Arcee raced out of the ground-bridge, engine revving, tires skidding across hot sand. She activated her brake, and shifted into her bot mode, still in the middle of her quick stop. Sliding slightly in a half kneeling position, she stopped herself quick with a well placed foot, and stood up fast. She tapped on her comm link.
"Close the bridge, Ratchet. I'm through," she said quickly, quietly, as she looked around quickly to survey the scene.
The sand of the Nevada dessert stretched on and on in any direction, broken here and there by red rock cliffs and falling canyons. A small river cut through the terrain. To her left, and some distance away there was a road. Unpaved, narrow, dusty. A green metal road-sign indicated a riverside campground nearby. Overhead small jet engines screamed and roared with without any real care or caution, and she counted at last ten 'con jet modes in the air, most of them flying low.
She spotted Bumblebee to her left and a slight run from where she stood. He was busy shooting at a pair of troopers in their bot modes on the ground, while at the some time he kept an optic to the sky, never losing track of the jets. Once in a while he would take the focus of his blasters from the ground troopers, so that he could shoot up over his head. He was shooting to intimidate, to wound and damaged if needed, but not to kill. 'Bee never had enjoyed off-lining any bot if retreat on either side of a firefight was still an option.
"Thanks for the backup," he said, when she had run over, and activated her own weapons.
"You think I would have let you have all the fun, Bee?" Arcee answered. A good aim and a fast shot from her left blaster sent a jet falling from the sky. The trooper was wounded but alive. He retreated with a gesture of surrender
"Nice shot," 'Bee said, as he aimed again.
"Slagging coward," Arcee growled in the direction of the fleeing 'con. And then looking at her teammate she yelled a frantic. "Look out!"
Bumblebee jumped to his right, instantly rolling to the side so that he could land a short distance away crouching near the ground unhurt and having missed the rapid fire of a flying trooper's onboard weapons.
"Thanks. Arcee, you know there's a campground near by?"
"Noted 'Bee. There will be humans everywhere. Priority one. Let's avoid mass causalities in this 'not their war' again."
From the sky overhead, and still flying crazily in every direction, four of the jet modes began to fire all at once on the pair of Autobots. Bumblebee and Arcee fired back as fast as they could. One of the jets fell from the sky, but three more kept firing. The rest just whizzed about in seeming confusion.
"These guys sure lack any organization today,"Arcee remarked, looking up at the chaos overhead. One of the jets dropped to the ground transforming as it fell. The trooper landed on his feet and fired, missing by meters. Arcee reduced it to a fallen heap with one shot of a blaster, and she had done so easily, barely looking, and to the side.
Another flier fell to her blaster. His faceplate was shattered, and his retreat was more a blinded stumbling off across the sand than any real run. But he'd be fine and she knew it.
A third identical jet fell from the air, at her hand. He was hurt much worse then others yet, but he'd live. She gave a mocking laugh at the cowardice of the troops they fought, as she watched him yell to an already retreating teammate. for help.
"Yeah you better run you little..." she muttered, aiming again.
"Arcee?" Bumblebee was shooting again in self defense, but still trying as she was, to only drive then back. "What is Primus' name is the matter with you?"
"Not a thing." She took aim at the furthest of the fliers, one flying almost beyond the range of her blaster, and heading toward the campground. She fired. He fell. Her range had been just enough. She gave a grin than was somewhere close to menacing rage.
"You're clearly upset."
"He was heading right for that campground. Innocent humans. Not their war. 'Cons with fraggin blasters ready to gun down families with kids. Of course I'm upset."
One more fell from the air. That time Arcee was sure she might actually have off-lined the bot. One more down. Another one dead.
Arcee saw Bumblebee looking up again at the sky. This time his attention was fixed on the north. She followed his line of sight and at once she caught sight of the white blue and red jet, coming in fast. Instead of firing weapons, this one was rolling and flipping in midair, without losing speed. It was headed right toward them and their ongoing battle.
"...And that would be Starscream," 'Bee muttered as he went on shooting at the overhead fliers.
"What the frag is he doing on Earth?" Arcee said, again with a growl of anger.
"What are any on those 'cons doing back here. But probably a question for another time. At least he's not shooting at us yet."
