Distractions
"The amelioration of the world cannot be achieved by sacrifices in moments of crisis; it depends on the efforts made and constantly repeated during the humdrum, uninspiring periods, which separate one crisis from another, and of which normal lives mainly consist."
 ~ Aldous Huxley

Their arrivals were staggered, each delayed by the length of time and effort Deadline had to commit for every individual refits. Much of their early training relied on this and on him, and the surgical engineer (also team medic now) spared no effort in ensuring the very best care for them. Most of his time was spent pouring over schematics and reviewing inventory, ordering this or that in order to ensure the smoothness of a certain procedure, or a host of other things which all composed the rhythm of his life as he started to settle into a routine. The medlab which had seemed so new and pristine gradually grew more comfortable, more as though it belonged to him - or he to it. One thing bothered him though and it threw him off more than he realized. He hadn't expected to become the unit's orientation officer, but it seemed that being re-activated in his presence and the need for him to remain within range for some time as each of his patients settled in their new shells resulted in every single one of them turning to him with their first questions. And then their subsequent questions. And then even when released into Flagship's care, they somehow ended back in his medlab with yet more questions. It puzzled him to not end and Flagship would provide no answer for the behavior other than to offer him a slight shrug and a smile.

Fallout was brought back online after her refit was done and after a single hour of asking him questions and then seeing others wander in to ask him more questions - much to his ever increasing annoyance - she had given him a pensive look and then offered to take over that portion of things. She had been direct and straightforward about it, with an already clear plan of action laid out. Deadline had immediately agreed, brushing away any further explanations. He'd even felt almost... grateful. (Just because he wanted to make amends didn't mean he had to like other bots. Or want to spend time with them. Or any other such silly notion. Socializing was an annoyance at best and a dreadful waste of time away from his work at worse.)

Of course, having another present at each other mech's awakening meant that the femme had to be briefed in more than just basic medical knowledge while still adapting to the consequences of her own refit as well as dealing with each stage of the processor augmentations she was still undergoing. This meant setting a portion of time out of his schedule during the next shell refit for that purpose only which irked him ceaselessly until Fallout presented him with an estimate of the time he'd save over the remaining refits by not having to do any of the orienting she was taking over from thereon. That she had included a review of the notes she was obviously taking down during the time he was spending getting her informed on what he did and post-op procedures pleased him greatly, not that he'd said so outright. He also noticed that she'd also scheduled eventual training for each member of the team, specifically so that any of them would be able to deal with the particularities of their teammates' upgrades should something occur on the field or with Deadline out of immediate reach. This he relayed to Flagship, and did state approval on. She had tasks ready for each of the new arrivals as well, upon their awakening, effectively getting each new member out of his presence and into her office as swiftly as possible, allowing him a period of solitude and recovery before he went on to the next set of procedures. His work flow was improving with every passing moment and as a result the arrival of the second-in-command was deemed a very good thing from then on.

Once the refits were done and everyone ushered away for individual training which did not yet require his supervision, he allowed himself the luxury of a full block of downtime before settling down to begin some research for future upgrades. Soon though some of the training sessions were added to his schedule by their 2IC. After some of those he requested to be present for some of the further sessions, particularly for Callsign as the calibrating of the flier's sensory net shield was a never-ending task. Especially when the flier proved surprisingly stubborn about attempting to insist he was fine even when some of the shielding mesh leaked feedback at him. Deadline ignored the stubbornness and worked with the other mech until the sensor shielding was prepped to his exacting satisfaction and no feedback leaked through to traumatize the mech anymore. And then he supervised the flier a bit more, just to make his point clear.

He still kept researching upgrades through all of that and did follow-ups on the rest of the team, intent on ensuring no potential issue passed unnoticed. It actually took him a full month to realize the almost regular interruptions to his schedule which were forcing him to take breaks from his research occurred just at the right time for him to decide to give up and get some rest once the interruption was done with. It took him another two weeks - once he started observing this with more purpose - for his suspicions to be confirmed. He stalked down to the mess hall then, ready to tear into the others for actually managing him like that.

The energon cube already up and presented towards him, along with a series of sly or amused expressions and a calm flicker of welcome from one of Fallout's sensor panels made him pause long enough to decide that perhaps he should just take his own advice and not fuss too much over what they'd done. And get some rest when he needed it, instead of working himself to exhaustion.

But it still didn't mean he had to like them...

...much.

Tiamat1972: Callsign is going to have flight capabilities that'll allow him both atmosphere and space flight (due to his size, he really won't be able to travel in a shuttle with the rest of the team. XD)