I only own Marianne! Everything else belongs to Hasbro!
~Bonds, Hot Spot~
~Bonds, Blades~
~Bonds, First Aid~
~Bonds, Groove~
~Bonds, Streetwise~
~Bonds, Marianne/Mariposa~
"Normal"
'Thoughts'
"Comms or phone, other side"
"Bumblebee, Tones"
"Bumblebee, Comms"
"Bumblebee, Radio"
Problems…
9:05 Am
I stick my head into the medical bay. "Aid?"
"Yeah?" He steps out of the back room, running an arm over his mouth. "Oh! Spot's energon. Sorry." He steps over and hands me a light pink cube. "Hurry back."
I nod. "What were you doing back there?" I sigh at the sheepish look. "You too?"
He nods. "Welcome to being part of a gestalt." He sighs. "Ratch still with him?"
"Yeah. He kicked me out, and everyone's still split up because of the purging…"
"It's not the first time we've all been split up like this, Mari." He sighs softly before hugging me. "But we do understand about you not wanting to be away from us."
"Aid, we're less than a mile from the fire station! I can handle that, because I can still sense you. Now…" I sigh and lean against the wall by the door. "Now, I can't be near you guys, and we're never apart here… I wanna be with Spot—he needs me—but Ratch won't let me."
"Well, Ratchet's the best at what he does. We'll be back to curling up with him before you know it." He steps over to me. "Now, get that energon to them before Ratchet gets mad." He sighs softly. "And I'm glad you're coping better than the rest of us."
inside
I walk upstairs to find the door closed, so I knock on the door. "Ratchet?"
He sticks his head around the door. "What do you need, Mariposa?"
"I have the medical grade for Spot."
"All right, give it here." He sighs. "How was Aid?"
I sigh. "Still cheerful as ever, but…it got to him too. He was coming out of the back room as I went in."
Ratchet shakes his head. "Make sure he'll be all right, then go over your datapads, and study. You've got an EMS test tonight." He sighs. "Hopefully, for Aid's sake, Sideswipe won't do anything stupid today."
"Right. I remember, Ratch." I sigh. "For Aid's sake?"
"They saved his spark, eons ago." He sighs. "They are the bane of my existence, but they saved First Aid, so I know they have some good in them."
I nod. "Sides only wants to have fun, and Sunny won't hurt an innocent. They're harmless." I sigh at his glare. "I'll talk to them later today."
"Study."
"Got it, Ratch!" I rub the back of my neck. "Training off?"
"Postponed, at the moment. I need to stay with Hot Spot. Aid should be able to handle anyone who comes in, but comm me if it is anything serious."
"Will do." I sigh heavily. "Let me know, how he's doing?"
"I will." He sighs. "This isn't easy for you, is it?"
I sigh and shake my head. "But, Aid understands."
"Any gestalt would." He sighs. "You get downstairs and study. I will try to join you, but I am not sure when I will be able to."
"Yes, Sir."
11:00 am
"Mari?"
I look up from my EMS book before looking back down. I'm in bot form, lying on my stomach, laying on one of the berths with the book in front of me. it's tiny compared to my new size, but I'm more comfortable studying like this. "What's wrong, Aid?"
He sighs. "I'm fine. Have you heard anything from the others?"
I shake my head. "Nada." I sigh. "But I haven't tried contacting anyone, just in case Spot's 'chargin'."
"You couldn't wake him up for anything."
I sigh heavily. "Had to use the bond to earlier this morning."
"What?"
I rub the back of my neck. "He drifted off on the bathroom floor, and I had to wake him up, but we didn't want the rest of you starting to purge too, so…"
"At least you didn't leave him in there."
I shake my head. "But I did…kinda…" I rub the back of my neck.
He steps over and sits beside me. "What did you do?"
"I went through all the medical questions, and comforting him, in less than five minutes." I sigh heavily. "I can be a wrecking ball when I get worried, but that's no excuse to go crazy on a sick mech." I sigh heavily. "I get my thrills from helping people, but that doesn't mean I should be worse than Blurr when it comes to helping them."
"Spot would have said something if you did anything wrong."
"I know." I sigh heavily. "But still… I slammed into a sick patient—my own brother—like a wrecking ball."
Aid laughs. "He slams into us the same way, so don't feel bad about it. We love the energy the two of you have. Sometimes, I wish I had it too." He sighs. "But, I don't think we'd be able to handle having three mechs with his kind of energy."
