Chapter 28: Post-Traumatic Stress
I'm shooting out of this room
Because I sure don't like the company.
Stop your preaching right there
'Cause I really don't care
And I'll do it again.
So get me out of my head
Because it's getting kind of cramped, you know;
Coming ready or not,
When the motor gets hot
We can do it again.
- Bulletproof Heart, My Chemical Romance
"I wonder," Knockdown said, "if Knock Out is really content here."
Trauma looked up from the report he was working on. "What makes you say that?"
"He's been begging for time off recently; he even skipped a shift twice." Knockdown took a beaker off the shelf, frowned at it, and put it back. "Your opinion, Trauma? Has he said anything?"
"I wish I could say, but doctor-patient confidentiality—"
"Yes, I'm aware of your obligations," Knockdown said a little too patiently. "I don't need details of his sessions, just your overall impression—for his own good. Has he been distressed lately?"
Trauma paused. Knockdown was his superior officer, but the CMO was not entitled to even this much information. According to the Decepticon code of medical ethics, psychologists were duty-bound to protect a patient's privacy, except in cases where the patient was a threat to themselves or others.
But Trauma was so seldom asked his opinion.
"To be honest I'd say the opposite. He seems happier lately, more relaxed for the most part."
"For the most part'?" Trust Knockdown to jump on that.
"Oh, nothing serious." Trauma said, keeping his tone casual; this was a subject he wanted to avoid, and not just to protect Knock Out's privacy. "He hasn't expressed any dissatisfaction in his work, so I wouldn't worry about it."
"But in other areas?" Knockdown persisted.
"It's nothing, really. He just does a double take sometimes when he sees . . . When he's surprised, sometimes. A minor glitch."
Knockdown frowned. "If he's glitching, I should examine him."
"It's neurological in origin. There's no point," Trauma said firmly. Knock Out hadn't exactly been eager to open up to the psychologist, and he would be even less inclined if he discovered that Trauma had been doling out his personal information. "As for him wanting time off, maybe he's just looking for a change? He's young, after all."
"Well." Knockdown tapped the top of an empty cube while he thought. "He has been cooped up doing replicator work for quite some time. It seemed safer after the various . . . incidents."
Trauma just nodded. He was well acquainted with Knock Out's 'incidents', as in the aftermath of each he ended up counseling not only Knock Out, but usually whatever unfortunate patients had been in proximity. Still, the red clone's mischief-making was getting less frequent and less severe. He'd behaved himself for over a week now.
"I'll set up a more varied roster for him," Knockdown concluded.
"Sounds good," Trauma said. He did not tell his workaholic boss his suspicion: that Knock Out had simply discovered something more enjoyable than work.
Bumblebee was, Knock Out had to admit, sometimes fairly tolerable. Not that he was thrilled to be stuck in this backwards world with him, not that he considered him a friend, but there were worse Autobots to be stranded with.
Of course, some of his warm feelings might be due to the fact that he'd just beaten Bumblebee in a race.
"Okay, but you cheated," Bumblebee beeped, crossing his arms.
"Tsk tsk, Bug, no one likes a sore loser." Knock Out stretched, allowing the watery winter sun the privilege of brightening his plating. "You don't see me complaining, and I'm the one who suffered a minor malfunction—"
"Minor malfunction? You pulled ahead of me and dumped gallons of oil on the road!" Bumblebee dramatically pointed at rainbow-sheened slick still rolling slowly across the asphalt. "I nearly went over the guard rail!"
Knock Out laughed, partly at the memory, partly at Bumblebee's indignant posture—leaning forward, hands fisted on his hips. "You pulled up in time, so who cares?"
"I swear to Primus, next time I'm bringing water balloons filled with paint."
"You wouldn't dare." Knock Out hoped this was true, both for the sake of his paint and because a trail of paint over the ice would make it rather obvious that they'd been sneaking off the ship. So far no one was the wiser.
"We'll see," Bumblebee said ominously. Then, in a worried tone: "We should clean up the oil."
