoop didn't even notice it. Did you?"

"Yes," Perceptor nodded, "the initial testing he completed indicated that he used the audio aids for the majority of the questions. We've been working to accommodate the ship for him."

"Can't you just fix him?"

"We can try, and we've certainly been trying since your arrival on board. It's certainly feasible that Grimlock might one day recover, but you need to understand that he cannot simply be 'fixed'," he eyed Slug with a disgustingly sympathetic stare, "and he shouldn't be thought of as lesser for that."

"Feh," Slug scowled. "I wasn't thinking that. Just…"

"Worried?"

"Dinobots don't worry."

"Of course not." Perceptor smiled slightly.

"Sixth order," Prowl continued, flicking to the next slide of his presentation, "establishing a ship-wide diurnal cycle. Our on-shift is still suffering from a lack of normal regulation, and…"

Ratchet propped his head on his fist and tried not to look bored. He wasn't doing a very good job, but then, neither was anyone else. Ironhide was another blink or two away from snoring, Jazz and Cliffjumper were making eyes at each other, and Perceptor was clearly running calculations on a smuggled datapad under the table. Only Optimus seemed like he was still trying to pay attention, and even he was struggling to feign interest.

"That's fascinating, Prowl," Optimus broke in during a slight pause, "but in the interest of time, could you continue to the next topic? After all, if we are to 'maintain productivity', then we must be given a chance to do so."

Prowl frowned, but clicked forward three slides. "Of course, Prime. I meant to bring this up during the last officer meeting, but Perceptor's arm fell off, and we adjourned early."

At his name, Perceptor looked up, and flushed guiltily. Yes, Ratchet could remember that all too well. He had always known that Perceptor tended towards absent-mindedness when he was absorbed in his projects, but to let venom linger in one's systems for two weeks while one's arm slowly corroded away was outright stupid. Ratchet had told him so, in more colorful language, when he was finally admitted to the medbay, febrile and down a limb.

"Yes," Optimus said, his voice tinged with amusement, "I remember. What did you want to bring up?"

"The integration of the, ah, Dinobots into the ship's duty roster."

"I had assumed they were already on-duty?"

"Yeah," Ironhide nodded, pulled from his nap by the impending ending of the meeting, "I've seen them on monitor shifts."

The rest of the officers made general noises of agreement.

"Yes," Prowl agreed, "they are currently restricted to light duty, but Ratchet," Prowl nodded to him, "recently changed the flags on their personnel profiles and removed any medical restrictions. I intended to transfer them to full duty a month ago, but required approval from you first."

'You' in this case clearly meant the the handful of officers who made it onto the ship. There were so few Autobot survivors of Cybertron's fall in general, and even fewer who made it to the exodus. It was the reason they were so easily able to house the Dinobots, and the myriad few space-faring Autobots they had stumbled across during their journey: a full half of the ship's rooms were unoccupied.

"Well," Optimus said, "We'll just finish the bureaucracy and fill out the forms for that—"

"Excuse me," Perceptor said, raising his hand, "pardon the interruption, but may I ask a question?"

Perceptor rarely spoke up during these meetings—unless it was to spout fever dream gibberish and collapse—and even more rarely interrupted someone. Ratchet could count on one hand the number of times Perceptor spoke over someone, and most of those were during their time at the Science Academy.

"Go ahead," Prowl sounded miffed, but then, he always sounded like he had something clogging his tailpipe.

"May I have an explanation of what 'full duty' entails?"

"They'll be pulling full cycles, instead of the half shifts they do now." Prowl shrugged, and accessed a file, "I've got them scheduled for patrols, monitor duty, combat, guard shifts, docking and transport, and general maintenance."

"Thank you," Perceptor said. His voice sounded distant, and he was clearly drifting back into his own little world.

Ratchet drummed his fingers on the table. He had things to do, beakers to clean, cabinets to restock. First Aid wasn't going to do any of it; he was still shellshocked and terminally exhausted from the exodus from Cybertron. Ratchet was seldom inclined to pity, but really, the poor kid needed his rest, and besides, Ratchet could keep working. He liked working; he just didn't like meetings or bureaucracy.

"Well," Optimus spoke up, "I'll approve the requisitions for you, and get the forms transferred over."

"I'd like to raise an objection."

As one, the room's gaze shifted to Perceptor. He frowned at the attention, but flattened his palms on the table and kept going.

"I am disinclined to clear Grimlock for combat."

Optimus peered at him. "Your reasoning?"

