He was free! Finally free! Other than his T-cog, which First Aid had explained wouldn't work for yet another week (note to self, never fry your processor again), he was good to go. Draft felt like pulling a Whirl and skipping down the hallway, but the mere thought of the wrecker instantly sobered him.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Maybe Ultra Magnus was already back? Since he still didn't know what the hell a groon was supposed to be, he could be back already. It was possible.
"Ultra Magnus?" Draft called, when he got to their quarters and the door to swished open. The motion sensitive lights turned on when he stepped inside, revealing them to be apparently empty. Huh.
"DRAFT!" Whirl suddenly screeched in his audio. Draft screamed and jumped which turned into a spectacular fall, startled out of his mind. Pretty sure he had just leaked a little.
"Whirl!"
"Ah ah ah, Magsy said you're not supposed to talk Dirty to me." Whirl giggled at his own joke. "These quarters are huge! I can't believe you have your own room!"
"Lucky me." Draft growled.
"You know what? You're just ungrateful, that's what you are." Whirl said, pointing at him. He'd heard that.
Draft scowled. "You're right, th-thank you for throwing me out the airlock after leaving Earth. Highlight of the trip."
"Awww, you're not still mad about that, are you?"
Draft jabbed the button to his door, wishing Cybertronian doors weren't all automated so he could have the satisfaction of slamming it in Whirl's face. Or, err, optic. "What do you thin-hey, what'd you do to my room?"
His desk, his berth, his floor, the walls were covered in...bubble wrap? Whirl slid up next to him, pincers working at his own piece of the plasticky material with a soft pop pop. "No wonder you're in the medbay so often, Magsy never baby proofed the place."
"Th-This is...where did you get this?" Draft asked, too dumbfounded to be insulted by the baby-proof comment. Did Cybertronians use bubble wrap? 'Caaaaause he was pretty sure they didn't.
"The big M's ship has tons of storage space, especially when you fold this stuff. And from the nice humans guarding a building with lots of junk in it, duh."
Draft looked at him. "What?"
Whirl shrugged. "The boxes all said Prime, but he wasn't there."
"And they just g-gave this to you?"
"You know, "gave" is such a strong word."
"You robbed a warehouse?!" Draft gasped.
"That's the one! Warehouse. And no, I only took the packing material, I didn't take the other stuff in those boxes. Humans ship some pretty weird slag-"
"Oh my god."
"-sometimes, and half of it was that flimsy-aft garbage you call armor-"
"I can't believe this."
"-that doesn't even look like armor. Trust me, I did whoever bought them a favor cause that slag was uglier than Detroit," Whirl paused expectantly. "This is the part where you say the line that leads to punching."
"You're despicable."
"Not even a chuckle?"
"Horrible."
"I looked up Dirt humor for you!"
That was the least of Draft's concerns. Knowing Whirl-"You raided an Amazon warehouse for bubble wrap? Jesus Christ Whirl, did you kill anybody?"
Whirl bopped him on the head with one of his claws. "Of course not silly, Ultra Magnus told us to keep a low profile."
"And stealing a bunch of bubble wrap was keeping a low profile?!" Draft demanded.
What was wrong with him?
Whirl didn't say anything for a second, just narrowed his optic while he crackled the piece held in his pincers. "...I couldn't resist.
...
Evening - by his definition, but the days here were longer - was definitely happy hour for the rec room. Luckily Draft managed to find a table. A still full cube of energon rested by his right arm, the stack of homework datapads Ultra Magnus had given him to his left; anything was better than studying in his room with Whirl hanging around.
He took a sip of his energon, then shook the cube to make the slightly fluorescent liquid swirl. Did Cybertronians ever eat anything else? Or was he doomed to this bland stuff for eternity.
"Why is it every time I see you, you're either dying or look like you're having an existential crisis?" A familiar voice chuckled.
Draft looked up, surprised. "What are you doing here? I thought everyone went with Ultra Magnus."
"Yeah, well, there's more important things." Springer shrugged. Draft briefly dimmed his visor like 'oh really', only then noticing the short mech standing behind him.
"Hi." The mech smiled. "I'm Hot Rod. Can we sit down?"