"Clean it up?"
"Yeah. An animal might lick it or something."
"So?"
"So they'd get sick, maybe die. Primus, Knock Out!"
Knock Out couldn't help laughing again. Leave it to an Autobot to worry Earth's precious, precious animals while befriending a species that bought billions of cow-burgers from K.O. Burger alone. "Are all Autobots like you?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're all a hivemind. Whatever makes you happy." Bumblebee crouched to scrape at the oil with a handful of leaves.
"Mmm." Knock Out contented himself with sitting on the guard rail in a comfortable slouch, rolling one of his heel-tires on the asphalt as he watched. "Well, you're strange."
"You're strange."
"Ooo, nice comeback! My circuits burn with shame."
"Oh, hush up." Bumblebee's hands were covered in oil now, but the mess on the pavement was, if anything, worse. "This isn't working."
"Oh no! Bumblebee, you've failed the poor animals? I'm . . . I'm moved to tears just thinking about it." Knock Out pulled a chamois cloth out of his arm compartment and dabbed at his eyes.
"You had that the whole—? Give me that!"
"Ah ah, ask nicely!"
"Primus below—"
"Oh, you flatter me."
"—you are so annoying."
Knock Out snickered and tossed him the cloth. He would wait for perfect moment to inform Bumblebee that it was made out of goat.
"That was a good race, though," Bumblebee said after a minute.
"It was," Knock Out agreed comfortably; the chill of winter was only just beginning to leach away the red-hot burn in his engine. He continued rolling his foot against the pavement as he watched the Autobot ruin a perfectly good chamois cloth. Annoying, normally, but he knew there were more to be found in Dreadwing's room. Collecting human junk had some benefits, it seemed. "Bee, really, you're just spreading that muck around."
"Shut up. I'm cleaning it."
"Yes, yes, you're a regular sanitation bot. If you'd 'cleaned' the Downdraft like that they'd have tossed you off of it."
"What's the Downdraft?"
"'What's the Downdraft?'" Knock Out imitated, rolling his optics more dramatically than was strictly necessary. "Only the most prominent skyway in Vos. Such ignorance! For shame."
"Wow, I can't believe I forgot a random street name from a dead city."
Knock Out didn't respond, just kept rolling his treads and gazing at the sky. Bumblebee felt a sudden pang of guilt. Optimus wouldn't have made a remark like that. Vos might have been an enemy city, but it was a Cybertronian city. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"Hmm?" Knock Out pulled himself out of his reverie, his optic ridges rising in what seemed to be genuine surprise. "Why not? You weren't wrong; it's dead. There's no point in remembering." His black shoulder flares lifted and dropped in a shrug. "Relax. I didn't expect a whelp like you to actually know."
As was often the case, Knock Out's reassurance made Bumblebee feel worse. He wanted to scold the 'Con for dismissing the deaths of thousands, but could not because he'd done it first. He wanted to accuse Knock Out of shortchanging him with his assumption of Bumblebee's ignorance. Except he'd been right.
"Well, I'm sorry anyway. So, um, a skyway is like . . . an air street?"
"That's right. They were marked with rails, beacons, that sort of thing. That's what they polished."
"Well, heh, doubt they would've wanted me for that job anyway. No wings."
"Doorwings, but you wouldn't get far on those," Knock Out snickered. "And you look perfect for rooting around in the muck. Most sanitation bots were grounders anyway."
Bumblebee blinked. Everyone knew Vos was the city of Seekers, the most slim and agile of jets. "Vos didn't have grounders."
"Ohhh ho ho, yes it did! Not many, I'll grant you, but they existed."
"But grounders cleaning a sky street?" ("A skyway, Autobot.") "Wouldn't that be—I don't want to sound functionist here, but—wouldn't that be a bad idea? Like, dangerous? How high were these things?"