"Grimlock is not currently capable of making fully informed decisions, nor does he have full possession of his faculties. It is morally irresponsible to put him in a situation where a single misstep may result in damage or death."

Prowl tapped his forefinger on the table. "Grimlock fought his way out of Shockwave's tower. Minor clashes with rogue Decepticon units wouldn't be nearly as taxing. Besides, we need the numbers."

"I disagree."

"This is a war," Prowl narrowed his eyes, "We do not have the means for moral superiority."

"Then what separates us from Shockwave?"

"That's a simplified view of the complexities of war and you know it," Prowl jabbed a finger at Perceptor, "What happens when we lose someone because you don't want to let Grimlock fight?"

"What happens when you stop relying on moral relativism and non sequiturs for your arguments?" Perceptor raised his voice, "I will not pretend you are stupid and try to imply that this small act of basic decency is all that separates us from the Decepticons, but the fact that you would seek to exploit a damaged mechanism and place him into active combat, despite what protocol states, just for the illusory advantage of added personnel, suggests things about your perception of where you believe you lie in relation to the Autobot code."

"Ad hominem is unlike you, Perceptor," Prowl's tone was icy. Ratchet frowned and shifted in his chair.

"But sacrifice is like you. We cannot live in a world where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

"Perceptor, Prowl," Optimus held his hands up. Perceptor reseated himself. "Calm down. I will not see my officers descend into bickering. It's clear we need to approach this situation carefully. We will put this matter to a vote. Ironhide?"

"I'm with Prowl," Ironhide raised a hand, "It ain't nice, but war ain't nice. I've seen too many good mecha die to give up an advantage."

"Very well. Ratchet?"

Ratchet frowned. "I… I agree with Perceptor. No matter how you paint it up, it's wrong to do that to Grimlock. Hell, look at us, debating a mech's chance to live or die when he isn't even in the room."

"Jazz?"

Jazz exchanged a glance with Cliffjumper. "For."

"Against."

"We're voting net neutral," Jazz explained, "Canceling out. 'Sides, it ain't our business."

"We're scouts and special ops, not soldiers or doctors. We don't have the perspective for this kind of thing."

Optimus sighed deeply. "That's your prerogative. I notice, however, that you leave me with the deciding vote."

"Sorry, Prime," Jazz shrugged.

Optimus steepled his fingers and closed his eyes. After a long pause, he finally spoke. "It seems to me that there is no good answer, and I cannot in good conscience condone either course of action. Therefore, I suggest a compromise: we push back our decision regarding Grimlock until our next meeting, and clear the other Dinobots presently. Grimlock will have further time to heal, and we will have the opportunity to gain further understanding about this sector of space, and the dangers it possesses. Additionally, I want Grimlock to attend the next session. He is, after all, an officer, and if he is recovered enough to be released into full duty, then he is recovered enough to have a voice about it. Any comments?"

The room was silent, until Ironhide grunted an affirmative. The rest of them followed suit, making vague noises of agreement.

Optimus grinned—Ratchet could tell by the brightness of his eyes. "Excellent. It has, as always, been a pleasure. Dismissed."

Prowl was the first out the door, a hand pressed to his comm unit as he rapidly reorganized the scheduling to accommodate three new bodies. Ironhide and Optimus followed at a more sedate pace, discussing ammo requisitions and general supplies. Cliffjumper and Jazz bolted for the rec room, heads together in deep conversation.

Perceptor sighed and pushed himself up. He fiddled with his datapad until it displayed whatever he had been working on.

"It's not like you to start a fuss," Ratchet observed, heading for the door.

"No, I suppose it isn't." Perceptor pursed his mouth. He followed Ratchet into the hall, and they made their way to the aft section of the ship. "Oh, I meant to ask your opinion on a portion of the Insecticon's anatomy; it looks nearly Cybertronian, and I only have a strong background in xenobiology."

"Sure. Why does it bother you so much that Prowl wanted Grimlock on combat duty?"

Perceptor glared at him. "I was under the impression that you shared my perspective on the subject."

"Sure, sure," Ratchet held up his hands, "I agree with you on the moral stuff, yeah, but I've known you for a long time. You don't argue like that."

Perceptor looked away, and crossed his arms. "I considered," he said, "that we are not like Sh—like Decepticons. Moreover, that we do not do things that violate the freedom of other beings. This moral relativism—the idea that as long as it is necessary, that no matter how against our principles, we may consider doing something because it benefits us, it terrifies me. I knew of him, you know, before the war. His experiments seemed so rational, until he crossed the line, and kept crossing it until it seemed like there was never one for him in the first place. In retrospect, looking back, I can never seem to decide when he went too far. Was it the clones? The Insecticons? Was it only when he allied himself with Megatron?"

