Draft stayed confused as his processor took its sweet time rebooting itself. What the-

-for the love of God was waking up in the same place he fell asleep too much to ask for? And where was Sunstreaker? And why was he...in the dark. Draft tried to stand and grunted when his head banged against something he couldn't see.

The heck?

Further moving about (or the attempt to) revealed more obstructions; he was in a box or a closet of some kind, and the best he could do was ninja crouch. That explained the dark. What was going on? He would soon find out.

Hours passed. Nothing, that's what was going on. And what continued to go on for what felt like eternity. The flyer couldn't call for help because neither his comm nor his vocalizer worked; Sunstreaker must have messed with them for exactly that reason.

Asshole.

Five more hours later he was really ready to be let out now. Draft heard it when someone entered whatever place adjoined the closet/box/coffin he was in, but unable to call for help, they left. His wings were starting to tremble as a feeling of dread he'd never felt before squirmed restlessly in his spark. Any longer, and he felt like he was going to suffocate. He couldn't even scream.

Audios straining in the dark, and he thought he heard someone coming again. Thank Goodness - he was ready to kiss whoever let him the fuck out of here. Please free him. Please free him. Otherwise he might just deactivate.

But the footsteps didn't let him out. No doubt they didn't even know he was there. They faded away, and Draft quietly despaired.

...

"I'm telling you, the defense grid could use additional reinforcements in that sector. That was how Ravage got through last time."

" 'Red, we don't know where-"

"You don't believe me, do you?" Red Alert sighed, palming open the door to their quarters. Inferno shuffled in after him, glad to finally be off duty and that he'd somehow convinced his Sparkmate to come with him. Red Alert needed a break.

"I believe," Inferno purred, swiping the datapad from his hands. "I might need more convincing."

"Give me that, it has valuable data on it." Red Alert said, reaching for it except failing because he was short. Inferno rolled his optics. The datapad wasn't the only thing that went over his stubborn partner's head.

"We agreed no working for the next two joors at least; Ironhide and Blitz are more than capable of holding down the fort."

Literally.

"Fine, fine, I'll put it up." Red Alert grumbled. He was allowed to take it back and turned, quickly typing in the access code to the hidden safe he'd secretly installed, despite their room already being harder to break into than Ratchet's stash of highgrade.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! IT'S A DECEPTICON! INFERNO!" Red Alert shrieked like a spazzing pterodactyl. "UNHAND ME YOU FIEND!"

Draft hugged his unknown rescuer, in his claustrophobia-induced-panic thinking 'thankyouthankyouthankyou-'

He didn't register the words being shouted. He also didn't notice the sound of a weapon charging, but he definitely felt it when Inferno tased him with it.

Draft groaned when he woke up. Did he even want to open his eyes this time? Knowing his luck, he was probably lying in a ditch somewhere or still stuck in that fucking closet. Apparently he had the power to teleport while unconscious. Why couldn't he wake up and be home?

"Draft? Can you hear me?"

Wait a sec, he recognized that voice - there was no way First Aid would fit in the closet too. Draft opened his optics.

Yup, he was free. A ceiling hovered refreshingly far above him, along with First Aid's worried face. Strange how he could tell, seeing as the medic wore both a facemask and a visor. He gasped.

He could see every wire of First Aid's neck cables clearly, with much more detail than usual, and glyphs in Standard danced across his vision when he tried to focus on them.

"What-...what did you do to me?!" Draft cried, reverting to English. His eyes, what was wrong with his eyes? Why did everything look so weird? So clear? He scrambled away from the medic, in the process realizing his hands were in high-tech handcuffs of some kind. The fuck? "What's going on?! Why am I-my eyes-my hands are-where are-"

"Calm down." First Aid said, reaching out to steady him. Draft yelped and kicked him in the face, then froze when he realized what he'd done.

"First Aid, I am so sorry, I don't know why I did that - is your visor okay? Shit it's crack-"

"It's okay, easy, I have spares." First Aid soothed. "How are you feeling? You said something about your um, your optics? How's your vocalizer?"

Obviously working, but a good medic always got feedback. The sparkling in front of him blinked at the calm tone.

"There's something wrong with my vision. Everything's super sensitive and clear and words keep, just keep happening when I try to focus. There's little pictures and graphs that keep popping up." He seemed to hesitate, then fearfully whispered, "First Aid, am I going crazy?"