"They went up miles and miles." Knock Out gestured beyond the tops of the trees as though the shining skyways of Vos hung above them. "And how they gleamed . . ." He must have felt Bumblebee's optics on him, because he hurried on in a less dreamy tone, "Of course the work was dangerous; that's why it was assigned to grounders and other such riffraff."
"Ah, I get it . . ."
Despite the fact that the caste system had collapsed by the time he was sparked (along with Cybertronian society as a whole) Bumblebee knew enough about it to hate it. But he had to admit the idea of all grounders being shunted into the lower castes unsettled him in a way that the caste struggles of datasticks or heavy construction vehicles had not.
He said, cautiously, "You seem very familiar with Vos."
"Naturally. It was one of the great cities." Knock Out studied his sleek, pointed fingers. "Until the Autobots bombed it off the map."
"Right, right." Bumblebee wiped his servos off on the cloth, although it was so saturated with grease that his hands came away dirtier than ever. He held it out to Knock Out. "I was just wondering, since you said Vos had grounders after all—"
"Ugh, no thank you, you can keep that rag." Knock Out recoiled from the soiled cloth with a dramatic shudder. But just as quickly he was leaning forward, his smile wide and wicked. "Guess what it's made from."
The next few minutes consisted of Bumblebee shouting, Knock Out laughing, and the rag being hurled back and forth as a weapon of war. It did not escape Bumblebee's notice, when they had calmed down, that Knock Out had avoided the question. But he let it lie. It was none of his business.
And he would find out sooner or later anyway, he figured. Knock Out was not as good at keeping secrets as he thought.
"Got a secret, can you keep it? Swear this one you'll save. Better lock it in your pocket, taking this one to the grave—"
"Well, there he is." Airachnid's optics narrowed as she glared through the open door of her quarters, where Soundwave was currently milling aimlessly and blasting Earthen music. "Our resident nutjob."
"There he is indeed, but surely you can shoo him out yourself, Airachnid." She lowered her voice. "And could you please refrain from calling our unfortunate colleague such things?"
"I'll call him anything you want if you get him to leave of my room. And if you think it's possible to keep him out of anywhere once he puts his mind to it—"
Starscream waved a hand to placate her. Airachnid had a point; even before, it had been difficult to keep Soundwave out with lock and key. No one alive could rival his precision when it came to ground bridges. Oh yes, Starscream had had to lay down the law more than once over his tendency to . . . indulge his curiosity; Lord Megatron would not stand for his troops having their privacy violated, fond though he was of Soundwave. Starscream did not disapprove of Soundwave's shenanigans quite so much; he had uncovered useful information more than once, even rooting out spies.
But it was distasteful in her opinion and, more importantly, bad for morale. The least Soundwave could do, she felt, was be discreet. Rearranging one's belongings and leaving little notes was hardly as humorous as Soundwave had thought.
In this instance, Soundwave appeared to have hacked through the door's passcode system rather than bridging in. Starscream had already sent a request to Spool to fix it.
Starscream regarded the blue and white communications officer thoughtfully. Soundwave was not actually doing any harm—merely standing there playing his music. Just another whim he had indulged when it floated into his head, as loose and wispy as the cobwebs he was wrapping around his fingers.
"Did you ask him to leave?"
"What a novel idea." Airachnid tapped her foot. "Begging for access to my own quarters—"
"Airachnid." Starscream silenced her with a look. "Did you ask him?"
Airachnid's thin chestplates expanded outward with the force of her sigh. "Yes, Air Commander, I did. But true to form, since my request wasn't made over the humans' shortwave radio network, he ignored me. So I called you."
Oh dear. Airachnid's confidence in her was touching, she supposed, but when Soundwave was in a mood to ignore the outside world, he generally ignored everyone equally. Well, except Shockwave. But Shockwave, blast his finials, wasn't here. "I'll see what I can do."
She advanced into the room to assess the situation. Unsurprisingly, some of Airachnid's spiders had escaped. Or perhaps Airachnid purposely let her pets free-roam, not caring about the webs they left behind.