Ratchet studied Perceptor's face. "It bothers you that you could be like him."

"It bothers me that anyone could be like him."

"Is that why you're so hell-bent on coddling Grimlock?"

"I am not coddling him."

"Sure."

"Ratchet," Perceptor snapped, "do not confuse my fear for concern." He sighed. He had been doing that often lately. "I am terrified of what happened to Grimlock happening to me. Can you imagine it? Not being able to think, having your mind locked away from you like that. I am being selfish, concerning Grimlock. Making this," he waved his hand, "about me, and my fears, my anxieties. I don't like what that says about me."

"It says you have a rational fear. Does it matter where your sympathy comes from, in the long run?"

"Of course it does."

Ratchet shrugged. "I don't think so. If I fix someone because I think it's the right thing to do, or if I fix someone because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't, they still end up fixed. The only one who suffers pointlessly because of my motivation is me. And if I'm oversimplifying to make it easier on myself, then who cares? It's war. Now, let's take a look at that Insecticon of yours."

Perceptor rested his forehead on the edge of the bench and tried not to yell.

"Headache?" Grimlock leaned over him and tapped his shoulder.

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you, Grimlock." Perceptor sat back up and tried not to beam. His head did hurt, really, but it was irrelevant at the present. Grimlock's vocabulary and recall were improving by the day. From what little research had been done before the war, recovery tended to spike, before slowing down as time passed. Perceptor only hoped that Grimlock was equipped to deal with the frustration that came with that speed bump. "How are you feeling? Have you been practicing your cognitive exercises?"

"Yeah." Grimlock frowned. "I don't like them. How am I feeling thinking-wise or brain-wise?"

"Either, if you don't mind."

"Good. Ratchet gave me a new drug for sleeping. It makes me fuzzy and tired. Homework helped. I can do most of the letters now."

"That's excellent. Would you mind telling me about the new chemo—the new drug?"

Grimlock produced a blister packet of dissolvable tablets, each with a small timer and date on the cap. "I put one in my cube before the off-shift cycle, when the time beeps. Then I get tired."

Perceptor checked Grimlock's medical records and confirmed the instructions. He was correct, although Perceptor had reservations about the prescription. "Has Ratchet discussed prescribing you an electrical system stimulant?"

Grimlock sucked air and looked off to his right.

"You might remember a name? Methyldate, or PheniElectryc?"

"Yeah, the second one. Ph—Pheni. That one. What's it do?"

"It blocks certain reuptake systems, and forces the processor to increase transmission of electrical signals. In your case, we'd use it as a mood regulator. Prowl mentioned that you destroyed a piece of training equipment."

Grimlock scowled and stood up. He had never liked talking about his failures, and his injury only made it worse. He started pacing across the lab.

"Would you like to talk—"

"No."

Perceptor looked at Grimlock, decided against pushing his luck, and shifted to alt mode to examine the chitinous inner membrane of the Insecticon. Really, after nearly six months of examining it, one would think that the mysteries of the organism would cease to reveal themselves. Identifying the alloy was as simple as tossing a piece of armor into the mass spectrometer, but any attempts to recreate the material ended in resounding failure, and once in a ball of hot slag that threatened to melt through his fingers until Grimlock—pragmatist that he was—grabbed it and tossed it out of the airlock.

"Perce—Perc," Grimlock stopped. "You."

Perceptor transformed back into root mode. "Yes?"

Grimlock beckoned him over to the hull wall. "Heard something. Like a tapping."

Perceptor frowned and walked over to him. Auditory hallucinations were a possible symptom of typical processor injuries, but Grimlock's case was anything but typical. Besides, nothing he'd ever said before suggested he experienced them.

"Here," Grimlock tapped at a section of wall, "can you hear it?"

Perceptor listened. "I don't hea—wait a moment." He pressed the side of his head against the wall. Yes, there it was, a slight, almost rhythmic, tapping noise. "Perhaps some cabling came loose."

"Asteroids?"

"The ship has perpetually active minor shielding, which should repel any space debris."

"Huh." Grimlock leaned back. "Thought you couldn't hear stuff in space."

"Well, you can't, but we're in a pressurized space ship. There are plenty of molecules to transfer sound waves in here. We ought to inform Prowl. He handles the duty roster, and should know about any damage to the outside of the… is that getting louder?"

