It was nearing dawn when the doors to the detention block informally known as the Rowdies' Row opened. Decepticons rarely saw the inside of this particular wing – it was mostly dedicated to holding the Autobots' own troublemakers, and Jazz, who had spent his share of nights in one or another of its holding units, glanced up expectantly.
As he'd anticipated, Flicksaw had been less than pleased with him over this latest... incident. The more so because he'd been implicated in it. "If I'd known what you were intending to do," the CMO had begun by saying. Which was a little disappointing, since Jazz had hardly had to think at all to respond, it was such a familiar opening.
"That's why I don't bother telling you. You wanted an evaluation of your 'bot and none of your lot can act worth scrap, so you asked me to feel him out. It was the right choice. Why worry now about how it got done?" he'd drawled in his most complacent tone, the one designed to get in and grind the CMO's gears.
Flicksaw had given him a very cold look. "That assessment had better be worth my covering you to Prime over this," he'd replied. Jazz hadn't deigned to say anything to that, and Flicksaw had matched his silence, departing the moment he had satisfied himself that his patient had suffered no harm from his little 'adventure.'
But if the CMO had intervened with Prime, that hadn't prevented him, apparently, from throwing Jazz to the mercy of his company commander. "Flicksaw sent me a very interesting account of his afternoon and yours. Most 'bots," said commander had told him, training his floodlights on him in reproof when he'd come to check in on Jazz later that night, "know not to pick a fight with a medic."
"Can't help that they're easy to mess with," had been his unrepentant response. Then: "Flicksaw asked me for help. He knows who I am." A dismissive wave. "If he didn't ask about method, it's because he didn't want to know how I'd go about it. Crack medic, but if he wants to play in my field, he's gotta lose the fear. Not gonna get all sorrowful on his behalf. Besides," he'd added, a little indignantly, "he didn't even ask you if he could borrow me."
"I noticed you didn't bother to forward that request, either," had been Optronix's dry response.
"Didn't want you to worry about it. It was just a psych eval – on base, off the record, quiet-like."
"Need I point out that this quiet evaluation on base ended with you getting knocked out and carried off to the detention wing?" Optronix had asked rhetorically, pinning Jazz with a meaningful stare. Then: "Well? What do you think?"
"Of our pacifist friend?" Jazz had shrugged. "Don't know."
That had gotten him a sharp look and surprised flicker of lights. "You don't know?"
"Nope."
"You put him under a gun, and you didn't know how he would react?"
"Well, he wasn't going to shoot me," Jazz had begun, only to be bluntly contradicted:
"He did shoot you."
"Nah. Taser don't count – it's just electroshock designed to take advantage of primary body shielding. That's always been the last-ditch medical control option. Any ERB 'bot would know that." He'd waved a hand, 'blurring' the air dismissively. "Anyhow, I've been listenin' to people – squad mates, medical brethren, even got a read on Barrage. He's pushin' the mercury, tryin' to get somethin' out of Ratchet – he's convinced the 'bot's got somethin' wrong in the wiring, way he don't respond." Jazz had given a negative flicker of lights. "Trust me, this was the only script to run – closest we can get to seein' how he'd react to the real event, an' that's what Flicksaw needs to know."
"What if he hadn't held to his commitments?" his commander had asked.
"Missin' the point, sir – that ain't so much the problem. He did hold. And he only dropped me 'cause of Skypax. An' he's fine, right?"
"Skypax?" Optronix had flared his lights briefly brighter. "As far as I know – we spoke briefly and nothing seemed amiss."
"So." Jazz had shrugged in a 'why are we arguing?' fashion. "If Flicksaw's not still cycling frass through his vents, then he's got at least two of the data points he needs."
Optronix's engine had given a weary, subterranean rumble at that, lights dimming somewhat. But then he'd straightened and given Jazz one of his looks. "I want a copy of your incident report and the evaluation you're handing in to Flicksaw," he'd said briskly. "After you get out, we'll discuss them."
"Leavin' me in here, are you?"
"You did Flicksaw a favor on your own time. If you want me to intervene with the MP as your CO, you can tell me what you're up to before it lands you in a cell." Point made, Optronix had told him to get some rest and left him with a promise to come claim him sometime the next day.
Currently, it was just shy of dawn, but Jazz was perfectly happy to count this as 'day', knowing as he did that his CO, orbital native that he was, preferred the early shifts. Not that the Rowdies' Row wasn't a good place to get some down-time in – no access to outside 'casts, no ports, no neighbors, no where to go, and nothing more exciting to do than knock himself into stasis lock by playing touch-and-go with the barrier field – but he wasn't eager to drag it out any longer than necessary, either. His CO knew that, too, and knew better than to let him sit too long, because a twitchy and irritated Jazz was something nobody in his right mind wanted on his hands...
But the 'bot who stepped into view and right up to the warning line painted onto the floor to demarcate Jazz's confinement zone was not Optronix. Jazz tilted his head sideways, and gave a surprised trill. "Here to gloat or you got some charity still in your systems you wanna offload?" he asked of the medic who stood staring at him.
"Neither. Somebody has to run a last check on you before clearing you for discharge, and to get a read-out on your neural lines. It's nothing a half-trained field tech couldn't do, which qualifies me to spare everyone else the pain," Ratchet informed him.
"Ouch, doc," Jazz replied, though he couldn't help but grin. Pacifist or not, this one he could tangle with!