Well, Starscream was not there to critique Airachnid's housecleaning. The jet black Seeker approached Soundwave, who was busily herding spiders into an empty energon cube. She cleared her throat, then cleared it again, more pointedly, when Soundwave didn't react.
That got his attention. He set down the cube and turned. Starscream found herself look at a reflection of her golden face as his mask tilted towards her, inquisitive.
"Hello Soundwave," Starscream said. She raised her voice to be heard over the music that was still blasting from his chassis. "Could you turn off the radio please?"
Soundwave twisted his helm to look around the room, then stared back at Starscream. Perhaps he hadn't understood the question. Perhaps he had somehow tuned out the noise. Perhaps he just didn't feel like obeying. The music continued to play.
"Hrm . . . very well. Soundwave, you realize these are Airachnid's quarters?" Soundwave gave no acknowledgement. Starscream shelved her usual subtleties and said, "Well, Soundwave, these are Airachnid's quarters and she would like you to leave."
Soundwave straightened, scratched his arm joint, then slowly drew a large spider out of it. His gaze fixed on it skittered round and round his hand.
"Be careful, for frag's sake! That species is endangered!" Airachnid was hovering in the doorway, watching.
"Airachnid, please." Starscream said. "Soundwave, set down the creature and follow me." She firmly gripped Soundwave's other hand. He did not object to the contact. But he did not move, either. Even when Starscream pulled.
Starscream flexed her vents, repressing a huff of annoyance. She had no doubt that could extract Soundwave eventually, but how long would it take? She had a schedule to maintain. Flight practice with a group of Citizens, then doing a fly-over of the energon mines, then going over battle strategies with Lord Megatron—and if they didn't hammer them out in advance then he would use it as an excuse to charge helm-first into Optimus Prime during the next battle instead of hanging back like any sensible general would.
Lord Megatron had told her, many times, that she should stop "shouldering so much of the burden" (although she did not consider her duties a burden in the least) and delegate more. And in this case, she decided, he was correct.
She stepped out of the room, keeping her posture straight and proper. "I'm afraid Soundwave is not inclined in leaving at the moment, Airachnid."
"Interesting, Screamy, because I am still very interested in seeing him vacate.
"I understand, but I simply haven't the time."
"So you're just going to leave him there? What am I supposed to do? That is my room! And frag knows what he's doing to my breeding projects!"
"I'm sure he won't harm your organic . . . projects. I'll send Trauma over to help. He has an excellent rapport with Soundwave. Now if you'll pardon me—" Starscream started down the hall, pausing only to look behind her and add, "Oh, and Airachnid? Your pets would be less endangered if you kept them contained."
"Of course I'll help," Trauma said, walking with Starscream as she headed towards the upper deck. "Poor Soundwave, he does get confused easily."
"Tell me, Trauma, has there been any change in him?"
For the second time that day a superior officer was asking for information that they weren't entitled to . . . and Starscream's position made her harder to deny than Knockdown. Still, Trauma was far more reluctant to discuss Soundwave's condition due to its severity.
"Well, these things take time," Trauma said uncomfortably. "There's still hope."
Starscream cast him a look that was both sympathetic and shrewd. "I have no doubt in your abilities, you understand." She paused in the doorway to the hangar, gesturing towards the Citizens who were quietly chatting amongst themselves, awaiting her. "I hear many complimentary tales from those you have helped, doctor."
"Oh—well. That's . . . Tthank you." Patients, no matter how grateful, rarely called him by his honorific.
Starscream seemed to be waiting for him to say something further, so he added, "Some cases are more complex than others."
"Of course they are," Starscream nodded, compassion in every lumen of her blue optics. "And in Soundwave's case—" She clicked her tongue.
"I've never seen anything like it," Trauma confessed impulsively.
"Nor I," Starscream said, her wings making a quick, ironic dip. "And I daresay I am a great deal older than you, my dear." She was silent a moment. "Answer one question, Trauma. That is all I require. Would Soundwave be helped or hindered if Shockwave were to return to the Heretic?"