Perceptor pressed the side of his head flush against the wall. "Yes, I think it—"

There was a click, which was about all Perceptor was able to comprehend before the blast force sent him tumbling head over feet across the lab. Explosion. The word seemed neon bright in his mind. He barely had time to blink before the unrelenting vacuum of space dragged him, screaming, four meters towards the ragged hole in the side of the ship. The reserve shielding sputtered online and he dropped to the floor. He shook his head. Sound was still fuzzy and distant, but he could see the flashing red lights of an emergency alert.

"—anger. Hull breech in sector four-zero-zero. Danger."

The low, melodic voice of the computer system gradually faded into existence as his self repair took care of his hearing. Sector four-zero-zero—that was the fourth deck, closest to the engines, furthest starboard. The lab. Of course. Perceptor staggered to his feet. He was largely undamaged, just a few scrapes and dents—nothing that self repair wouldn't handle in the next day or so.

"Gri—"

He cut himself short and ducked behind the bench. Figures, two of them, with broad wings—Decepticon wings, loomed in the smoke. Perceptor hoped he was wrong. Perhaps the Aerialbots had somehow appeared in the lab? The low murmur of voices quickly proved him wrong.

"These aren't the engines," the taller figure grunted. The smoke was clearing, sucked away by the air filters. Through the dim, Perceptor could make out the cygar glow of red optics.

"Check the plans again, Pitch."

A snort. "Must think I'm stupid or something," the first voice—Pitch—muttered, then said, "we're next to the engines. They're a room down."

"Let's go."

Perceptor sent a wordless distress signal to security and pulled his pistol out of subspace. His light cannon would punch another hole through the side of the ship, and he didn't want to risk being sucked out into the inky void again.

He pressed his back to the bench and rolled his head up, daring a glance over the bench top.

"There!"

He dropped back to the floor and threw his arms over his face. Laser blasts pelted the bench top; he could feel the heat on the exposed sections of his forearms.

"Thought I saw something. Flank him, Yaw," Pitch grunted, marching across the room. Perceptor ducked out from behind the bench and shot him, twice. The Decepticon shrugged the blasts off and kept walking.

Ah, shielding. Personal shielding wasn't ever employed among the Autobots, in part due to the financial burden it posed, and in part due to the inherent danger of strapping a miniaturized hyper core to your chest. Perceptor fired another volley of shots. Really, it was one of the more unstable forms of energy in general, and to expect a compact version of what was used to blast ships into orbit to remain stable as it was jostled around was outright stupidity—

"Ack!" Perceptor grunted as the Pitch's fist closed around his throat. His pistol clattered to the ground, and his feet treaded air, struggling back to the stable embrace of metal sheeting. Pitch narrowed his red eyes.

"Got an Autobot here," he said, wildly waving Perceptor around.

"Think he can point us towards the engines?"

"Well? You heard him."

Perceptor would have batted at him, but his hands were clutched around the Decepticon's arms. He wasn't organic, and didn't need to breath, but that didn't mean his head couldn't be torn off by artificial gravity and his own weight. Instead, he kicked Pitch's knee.

Pitch shook him and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I don't think he's going to be much help."

"Dump him and let's split. The engines are just down the lifts. Besides, he probably called reinforcements." Yaw said the word like it was a joke. Pitch snickered.

"Got it." He dropped Perceptor, looked at him like a bug, sneered, and emptied his clip into Perceptor's chest.

Perceptor shrieked. It wasn't the pain so much as the shock of it. He struggled to look at the tattered, concave pit of his chest. Damage reports covered his vision, little red boxes popping up to tell him 'yes, there is a hole there; you ought to fix it before you bleed out', as if he didn't already know. His feet scrabbled for purchase in the widening puddle of his own energon.

"Ah, damn," the tall Decepticon clicked uselessly at his trigger, "I'm out. Come here and put this thing out of his misery, would you?"

"Never remember to bring extra clips, do you?" Yaw crossed the room and looked down his sight at Perceptor's head. Perceptor pried a hand away from his exposed internals with a gush of energon, and struggled to push the barrel away from his face.

"Primus, this is sad. Look at him, Yaw."

Was this what it felt like, to look at one's death? The barrel of the gun was black like pitch, empty and yawning. Perceptor tried to flinch back, and pressed the base of his head into the floor. His world was very quickly becoming just the gun barrel. The edges of his vision were desperate blurs. He heard a distant, far-off vibration. The puddle of energon rippled.