"Sure?" Draft said, glancing at Springer. The Wrecker shrugged.
"There aren't any other tables."
Draft's wings drooped. "Oh."
"Just kidding." Springer insisted. He took the seat across, and his orange friend scooted in beside him only to immediately launch into conversation with, "Hey, how do you say 'Hot Rod' on Dirt?"
Draft gasped "What!" and jumped up, wings flared in horror. This guy knew about him.
"Woa, take it easy mech. I told the kid a little about you is all." Springer eased.
"Whyyyyyy would you d-do that?" Draft demanded, like the guy wasn't sitting right there. Kid?
"I'm his guardian now, he knows I'm a Wrecker, but that you're not. Best explanation for why you're around a lot was the truth. Don't worry, he can keep a secret."
That didn't sound like the best explanation to him - in fact, it sounded kind of stupid - but Draft gave a little nod anyway, reclaiming his seat at Springer's prompting. Springer shot Hot Rod a chastising look. "What did I say about talking about Dirt in public?"
"That we aren't allowed to." Hot Rod said. "Sorry."
"Just be more careful. I like the visor, by the way." Springer complimented, shifting his focus from one youngster to another; Ultra Magnus may have to put up with Draft on the daily, but they were all partly responsible for him. "Looks good. I know you didn't exactly have a choice getting it."
"Wait, you know that I'm...I mean, w-why I have it?" Draft said, lowering his voice. Did that mean Ultra Magnus knew as well, and just hadn't said anything earlier? He didn't know if he should award him brownie points or be offended.
"First Aid told us. Don't worry, it's not a big deal as long as Ratchet doesn't catch you. It used to be more common than you think."
"Used to be?"
"Idiots don't last long in war." Springer remarked, surprisingly somber. Realizing what he'd implied at Draft's terrified expression, he quickly backtracked, "Not that you're that kind of idiot; you didn't know."
Draft deadpanned, "Thanks."
"What are you guys talking about?" Hot Rod asked, not catching any of that. This conversation made no sense.
"Nothing you should worry about." Springer deflected. Back at Draft: "So, how's everything on the home front?"
"Fine."
"No one has ever said "fine" like that meant it. And not like that." Springer declared. He gestured to the stack of datapads. "What are those?"
"Homework."
"Ah. What subject?"
He reached forward to find out just that, but Draft slammed his hands down on the one he'd been using. "It's s-still just the, uh, the b-basic stuff. Mainly..writing."
"I can't see?" Springer teased, amused, aware that Draft's Standard worsened when he was upset or embarrassed. Draft glanced at Hot Rod. "It's p-pretty bad. Why do I even have to learn how to write if everyone just types everything?"
Hot Rod snickered. "You can't be that bad."
"T-trust me, I can and I am." Draft assured him.
Springer rolled his optics. "That's a stupid question that I know you know the answer to."
"Just pointing it out."
"Let me see."
"Uh…"
While not exactly a yes, it wasn't a definitive "no" either, and Springer wedged the datapad out from under Draft's hands. Hot Rod tried to peek too, but the bigger mech kept him at arm's length while he looked at it himself. Half a minute passed.
"Well?" Both Hot Rod and Draft asked.
"It's…," Springer fumbled for the words. Primus. "Well, okay, it is bad. What on the fifth moon of Pizaz are you trying to write?"
Hot Rod used the question as a chance to see for himself, and tapped the screen to get his guardian's attention. "Ohhhh, I get it. He wrote it left to right horizontally." He glanced up. "You're not supposed to do that."
"What the-but that's how a book First Aid gave me was written!" Draft defended.
"Yeah, but the instructions say to write formally, which is vertical, left to right." Springer informed him, reassessing the work now that he knew what was he was looking at. Hot Rod asked,
"What's a 'book'?"
Springer shot them both a look that said to keep it in Standard before refocusing on the 'pad. Draft shrugged. "Sorry, I d-don't know your word for it. It's like...like what you would read on a screen. A s-story or report or anything, really. Like a...physical datapad."
Well that made sense. Not. Hot Rod tilted his helm. "Huh?"