Trauma swallowed, rubbing the tips of his matte black fingers together.
"Helped," he said.
Starscream sighed; Trauma couldn't tell if she was pleased or disappointed. "I shall see what I can do."
He watched her go, trying to ignore the clench of anxiety in his stomach. He did not regret answering her; he only hoped his answer had been the right one.
"Are they gone yet?" Knock Out hissed.
"Not yet," Bumblebee answered in his softest warble. The two sports cars had returned to the Heretic only to find the top deck unusually active; about ten Citizens, all jets, were strolling around the top deck, socializing. Knock Out and Bumblebee, tucked in an alcove just under the side of the ship, had opted to stay hidden until they left. ("Not that we couldn't come up with some excuse," Knock Out had said, "but it's easier this way." Bumblebee had to agree.)
Now that Starscream had appeared, they were less worried about being noticed; the Citizens had focused all their attention on her, their visors bright as they clustered around her.
"Look at them." Knock Out said, fascinated, as he dared peek over the deck. "Hanging on her every word. Do you know what Starscream would do for that kind of attention?"
Bumblebee guessed he was talking about the Decepticon Second-in-Command of their own world. "No, what?"
"Anything."
They both ducked down again as Starscream transformed. The roar of her engines shook the deck as she shot into the sky. Bumblebee and Knock Out stayed put until she and the orange jets flanking her were out of sight.
"Finally," Knock Out sighed, hoisting himself over the rail. He turned around, his arm moving in an awkward half-swing as though he was thinking about offering Bumblebee a hand and then thinking better of it.
Bumblebee cautiously reached up, ready to grab the rail if Knock Out decided not to follow through. But the red sports car grabbed his servo and pulled him up.
"Eugh." Knock Out made a face at the black oil that had transferred from Bumblebee's hand to his own. "Look at this muck."
"I've got a cloth if you want to clean up," Bumblebee said cheerfully, dropping the crumpled, oil-saturated chamois rag on Knock Out's shoulder ornamentation.
"No thank you, I'm in enough of a state." They had pelted each other with it for a good long time before heading back and were both covered with smudges. Knock Out picked the cloth off with two fingers. "You're so rude."
"Picked it from you." Bumblebee enjoyed needling him. "And I'll tell you what else, I'm grabbing the washracks before you aaand I'm gonna use up all the warm solvent."
"Oh no, that is where I draw the line!" Knock Out didn't break into a run, but his strides lengthened as he headed straight for the hangar. Bumblebee grinned under his mouthplate. He sped up too—then slowed down in alarm.
He grabbed Knock Out's arm and tried to pull him back, but "Ah, ah!" Knock Out scolded archly, pulling away. Bumblebee's hands left two wide smears on Knock Out's door-arm as the Decepticon skipped backwards . . . slamming right into the bot who'd been leaning in the doorway.
A startled exclamation sounded behind the medic as he bounced off the unexpected obstacle. Arms pinwheeling, Knock Out tried to catch his balance but it was no use, the concrete floor was rushing towards him—
Fingers dug tightly into his shoulder tires and hauled him back. It saved him from the fall, but he shouted as his shoulder struts throbbed in pain, and with his tires held immobile it was the rest of his body that rotated, making it impossible to regain his balance.
Seeing the problem, or perhaps unnerved by Knock Out's screech, the bot holding him released one tire. Matte black fingers scrabbled for purchase on the smooth planes of Knock Out's chest, scraping his paint in the process.
The thin shreds of red paint fluttering to the ground were the last straw for Knock Out. Primus below, why hadn't this fragger just let him fall if they were going to manhandle him and ruin his finish? Well, he'd had enough. Knock Out rammed his elbow into the larger bot's midsection and, as he felt them begin to fold, to fall on him, twisted blindly in their grasp and shoved himself away as hard as he could.
Knock Out stumbled and caught himself in a crouch, but Trauma landed on his aft with a clang, doubled forward with his arms wrapped around his stomach. Knock Out's spark sank as he saw who it was. Well, great. More time on the couch.