I shake my head. "Two mechs, and a femme, and…" I sigh. "Me neither. Sometimes I can't even keep up with Spot." I smile. "Though I do sleep better, now that I'm with you guys."
"You're starting to recover."
I sigh softly, then glance out the window at the snow. For once, I don't have a flashback. "I think so… Trauma's not easy to recover from, though."
"You're doing good, though. We believe in you."
"Thanks, Aid." I turn back to my book. "Ratch'll have my head if I don't get back to studying."
"He really threatened you?"
I shake my head. "Nah, but he repeated himself often enough. I figure I'd better do it before he threw a wrench at me." I sigh heavily. "I know better than to upset a carrying mech by now." I look up to Aid so fast it throws off my equilibrium for a moment. "Oh!" I groan and lay my head back on my book. "Damnit."
"Mari?"
"I'm fine. Dizzy spell." I sigh before sitting up, then turn to him. "What if that's what's wrong with Spot!?"
"What?"
I shake my head. "It's nothing…" I sigh heavily. "I was just wondering if Spot may be carrying, but I know very little about him—I don't even know if he was with someone…"
"You did say you have a sixth sense…"
I shrug. "Either way, we won't know for a while, so we might as well stop worrying about it." I sigh heavily. "Though… What would happen if he were?" I rub the back of my neck. "I did cut you off, after all…"
"Symptoms affect everyone, just like anything else, and we wouldn't be able to combine without transferring the newspark."
I sigh, letting that sink in. "That doesn't just go for—"
"The medically based symptoms, and the emotionally based."
I sigh heavily. "Joy." He gives me a look. "I'm emotional on a good day, and sensitive to boot. I cry at commercials, and that's…" I motion to me. "When I'm normal."
"Mariposa, why are you not studying?"
The two of us look up to Ratchet, startled, and find a bundled Fixit in his arms. Aid sighs. "It's my fault. I interrupted her."
"Mariposa?"
I nod, then sigh as I take the minicon and help him out of the coat Groove had bought. He'd stayed with Blades while I was helping Ratchet, and I'd left him there. "We're all worried about Spot right now, Ratch."
He nods. "Hot Spot is recharging now, so stop worrying."
"And the others?"
He sighs. "Blades is watching some rescue show—"
I jump to my feet, ready to run inside. "Better not be my Rescue Bots!"
He shakes his head. "Calm down, he's watching Nightwatch. Your shows are safe." He sighs as I sit back beside Aid. "Streetwise and Groove are still with the Aerialbots, and Silverbolt is still inside with Hot Spot."
I nod. That's comforting, at least. "Good." I wince suddenly at a sharp pain in my doorwing.
"Mari?" Aid lays a hand on my arm. "What's wrong?"
I sigh. "My doorwing decided to remind me that I ran it into a door in my panic earlier."
"Which one?"
"Left." I sigh heavily. "Careful. I'm sensitive to pain."
Ratchet glances over to us. "What?"
"Pain, especially sharp pain… I come close to passing out then. I don't think we need that, with everything that's going on with the rest of us."
"I'll be gentle. Just hold still…" He sighs softly. "There's a little dent, but it won't be hard to fix." He sighs and points to something I can't see. "Ratchet, would you hand me that?"
"Remember to check the sensors." He steps over beside us. "She may not have damaged them this time, but I do not want to take chances."
~Foot and hands, Aid.~
~I know.~ He sighs heavily. "She already has nerve damage, Ratchet."
"I know. We need to make sure it does not spread to her back and doorwings." Ratchet rests a hand on my shoulder. "I had to watch Aid suffer when we believed he had lost his brothers. While it would not be along the same line, I do not wish to see you suffer over something we could have prevented, any more than I want to see another mech out-live his gestalt."
Aid wraps a protective arm around me. We're waiting to tell Ratchet about the confirmation until we're actually able to prove it in front of him, so we can't actually tell him that there's someone here without her other half. "Or lose one of the twins. I remember how you reacted that day."
"I…" Ratchet sighs. "I almost lost you, then Sideswipe almost died…"
I sigh heavily. "You both realize everyone's alive now, right?" I shake my head. "I'm traumatized over Ratchet, as well as my Birthdad, but we're all here. We're alive." I wait for Aid to release me before turning and hugging the neon medic. "We'll get through this together."
"Thank you."
I shrug. "Don't mention it." I pat his arm. "You looked like you needed a hug."
Ratchet shakes his head. "Gestalts…"
Aid shakes his head. "She's not that way because of us, Ratchet. She's just naturally a cuddler." He shrugs. "If we hadn't taken her in, I was going to recommend you or Optimus take her in."