Thud.

Then again.

Thud.

"The hell is that—" Yaw turned away, dragging the tip of the gun across Perceptor's cheek.

"ME GRIMLOCK CRUSH DECEPTICONS!"

Grimlock charged the Decepticons shoulder first. Yaw had the sense to scramble left, but Pitch stared in horrified, startled motionlessness, until Grimlock hit him like an avalanche. Grimlock pummeled him into the wall, until his face looked less like a face and more like a really bad wreck. Grimlock pulled back, howled, and threw him through the reserve shielding. Funny, thought Perceptor, you weren't supposed to be able to go through those. That was the entire point of them. He coughed up energon.

"Pitch!" Yaw cried desperately, and took a shot at Grimlock's back. It barely singed his armor, and just seemed to make him angrier. He crossed the room in a handful of steps. He stared down at the Decepticon, his eyes burning nearly white. Then, he reached out wrapped his hand around the gun, and crushed both it and Yaw's trembling fist effortlessly.

"Guns not fair," he dropped the crumpled ball of metal at his feet, then backhanded the Decepticon into the wall.

He stood there, surrounded by debris, steam wafting from his vents as he tried to come down from his rage. Perceptor sputtered.

Grimlock dropped to his knee and leaned over Perceptor. "You hurt."

"Call Ratchet-t-t," he managed to feebly force around his failing vocalizer, "He needs to stop-p-p-p the bleed."

Grimlock looked down at his chest, and pressed one massive hand over the hole. Perceptor shouted, and the energon only seemed to flow faster.

"Not working!" he shouted, and drove his other fist into the ground. "Can't think!"

"Calm down-n-n," Perceptor flailed a hand upwards until it latched around Grimlock's fingers, "Remember what-t-t-t we talked about-t-t?"

Grimlock shifted his palm away from the wound and engulfed Perceptor's smaller hand in his own. He squeezed, reassuringly, and gentle for him. A new warning flashed in Perceptor's vision. Ah. So, this was it, then? He tried to feign a smile. Grimlock studied his face, and yanked his hand away, standing up and lunging for the lab bench.

Oh, well. Perhaps once he had been terrified of death, but now everything seemed so distant. He couldn't care less about anything, other than, perhaps, the cold comfort of letting go. He could feel his auxiliary systems shutting down; there went his limbs, transformation, radio. He closed his eyes.

An electric shock of pain shot through him. His eyes snapped open and locked on Grimlock, eyes dark and fist clenched around… something. A sphere? His vision trailed down to his chest. Something was congealing the spilt energon, creating an external clot. Stopping the bleed.

Another drop hit him and he flinched. This felt like…

"The Insecticon-n-n?" He stuttered.

Grimlock opened his fist to reveal the crushed venom gland. It seared the surface of his palm—even Grimlock's armor couldn't withstand what had to be far above the LD50—and dripped down into Perceptor's chest. "Thought of it. I remembered."

"Excellent-t," Perceptor smiled weakly, then coughed energon, "Perhaps you should call Ratchet-t, as well. Just-t-t-t in-n case."

Grimlock stood outside of the medbay. He held a fistful of plastisteel crystals, arranged in a neat bouquet. Snarl said you were supposed to give innermost energon to somebody who was hurt, but Perceptor was probably sick of the stuff. Besides, he always had a crystal growing in the corner of his lab; maybe he liked them.

First Aid passed by him with an armload of medical supplies and looked curiously at him. Grimlock stared down at him until he got the good sense to keep walking.

Grimlock scowled, and pressed open the door.

Perceptor was sitting upright in the far slab, a tarp pulled up to his waist. He was draped in little wires and tubes, and a machine steadily beeped in the background. A large sheet of metal was welded over his chest, holding in his scrapped internals. Grimlock rubbed his arm. Ratchet had taken energon from him, not to transfer into Perceptor, but to process for something called… he couldn't remember. It was supposed to help Perceptor get better from the Insecticon stuff. The poison.

Grimlock scuffed his foot on the floor, and Perceptor looked up from his datapad, then set it aside

"Ah, Grimlock!" He sounded cheerful, at least. "How have you been?"

Grimlock clumped across the room and dumped the crystals on the small cart that had been wheeled up beside the slab. There were a few vials of innermost energon, as well as a teetering pile of datapads. Perceptor had to crane his neck up to make eye contact, so Grimlock dragged a chair over and sat heavily in it.