"Draft, you're a lot of things, but you're not crazy." First Aid chuckled. "You must mean your HUD. I take it it's installed correctly?"

"Installed….?" Draft repeated, obviously lost. The random stuff kept dancing across his sight.

"I had to sync with you in order to fix your comm, and I noticed your HUD program was likewise disabled so I re-installed it." First Aid clarified.

"You-," Draft began, tone no longer fearful but...angry? He jumped to his feet and almost face planted, but First Aid was quick to grab him.

"You installed a program in my head?! Why would you do that? What is wrong with you people?!" He wailed.

"What? What's wrong?" First Aid asked, and Draft angrily shrugged him off only to stagger back to a sit, too unbalanced with all the new information his HUD was supplying at once.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Draft screamed. "What's wrong is that I've been humiliated, tased, locked in a freaking closet, and now I'm God knows where in handcuffs! Where even am I?!"

First Aid was glad he'd activated the cell's soundproof forcefield beforehand. "You're in the brig," he said calmly.

"What?! Why!"

"Um, for attacking Red Alert? You really don't remember?"

"I didn't...oh. It was a prank." Draft said, realizing the true nature of Sunstreaker's actions.

"Well it wasn't a very funny prank. Inferno says you nearly gave him a spark attack, and of course they didn't recognize you and almost shot you by mistake." First Aid scolded.

"What? No you idiot, it was a prank on me. I was locked in there for hours. I thought he was letting me out."

"You were locked in there for how long?" The medic gasped. No wonder Draft lashed out; flyers, especially young flyers, had no business being shut in enclosed spaces. A feeling of dread settled over him. Had one of the Wreckers…."Who put you in there? Was it the same person who stabbed you?"

"It's fine, we're even now," Draft evaded the question. He still spoke in English, too stressed out to tackle Standard. "Besides, you apparently decided to take a stroll through my head, don't you already know?"

"I did no such thing." First Aid retorted, armor feathering out in anger. He was a medic. To even suggest that-"I merely fixed your comm and HUD."

Draft scowled. "You keep saying that. What's a hell is a "HUD" and what gives you the right to install it without asking?"

First Aid stared. Draft didn't know what a HUD was? Wait. "Do you mean you've never had a HUD before?"

Who would handicap themselves like that? That was like having a altmode with no wheels, a datapad without storage. Everyone had a HUD. It was an accepted facet of Cybertronian life. How else did you tell time at the mere thought of it, or know your fuel levels to the exact decimal? Injuries, battle programs, etc.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Can you turn it off? Please?"

First Aid decided to put his foot down. "No. Draft, everyone has a HUD. Did the others know you didn't have one? Did Ultra Magnus? Because they should have given you one a long time ago. Not having it is practically a handicap around here; I can't believe your creators never installed one."

"Well, my creators were only human." Draft sighed.

"You're creators were most certainly not human."

"Adopted creators," Draft corrected, exasperated. "I never met my Cybertronian ones. And who are you calling handicapped?"

"That's not what I meant." First Aid said. He didn't think Draft was handicapped. Not at all. He was just...different. Draft's circumstances had never happened entire history of Cybertron before. "I just assumed you were familiar with it."

"Yeah, well, no one ever asks."

"You can ask me, since obviously you're guardians are doing a terrible job."

First Aid commed Jolt to take his shift, then spent the rest of the joor walking the youngling through the use of his new HUD. However much Draft was displeased at First Aid for installing it, the medic wasn't about to uninstall it, and he was at least willing to figure it out together. First Aid actually found himself enjoying the kid's curiosity after Draft made him promise to never to do that again. It was refreshing. And ultimately, it decided that serving the rest of the orn for "pranking" the Security Director was good enough, since the stubborn sparkling refused to name names.

Whatever. Draft wasn't no snitch.

"You sort of do the crime, you sort of serve the time." First Aid sighed, eventually leaving him to it. He felt bad that Draft had to stew in the brig for something that wasn't really his fault. Oh well; it wasn't worth blowing his cover with all the paperwork needed to spring him early, and at least he'd corrected such a colossal oversight as not having a HUD.

There was no way that could go wrong.

This is a short one, sorry.