"You're a pain, I'm a puzzle – seems about right, wouldn't you agree?" the other replied, as he crossed the threshold, and Jazz stiffened just a little at the unpleasant electromagnetic whisper that the rippling barrier field created. Ratchet, of course, didn't flinch at all, just gestured for him to come closer so he could run his scans and whatever else.
Jazz obeyed, but not without commenting, "You know, I've probably been in here two or three times since we made planetfall after we blew Priox orbital."
"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."
"And I gotta say," he continued, "Flicksaw's never run a double check before clearing me."
"Well, you did try to shoot Skypax and me," Ratchet murmured absently, running a scanner over Jazz's chassis and watching his holo-screen's report. Jazz vented – a sharp, slightly disdainful rush of air.
"Wasn't gonna shoot either of you, just for the record," he said, as he turned around, then lowered his head and flexed his shoulders back accommodatingly, so Ratchet could get at the more difficult-to-access neural interface ports that lay just beneath the lip of his dorsal plating. Or more precisely, at the locked-in restraint and monitor 'bolt' currently occupying them so that he'd neither transform anything nor cross the barrier lines nor remove the restraint.
"Pity I didn't know that yesterday," was the response. The two fell silent as Ratchet did a quick query via the bolt, then gave a low hum of irritated surprise. But he said nothing, and Jazz felt him run a scanner down his back to rest a hand just over a secondary access panel, as if wanting another set of readings...
"What?" he asked, when Ratchet let contact and his silence stretch out to the point where they couldn't but be noticed.
"I'm not seeing anything abnormal, but either you're crazy, or your self-defense protocols are distinctly lacking."
Jazz brightened his lights. "There's money on both options, doc, if you're into that sort of thing," he quipped, before taking aim at the opening given him. "Why the notice, though? Yesterday gotcha feelin' a little less than pacific toward me? Tempted to take advantage of your position?" he needled, casting a glance over his shoulder.
"I'm just thinking that someone in your line of work and who's had parts rebuilt as many times as you have should be a little more cautious. Even paranoid," Ratchet answered, sharply.
"You clearly haven't been digging around in my console or lookin' at the classified parts of my psych file."
"I'm a grade three surgeon on probation, not a mind-cracker, in case you hadn't figured that out."
"Oh, I figured. Otherwise, you'd've dropped me without the taser," Jazz replied sagely.
Ratchet's engine gave a low rev that the special ops agent could feel go right up his back, and teeked the other pressing gently over that one apparently sensitive area on his arm. "I don't appreciate being manipulated like that."
"Most 'bots don't," Jazz acknowledged, and though it was a tacit apology if a 'bot were listening for it, it stopped short of any promise to trespass no more on Ratchet's sensibilities.
"Then why do it? Was it really just curiosity?"
Jazz pulsed his electromagnets and shrugged. "You tell me, doc," he replied, then asked in his turn: "Did Flicksaw really send you this morning?"
The two of them fell silent, no doubt each drawing his own conclusions from that little inquisitional stalemate. Finally, Ratchet cycled his vents. The hand on Jazz's back lifted and he felt the tingle of electronics as the medic fiddled once more with the bolt. There was a final, unpleasant little shock, then Ratchet pulled the device carefully free. Jazz vented in relief, running the back of one finger over the area as he stepped away from the medic.
"Thanks, that was starting to – " Jazz began, and then froze. He didn't really need to turn around, because he'd certainly been in the field long enough to know how a gun trained at his back teeked, but he did anyway. Ratchet watched him without expression for a moment, but then said quietly:
"For the record: it's not because I can't, Jazz." And he held him there, until Jazz, at length, nodded. Ratchet nodded back in response, then, without fuss, transformed his arm back into standard mode, though Jazz noted a slight wince, as if something had pinched cabling or rubbed wrong there at the end.
"You know," he said at length, and gestured to the cameras lining the walls, "that's gonna be a really interesting note in your file."
"I'm sure it will be. And I'm sure you'll have something to say about it that should make for even more interesting reading," came the response, and then Ratchet tossed him the deactivated restraining bolt. The special ops agent caught it, held it up and considered it a moment, then cocked his head as he added that reply to the telling lack of klaxons or 'bots dashing in to deal with a weapons violation. He did a few more mental calculations.
"There's no way," he declared, "Flicksaw agreed to this."
Ratchet hesitated for a second, but then shook his head. "No, he didn't," he confirmed, and then turned and began making his way back towards the doors.
"Huh." Jazz stared after him with a burgeoning respect before striding quickly to catch up. And as he drew even and the two of them made their way through the reinforced exit into the 'airlock', he said, "Your file didn't list behavioral or neuropsych specializations."
"I'm not my file. And I'm not just my model or my modifications, either – I should think you, of all people, would know that."
"Point, doc," he acknowledged, respect climbing a notch or two further, as the two of them came at last to the end of the heavily armed corridor. Ratchet petitioned for admittance into the guardroom, and after a moment, the lighting flashed blue. The door before them slid ponderously open.
Over at the monitoring stations, a pair of MPs were having a quiet, if somewhat intense, discussion with another 'bot, and Jazz, upon seeing him, groaned. That got everyone's attention, even as Jazz shook his head and tossed Ratchet a look. "Should've known," he said.
"Good morning, Jazz," his faithless CO greeted him. Then to the MPs: "Make your reports, and route any trouble or inquiries to me," he instructed, waiting just long enough to get somewhat sullen agreement before he gestured to Jazz and Ratchet to follow him and made for the doors.