He mentally prepared a charm offensive, summoning his most winning smile as he reached out to the therapist. "Sorry about that, I—"
Trauma lifted his head; Knock Out's voice died as he stared at the black, oily handprint across Trauma's face.
"Sorry," Knock Out repeated. His arms drew tight to his chest, covering his spark. "Sorry."
"Knock Out!" Bumblebee was coming up behind him, frantic and aggrieved. Knock Out gritted his dentae and put his smile back. "Knock Out, what was that? Trauma, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Really." Trauma's smile might have been pained, but it was genuine. He allowed Bumblebee to help him up and nodded with patient understanding as Knock Out pulled himself together and apologized with something close to his usual panache.
But Knock Out could feel his eyes on his back as they left. Trauma had noticed, perhaps, that during his grand apology Knock Out had looked anywhere but his face.
Bumblebee waited until they were deep within the ship before saying, "So what was that all about?"
Knock Out's gait faltered for a moment but his expression remained carefree. "Pardon? What was what all about?"
"The thing with Trauma."
"Oh, that. He surprised me, Bug. And you could have warned me he was there, by the way!"
"I tried to!"
"Hmph."
"Anyway," the yellow mech refused to be deflected, "I meant afterwards. You were acting a little weird."
Knock Out scrunched the oily rag in his servo, absently passing it from hand to hand. "According to you I'm always 'a little weird.'"
Bumblebee couldn't deny that. "Well, weirder than normal. Way above the baseline for Decepti-weirdness."
"In what way?" Knock Out sounded confused but he also sounded concerned.
The Autobot shrugged. "I dunno. Your body language, I guess?"
"Could you be more specific?"
"It was just an impression, I didn't take notes. Geez, I'm sorry I brought it up. Please, return to hating Trauma in peace."
A pained look fleeted across Knock Out's face. "I don't hate him . . ." They'd reached Knock Out's room. He opened the door but didn't seem to want to go in. "Want to go to Dreadwing's? Work on the project? We could watch something." They'd finally fixed up the TV.
"I can't, I promised a couple of the Citizens I'd teach them lob-ball." Bumblebee hesitated. "Did you know him?"
Knock Out's red and black pupils slid towards him, then away. "A long time ago. But he wasn't a therapist. Later, Bug."
"Wait—Knock Out, wait." Bumblebee wasn't sure what impulse drove him into the room after the red mech. Maybe it was that brief, troubled expression. Maybe it was just that Knock Out had actually told him the truth about something. Or maybe it was his use of the past tense. "If you want to talk about it—"
"I don't." Ever, his tone implied. He sat down and started scrubbing the grease off his chassis.
Well then. "You know, some of the Citizens still don't like me because of the Yellowjacket thing and the—and the not knowing they were people thing—"
"I am not interested in your teen drama."
"Just let me finish. So, it was kind of screwing with my head because they all look identical. I mean, yeah, they've got their Tells, stickers and stuff, but their frames are the same—"
Knock Out raised his optic ridges in mock surprise. Bumblebee spoke faster.
"—so even when I was talking to Backfire I'd still be thinking about the scared looks I was getting from these other Citizens. It was like . . . it was like half of me was in the present, happy to hang out with my friend, and half was in the past, worrying and trying to figure out what I should've done. It got to the point where I was never a hundred percent happy to see Backfire."
"Backfire's the one who went from car to jet, right?"
"Yeah, that's him," Bumblebee was gratified for even this mild level of interest from Knock Out. "Anyway, I was talking to . . . someone . . . about it—" It was Trauma, of course. "—and they said it was transference. Like, I was transferring my feelings for one bot to the other."
"Ohhh, so you have feelings for—"
"DESIST."
"You're so easy to wind up." Knock Out looked more cheerful, at least. "So? What did he say?"
"He said to remind myself of what was different between them, like mannerisms, their interests, the way they relate to me, things like that."