"The, uh, pages on the screen are sheets, bound together." Draft tried again, spreading his hands to mime it. This time he got the idea across, because Hot Rod said, "You mean you have to flip through all the actual pages just to find the one you want?"
"Sounds time consuming." Springer put in his two cents, baffled. Not to mention heavy. What a backwards idea.
Hot Rod stared at Draft like he was witnessing a miracle. "Springer didn't say the hoominz were that low tech! How did you survive?"
"The humans weren't." Draft corrected, glaring. "We h-have the equivalent of datapads, too. Some just prefer books."
"Annnnnnd speaking of datapads, other than writing it the wrong way, your glyphs look pretty good for a beginner." Springer praised, giving him his datapad - or 'book', whatever he wanted to call it - back. Draft shook his helm.
"They're barely legible."
"So? You'll get there."
"Yeah, I had trouble adding past tense to glyphs when I was little too." Hot Rod agreed. Draft's wings twitched at that.
"I am not 'little'."
"Aren't you like four?"
"Shhhhhhhhhh!" Both Springer and Draft hissed at once, the former glancing up to see if anyone was listening. Not that they'd likely understand that out of context. "Primus Hot Rod, You can't just say that."
"Sorry." Hot Rod apologized again. Their conversation died for a minute, so Springer shifted gears. He eyed the datapad back in Draft's possession.
"Hey. How are you doing your reports?"
A pause. "What?"
"Your reports," Springer said, frowning. "You are back on the schedule, right? What are they having you do?"
Draft's expression turned wry. "Light duty until I get my..t-cog back, so Monitor shifts. If it's possible to d-die of boredom, it's doing that."
"I feel ya. But seriously, how are you doing the reports?"
"What reports? I didn't see anything."
"You still have to write a report!" Springer insisted, exasperated. They were going in circles. Beside him Hot Rod smiled, realizing the same thing he was: "You haven't been doing them."
"Yeah, because there's nothing to report." Draft repeated. And also because he low-key didn't know how to do them. It was fine though, because he never saw anything important, nor was he an important person. What was the big deal?
The Wrecker jabbed his finger at him, trying to school his face and sound serious but coming out all flustered, "You can't just not do them. You, I mean, you can't. This is an army. Hasn't Silverbolt said anything about it?"
Hot Rod outright laughed.
"No?" Draft said. "I went to ask him something earlier, but he wasn't in his office. Everyone's still out in the field. The battle at, uh, m-metal heights?"
"Chrome heights," Springer corrected, now easily serious. "Prowl got injured in an accident - unrelated - but he managed to catch the last of it, so we didn't take too many losses." He scowled. "Still. Maybe would've been less if he directed the whole thing."
Hot Rod shifted in his seat, acting interested, but Draft didn't know who Prowl was. He didn't think much about the fact that his teammates were out there fighting for their lives while he was in here, serving light duty because he was stupid. Should he feel guilty about that?
"Hey now, lighten up you two. Draft, I'm sure your friends are fine. Takes a lot to knock Superion out of a fight." Springer reassured, misinterpreting his silence. "They're probably on their way back right now."
What? Who the heck was 'Superion'? They'd been talking about his teammates - Silverbolt and the guys. Draft opened his mouth to ask, but Springer changed the subject. "Welp, I have a patrol to get to. Can I trust you to keep him out of trouble?"
His question was purposely open ended, leading both mechling's to answer,
"Yeah." "Okay."
They looked at each other, surprised. Hot Rod pointed to himself. "Hey, I'm not the one that needs a babysitter."
"Neither do I."
"You fried yourself with a datapad."
"Well you're a-
"Behave." Springer chucked. He pointed at Draft. "And come to my quarters after shift, we're doing those reports."
Then he took his leave of them, smirking the whole way. His work here was done. Hot Rod watched him leave. Without missing a beat he turned to Draft and said, "Hey, let's get out of here."
"What?"
"Usually people'll want to sit with me just because I'm young." Hot Rod explained. Plus, he wanted to grill Draft about his homeworld, which he couldn't do in here.
Draft put his his cube down. "S-Sounds patronizing."
"Tell me about it. Wanna go to the shooting range?"
"Are you allowed in there?" Draft asked.