"Good. Ratchet fixed my hand." He held it up as proof. His palm was taped over in mesh bandages, protecting the nanites smeared over the damaged metal. It was supposed to help him heal faster, but it mostly just itched. Besides, if he acted up about it, Prowl would just give him more brig time, and Ratchet would up his dose of sedatives. "How are you?"

Perceptor touched the tip of a crystal. "Thank you. I'm as well as can be expected, I suppose."

He fell silent. Grimlock settled back in his chair. Quiet was fine. He could keep track of quiet.

"When," Perceptor began, "when you were captured by Shockwave, did you ever think you were going to die?"

Grimlock scratched his chin. "Not really. Too focused on not screaming. No time for it."

"Ah. Ah, yes. Of course."

Grimlock squinted at him. He had once been excellent at reading lies, and he could remember doing it, but the information, the connection from remembering to doing, from thought to action, was missing. It slipped through his fingers if he tried to snatch it out of his mind.

"Something's wrong?" He tried instead.

"I suppose it is. I've been having nightmares."

"Me too. You want my medicine?" At Perceptor's startled glance, he amended. "That's a joke."

"I gathered," Perceptor held up his hands and grinned. It looked a little forced. He reset his vocalizer and said nothing.

Something was… very wrong. Perceptor was still sick, or had gotten sick again, or something went wrong. Grimlock didn't know what it was. He rested his hand on Perceptor's shoulder.

"I was so sure I was going to die," Perceptor whispered, "and I didn't care. I didn't do anything."

Grimlock squeezed his shoulder. Dinobots didn't have breakdowns, so he really had no clue how to act. Even before Shockwave turned his brain into a muddled mess of frustration and mental blocks, he was not a comforter by nature.

"I hate helplessness."

"Not helpless. You shot one of them. You got out of the way. Didn't let them know I was around." Grimlock tapped his chin in thought. "Showed me where the Insecticon was, a while back."

"I wasn't able to do anything!"

Grimlock leaned back. He had never heard Perceptor yell.

"I stood there and I got shot, Grimlock, and then I laid down and waited to die." Perceptor raised his hands up to fuss with the metal plate on his chest. Grimlock reached over, and pressed his hands back down to his lap with a finger.

"Not helpless," Grimlock corrected, "You just can't fight."

Perceptor's shoulders slumped. Grimlock looked over him with a critical eye. He wasn't tough like a Dinobot, but he was plenty smart, and he had a cannon. Even if Grimlock's mind was taken from him, he was still strong—stronger, in fact, than he had been.

"Can teach you."

"Pardon?"

"To fight. I can teach you to fight. You teach me to think; I teach you to fight. Fair, right?"

"Grimlock," Perceptor said, "this isn't about obligation."

"It isn't," Grimlock agreed, nodding, "you wanna learn?"

Perceptor looked back at his lap, and considered. After a long, boring moment, he pursed his mouth and looked back up.

"Yes."

Grimlock laughed. "Good. See you tomorrow."

They both looked down at the metal sheeting. The monitor beeped.

"Well," Grimlock amended, "maybe a bit later than that."

Title comes from Heart's Crazy on You.

So, I completely missed that the Dinobots weren't on the Ark when it left Cybertron at the end of FoC, and it's very obvious where I scrambled for an excuse to have everyone in the same place. Oops.

Notes regarding brain injury. So, in people, brain injury is vastly different than what is portrayed in fiction. I've heard the factoid that the most accurate depiction of brain injury in any movie is that of Dory, in Finding Nemo. Anyways, after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), it's very common to go into a coma, due to the swelling of the brain (much like how your ankle swells if you sprain it, but the brain has nowhere to go, because of the skull). Comas are a whole other subject, and I'm not going to bother to go into that right now. TBI can have a huge variety of symptoms, from physical, to cognitive, to emotional. Grimlock, as portrayed in FoC, doesn't really seem to have physical issues, but seems to have both mental and emotional stuff going on. He remarks that it's become hard to think, and he reacts violently to goading (how much of this is his base character and how much is supposed to be brain stuff is a discussion for another time).

Methyldate/PheniElectryc is a play on methylphenidate, or Ritalin if you want to use the brand name. It does… some brain stuff I don't understand because I'm not a neurologist or whatever.

LD50 is the dose of a substance required to kill half of the organisms to which it's introduced.

The insecticon venom here functions less like insect venom (which causes an anaphylactic reaction), and more like snake venom (which is either hemotoxic or neurotoxic, depending on the species). While technically you could probably clot something by dumping rattlesnake venom on it, that'd be a very bad idea.