Knock Out pursed his lips. "That's all? Some advice! Everyone does that anyway. I've been trying to do that."
"Yeah, but this is supposed to be more of a 'conscious effort' thing. And it gets easier the more you do it." Seeing the medic's dubious expression, Bumblebee said, "Look, there's no magic bullet."
"I'm not quite to the point of using bullets yet," Knock Out said.
Bumblebee wished he wouldn't make that kind of joke. But from Knock Out's half-hearted smile, it seemed he didn't think it was a very good one either.
Trauma had taken the time to have a quick scrub before setting out for Airachnid's room. Now, with dusty cobwebs clinging to his frame, he wondered why he'd bothered.
"It's not very pleasant here, is it, Soundwave? Want to go somewhere else?"
Soundwave didn't. He had no problem with the webs, and demonstrated it by running his hand through a swath of them on the wall.
Oh well. Trauma hadn't really expected it to be that simple. And Soundwave had stopped blasting music, at least. The lavender jet settled himself on a chair, watching and waiting for a moment where Soundwave was reachable, and wondering how Airachnid managed to keep herself so clean when her room was in this condition.
It beat worrying about how Soundwave's recovery had stalled or the incident with Knock Out in the hangar.
Well, at least that confirms that there's an issue. And that's the first step to addressing it. But it . . . well, it hurt.
He knew he was being ridiculous, taking it personally. Plenty of mecha were scared of therapy; given Knock Out's history, it wasn't surprising that he was one of them.
But he's not afraid of therapy, he thought. He's afraid of me.
Trauma didn't want to believe it, but what else could that look have meant? It wasn't the first time he'd noticed Knock Out behaving oddly around him—tensing up for no reason, not meeting his optics (or, sometimes, staring at him too hard, like he'd forgotten how to blink), but never anything as blatant as the expression of frozen horror Knock Out had exhibited in the hangar.
He wanted to help the little red clone grapple with the past and find a safe, happy future. And although it wasn't necessary from a professional standpoint . . . he would've liked to befriend him. Knock Out was part of the medical team too, after all. It would be nice to have someone to gripe with when Knockdown got nitpicky. Trauma was fond of the Twins, but they were so innocent; he felt obligated to set a good example to them.
Oh well, there was no point worrying about it. He sighed.
Soundwave turned his head ever so slightly. Funny how he expressed so much with so little. "It's nothing, Soundwave. Just thinking about an encounter I had." Trauma did his best to keep the lines of communication open between himself and his patient, even though he knew that Soundwave often tuned out of conversations. "I startled him-he startled me too, ran right into me-and he looked . . . petrified."
Soundwave pointed a slender digit at Trauma, mask tilting in an implied question.
"Someone bumped into me and it scared them," Trauma repeated patiently. He felt justified in sharing the details since the incident hadn't happened in a session. Besides, Soundwave wouldn't tell anyone. "I scared them and now I feel bad about it."
"Trauma: not scary," Soundwave said.
Trauma straightened in surprise, then smiled gratefully. Because Soundwave had spoken and because of what he'd said. "Thank you, Soundwave."
But Soundwave had already dismissed the incident from his mind and was turned away again, his sinuous data cables sweeping across the shelf.
All at once they honed in on a picture frame, plucking it off the shelf with such surety that Trauma took note of it.
"What have you got there, Soundwave?" He moved over to see.
Clutching the object to his chest, the dark blue bot studied Trauma. At last he lowered his arms, holding out a framed graphite drawing. Clearly a piece by Dreadwing, although it was more stylized and cartoony than his usual work. Soundwave, Airachnid, and three Citizens were playing cards. Unbeknownst to Airachnid and the Citizens, a sleek, cat-like minicon lurked under the table, secretly pushing cards into Soundwave's lowered hand. Dreadwing had given the feline a lithe design and a sly smile.
"Oh dear . . . I understand. Let's go back to your room. We'll hang it on the wall." Trauma was sure Airachnid wouldn't mind giving up the picture, under the circumstances.