"I know, Aid. You've already told us your suspicions…"
I shrug. "I wanted to know what it was like…"
"Well, now you do…" He sighs. "It's been two weeks. What do you think?"
I smile. "It's great." I rub the back of my neck. "Some things, I could do without—the purging fiasco this morning, for example—but most of its great."
Aid sighs. "What about the Cemetery Wind attack last Thursday?"
"Now that, I'd like to forget." I sigh heavily. "The whole nightmare—and the real nightmare after the fact too."
"Cemetery Wind came here?"
I look up to see Ratchet looking nervous. "Ummm…"
Aid sighs. "She shot their leader in the arm trying to defend us, then ran off. I found her crying under our berth after it was over." He smiles. "But she did help us with the repairs after, and we kept them from getting into the main base."
"She shot someone?"
I look at the ground as my doorwings fall. "Uh-huh…"
Ratchet leans over to look in my optics. "Mariposa…" He sighs before giving me a gentle hug. "It's all right." He looks over at Aid. "Did she shut down then too?"
Aid shakes his head. "She didn't shutdown, but she did have a meltdown. Spot calmed her down." He smiles. "And she managed to pull herself together well enough to help me in repairs."
"Aid…"
"She chose to do it." He sighs. "After falling apart on Spot."
I cross my arms. "I was scared, Aid! The Rescue Bots sacrificed themselves, and…" I sigh heavily. "I cried over the episode, and it all came back—that, and AOE, because of their attack on us…on my family."
"A.O.E.?"
"Age Of Extinction…" I look at my feet as my doorwings fall again, prompting the neon medic to put an arm around me. "The Lockdown scene in particular…" I sigh and turn to where I'm nuzzled into his shoulder. "It was just too close, Ratch… Too close… I already lost you… I couldn't lose them too…"
"Have you checked her spark for damage?"
Aid gives him a look. "Wouldn't we have repaired it?"
Ratchet sighs. "Before you merged with her, did you check her spark?"
Aid sighs before shaking his head. "We were more focused on making sure she knew what she was getting into… I'm sorry… It was a rookie mistake…"
"Aid…" Ratchet sighs. "I would have made the same mistake. You could not have known how she looked at me at the time, or how she does now."
Aid sighs heavily. "I did, Ratchet. She told me." He sighs heavily. "She told Drift, a week after she showed up in Chicago—hours before we decided to add her to our gestalt bond—that Lockdown killed someone she looked at as family." He sighs. "Then right after we formed it with her, and she went into the first shutdown around us because of a memory, she said she'd wanted to kill him—my peaceful, caring sister—my daughter, wanted to kill him for what he'd done…" He sighs. Even I can tell he's getting himself worked up, and I'm the one who usually does that. "She regretted not being there, to save you."
Ratchet looks down at me. "Mariposa?"
I look up at him with a soft sob at the memory. "I was only a few hours away from where you were killed, Ratch. I might have been able to save you, if I'd known you were there."
"Tell him what you told me through the bond."
I lock eyes with Aid before sighing. "I told them "I have to fight, if for nothing else, then for Ratchet's legacy—for Ratchet. He was a combat medic—something I've wanted for the last two years—something he inspired me to do"." Ratchet gives me a surprised look. "Then, I told him later…" I look down. "You didn't know I hid in the shadows beside the movie theater and cried for the first time after losing my mother because they killed him off. You didn't know I've spent the last two years in anguish if anyone mentions Lockdown. You didn't know that, every time I thought of the mech, I wanted to end him, even though he was already gone. You didn't know I only started liking neon green because of his memory—it's one of my favorite shirts now. You didn't know, that I can't listen to Linkin Park's Final Masquerade without seeing the movie in my mind and hearing Lockdown's voice…" I sigh heavily. "I know this isn't the time, or place, but… I loved you before we met, and I still do. At the time, only a family-love—you know, for a parent—was acceptable, because my family frowned on anything else, but when I got here…" I sigh softly. "I started to realize that it wasn't that way. That, while I'm eons younger, it doesn't matter anymore, how old someone is, for you to love them." I sigh softly. "I cried/never gonna hold the hand of another guy/too young, for him they told her/waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier…"
The neon medic looks down at me, surprise in his optics. "You…" He sighs before sitting on the berth I had been studying on. "Mari… Primus…" He shakes his head. "I am not all you imagine, Youngling. I can be—"
"Dr. Jerk, I know." I shrug. "So what? It never bothered me." I smile. "Besides, I've done the same thing you do with a rubber Radius in Anatomy class…"
"You threw an arm bone at someone?"