Hot Rod frowned. "You are."
"That's different."
"Only on record."
"-Which I would l-like to keep clean."
"Come oooooooon." Hot Rod whined. "Springer lets me go with him all the time. It'll be fun. And no one cares; I bet you five credits nobody's even in there."
"I don't want to get in trouble."
Hot Rod nodded. "We won't. Quit being such an Ultra Magnus about it."
Draft wasn't sure if it was on purpose, but Hot Rod's words had the desired effect. Would Ultra Magnus procrastinate at the firing range? The answer was no, probably not. Which meant his answer was: "...Fine."
As always, the office was just as he left it. A tall mech stood motionless in the doorway, the light of the hallway behind him illuminating telltale dents and scratches. Then his wings stirred, activating the motion sensitive lights.
Dang it. Silverbolt would never tell his brothers, but the Autobot's Aeril Commander liked to see how far he could get before he activated them. He'd almost made it to his desk once.
Game over, he simply strode in like normal and settled down, drumming his fingers out of habit before acknowledging the stack of datapads somebody had left him. Hmm. Wasn't it usually higher? A weary smile took hold - he could finish these within the joor, then power down until Ratchet came for him, or one of his idiots tempted fate. Whichever came first.
The smile didn't last when he booted the first one up and knew before he had even finished what was in it - of course this would be at the top of the list. So he put it back at the bottom; he'd deal with that headache last.
He was three datapads down, nine to go when a familiar Khalian accent said, "Figures."
"I thought the door was locked." Silverbolt didn't bother looking up.
"Good thing someone gave me the access code."
Silverbolt smiled, still reading a 'pad, and muttered more to himself, "What kind of fool would ever do that?"
"The kind that would rather look at reports than after his team. Or…-" He felt Jetfire trace a particularly deep cut along his shoulder; sneaky fragger, how had he gotten behind him so fast? "...-himself."
That got the commander to look up. "Slingshot disobeyed a direct order which resulted in the injuries to himself as well as Delta. He deserves whatever Ratchet decides he gets. Quit it, I'm okay."
He swatted his Sparkmate's wandering servo, so Jetfire moved back in front of him.
"You don't look okay."
"It's not that bad - medical said I could get some work done while they're busy."
"That's not an excuse."
"Doctor's orders, that's the best kind of excuse." Silverbolt disagreed, putting the datapad he'd been reading in the 'finished' pile and picking up a new one. Jetfire snatched it right out of his hands.
"Come on, I know you're offlining for a warm shower and some recharge."
"Jetfire, the paperwork-"
"-Can wait until you get back, or at least buff out those dents. It's waited all cycle, it can wait some more."
"...Remind me to change that access code." Silverbolt sighed, deciding which was worse - trying to do anything productive with his attention-seeking sparkmate on the loose or procrastinating, which went against his conscientious nature. But Jetfire knew what he really meant. He grabbed a servo, dragging the silver shuttle to his peds, and whether he was leading him to the washracks or back to their shared quarters, Silverbolt honestly didn't care.
Surprise me, he thought. Jetfire apparently picked up on it because his engine revved, ruining it.
When they got there though, they found one pissed off 'bot already inside. Air Raid balanced on the back of the couch, tossing his favorite knives at a target on the wall. The bomber, sporting fresh mesh bandaging and a telltale dent on the helm that wasn't there pre-medbay, paused, took one look at them, and awkwardly said,
"Yeah...I gotta go..do..something."
He hustled off the couch to beat a hasty retreat, but not before giving them the look as he stomped out. Silverbolt sighed, his embarrassment eliciting a laugh from Jetfire. Sometimes he felt bad 'Raid had to put up with this. Then again, technically he'd volunteered, since they were a trine. He was probably just pissy because Slingshot was still in the medbay.
The door shut behind him; and then there were two. Jetfire grinned.
BANG
"Gahh, Hot Rod!" Draft yelped, dropping to his knees. Hot Rod poked his head out from behind cover.
"Did I hit you?!"
"Yes, and it fucking hurt!" Draft swore, switching back to English where he could adequately express his displeasure. He liked human swears better. Luckily Hot Rod and him were the only ones at the firing range at the moment.