"I said rubber, meaning fake, and I never actually threw the thing, but I sure threatened to. Class study games are not meant for competition. They're for learning and review. You want to compete, you go into sports. Get too into competition, and I'm gonna smack you with something."
"She did it to Blades last week, too."
"She threatened Blades with a rubber bone?"
Aid shakes his head. "One of my wrenches."
"Well…" He smiles. "Good."
I sigh. "I've got a temper too. I inherited it from my biological father. I understand why you do what you do, and I'm not bothered by it." I tap my chin. "How did I word that… Oh, right!" I smile at him. "Be nice to me, and I'm a great friend. Cut me down, and I'll turn into a nervous wreck. Get on my bad side, and I'll throw anything from my phone, to a shoe, or worse, at you."
Aid looks surprised at how Ratchet and I are acting—particularly me, even though he knew of my Ratchet-like volatile temper. Ratchet simply grins. "Primus, Femme. You could be the closest thing humankind has to me!"
I turn to him with an eyebrow raised. "Meaning?"
"You already know of my volatile temper, and my bedside manner. You are acting the same way."
I shrug. "I'm better at showing compassion, though…"
"You are newer than I am, and it is a defense mechanism."
I blink up at him as that sinks in. "You must care more than Aid!"
He shakes his head. "Nope. I do not think anyone could care more than Aid does, but you are a close second." He sighs. "However, I do care a lot more than I let on." He stands before motioning for me to sit on the berth. Once I'm settled, he taps on my chest plates. "Now, open up." He glances toward Aid, who's sitting on the other side of the room. "Why don't you go check on your brothers?"
"He's fine, Ratch. He's seen my spark before." I shrug. "I'm not an original, after all. They all did."
"Fine." He sighs heavily before examining it, then turns to get something, only to find Aid holding it out. "Thank you." He runs the scanner over it. He sighs heavily as he leans back. "Well…"
"Ratchet?"
"There is minor damage deep down, but it is healing well." He turns to Aid. "You are all doing quite well in helping her recover."
Aid sighs. "Bringing you back did a lot too, though. She gets so excited about what each day could bring." He glances at me as I close my plating. "Of course, we're still just getting used to each other, but… It's like she's always been one of us." He smiles. "It's like there was a piece missing, that we didn't realize wasn't there, until we met her. Two weeks ago, she was ready to give up, and she's still here because of us."
"Because of you." Ratchet gives me a look. "He and Groove were on board that night, and Street wanted me off the streets before I froze or got shot, but Spot and Blades weren't really on-board."
"They warmed up to her. Blades and Street didn't want her as part of us at first, either, but we worked it out pretty quickly."
"I was still scared you'd all decided to kick me out…"
"Oh, Mari…" He hugs me. "We'd never send you away. Why would you even think that?"
I sigh softly. "No one ever cared that much for me before…"
"Don't tell Spot yet. He doesn't need to worry about your spark issues right now."
I nod. "He needs to recover, then we can worry about the damage, if it's still there."
Ratchet glares at us, causing us to shrug. "We don't want him worrying about us when he doesn't need to."
Ratchet sighs before pointing to me. "You are new to their team, and you have damage to your spark from a life of abuse and neglect."
"Losing you didn't help, either."
"And I am sorry about that." He points to Aid. "You still have damage from the disruptor cannon, not to mention your decrystalizer canon causes short-outs."
Aid puts an arm around me. "I can take care of Mari, and I haven't used it since I was less than a vorn."
Ratchet sighs. "I am not doubting your abilities, Aid, but I doubt keeping things from Hot Spot will help matters."
I sigh heavily. "He's right, Aid. Spot doesn't like being blocked out like that."
"I know, but sometimes it's better." I glance at the time and sigh. "I've got to meet Hide at 4 for my training…"
"I'll stay with Fixit."
"I don't need a spark-sitter, Mari. I'm not a sparkling."
I shake my head and crouch to him. "I know you don't need a spark-sitter, Fixit, but right now, we still need to keep someone with you because of your spark, okay?" He nods, sighing heavily. "I know you're tired of not having any time alone, but you're getting stronger every day, so you should be able to go around on your own soon."
"Wish I could right now…"
"I know." I run a hand over his head. "But it'll be soon, okay?"
"Okay…"