"Does that mean yes? Wohoo!" The orange mechling cheered, approaching him after calling "time-out!" He squatted. "Let me see."
Draft removed his hands, and Hot Rod made an whistling sound through his denta. He wished he could do that. "That bad?"
"What?"
"W-What's the d-damage?" He chuckled, though it came out as more of a wheeze because did he mention that that really fucking hurt. Up until now they'd been having fun - Draft had to admit, Hot Rod wasn't so bad. They'd talked a lot about Earth.
"It looks like the Hatchet got you." Hot Rod snickered.
Draft felt along his helm and found the crater he meant. "Great."
"What does that mean?"
"I said: 'great'." Draft supplied, having to think about it for a second. "I think we're done here."
They walked towards the exit, and Hot Rod palmed open the door that lead out of the courtyard turned Autobot gun range. Weirdly enough, none of the four walls surrounding it had any windows. Draft had already noticed there wasn't an abundance of them like with human buildings - must be a culture thing. Except the lifts, which, weirdly enough, were like 90% window. Because reasons.
"Think on the bright side." Hot Rod said, breaking him from his thoughts. "I'm a great shot."
Hey, that was actually pretty good. "Fuck you."
"What does that mean?"
Draft hid his smirk. Told him it meant 'yeah'. He then checked the time on his HUD's chronometer; Springer wasn't due to be back from patrol yet, so he decided, "I'm going back to my quarters."
"You sure you don't want to go to the medbay for that?"
Draft frowned. First Aid would be annoyed that he was back literally a day, err, orn, into his exile. What was he, a boomerang? "Springer's given me worse; dents pop out you know."
"Really? What for?"
"I wasn't exactly thrilled to get a one way ticket to Cybertron." Draft said in lieu of the real story. They goodbyed and split up, Draft supposing he wouldn't mind hanging out with the goodnatured mech if he got the chance again; finally, someone closer to his age to talk to. And he actually thought his Earth background was cool.
tink-tink-tink
Draft stopped walking, looking back. Huh. It was still just as empty hallway behind him, same as when he'd passed through it. Could've sworn he heard a-
TINK-TINK-TINK
-Noise. Draft gasped and spun around, but he didn't see anyone, even though that one had sounded close. What was that? A hallucination? And then he looked down.
Something with surprisingly big optics looked up.
Draft stared at the little round...thing, trying to determine if it was a threat, and felt like it was doing the same. It looked like a metal bug but the size of a kitten, with ludicrously huge optics that gave it more of a ragdoll appearance. Tiny metal legs made that tinkling sound again as it skittered back a pace and blinked. You know, it was actually kind of cute.
"Hey, uh, little...metal...dude."
Best to cover his bases. To be fair, he was part of a race of shape-shifting robots. If a talking cat was considered one of them, for all he knew, anything could be. Although it didn't look intelligent. It didn't respond. Draft knelt down after a second to slowly reach out and pet it - maybe it was a pet or something that somebody lost; he was in the main barracks. But it shied away before he could touch it.
Maybe if I offer it energon, it'll like me more, Draft wondered. Which wasn't that illogical of an assumption: he'd never seen a scraplet before.
He unsubspaced a canteen of energon and held it out. "Here you go."
It blinked. Shuffled closer. But instead of taking a drink, it suddenly opened its mouth to reveal serrated blades and went to town on the container, making Draft drop it in surprise.
Woah. Was not expecting that. It had to have only taken a few seconds to completely devour the cube (and splashing its contents on the floor in a metaphor that flew over the Earth-mech's head). Draft smiled - okay, that was really cool - forgetting he himself was made of metal.
What a neat little drone.
It gave a happy little bounce like some kind of alien puppy, and that must have meant it liked him, because then it headbutted his leg as if asking for more. Awww. Draft picked it up and it took the initiative to curl up in his arms, tiny engine purring. OMG. He had no idea whose or what the heck this thing was supposed to be, but damn it if it wasn't cute!
Lol Draft has no idea it's a scraplet. This is gonna be fun. And no, it's not ignoring the chance to attack him because of some magical transformers bullshit, there's actually a logical reason that I'll put in later.