"No," Arcee answered. Her blaster took another trooper down. "He's a bit too busy showing off. 'Bee you keep these troopers busy. I'll be ready to deal with Starscream."
"Arcee you can't fight him on your own and I can't help you and still hold back his fleet. I think we need to cal for a bridge and run for it."
"He's got more than enough fire power to brutally slaughter a whole pile of innocent humans if he wanted to. I'm not calling retreat!"
"I don't think 'Scream could care less about those humans out enjoying a weekend camping trip. Killing them is not his motivation.," Bumblebee said. One more trooper down. The rest began to fly with far less order than before, whizzing about in any old direction without any seeming rhyme or reason to it. "That wouldn't make any sense..."
But Arcee only but him off, as she fired again, and dodged a blaster beam. "'Bee don't you make me pull rank."
She did technically outrank him. Bumblebee gave up his argument. Arcee cursed out loud as a short and rapid burst of blaster fire rained down over both of them.
"Arcee, were you hit?"
"Barely. Left lower leg. Bounced off my armor. I'm good. We've got to just keep going."
Starscream was above them almost before they noticed he had gotten so close. He dove from the sky, transforming almost dangerously close to the ground. It was nearly inexplicable how he managed to land, perfectly balanced on his feet.
"Ah, the Autobot called Arcee," he said, with a tone of mocking friendliness that instantly made Arcee's energon run a couple degrees cooler. He'd obviously chosen her as his target, just as she had chosen him as hers. "It certainly has been a little while. A moment perhaps to…. catch up?"
Arcee only stared him down. Her optics narrowed and she would have burned holes clear through his plating if only she could have, with her look alone. She kept her blasters at the ready, and it was only with great effort and her commitment to think like an Autobot, that stopped her from blowing his head off before she gave him the fair chance her faction so believed in.
"You wouldn't kill me, Autobot," he said. His tone was clearly mocking. "Not while you have another way."
"Don't tempt me," Arcee growled back. She narrowed her gaze further, and took a quick and sure step toward him. "Last I knew of you and your fate, you should surely have been stripped down to spare parts by Predaking. Then 'Bee found your signal on Cybertron, so clearly you somehow escaped. Too bad. He should have ripped the spark clean from your frame."
"Ohhh, such harsh words from an Autobot. So very violent you've become, Arcee."
"You're one to talk about violence, Starscream," Arcee growled. She let her face-plate reflect every bit of the boiling rage she'd felt since her feet had hit the ground-bridge. She took another step forward, aware of the weapon that was pointed, if not somewhat carelessly, on her.
"Me? Violent?" Starscream made an overly exaggerated gesture of completely and utter bewilderment, and pretended to shrink back in disbelief. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about…. Oh… wait. You must mean that whole killing your partner thing."
"Him, and every other innocent bot you've ever had a hand in slaying over countless years," Arcee roared. Her fury burned in her optics. One more step forward, advancing toward him. Any remaining regard she might have had for his weapons, was all but gone.
Starscream may well have expected that Arcee would shoot at him, or at least she would try to before he retreated or fired on her. What he hadn't expected is that she would instead deactivate her right hand blaster so that she could slam a tightly clenched fist into the side of his face-plate. While he stared at her with his mouth falling open in shock, she punched him again.
"You… you stupid fool Autobot!" Starscream bollowed. He took an almost comically frantic step backwards. His heads where in front of him at once. "How dare you strike the Lord and Master of the Decepticon empire! I could tear you into scrap for that!"
For several seconds, Arcee only laughed at him, while he tried to stare of down with his own growing rage.
"Lord and Master? Empire?" Arcee spat. Her fury driving her to mock him, while he stepped back toward her. He may have been considerably small, but still he was bigger than she was, and far stronger. None of that mattered as she growled in mockery, "Your 'mighty empire' is nothing now. The war is over and you lost. You're nothing by a selfish, spoiled, twisted, pathetic, little murdering slag pile."
"I'll take your head clean off for that little rant, Autobot. I should have killed you and your weak little friends eons ago. My greatest mistake was to think I should have been merciful to those less than myself."
Ha, and we once called Knockout arrogant. Arcee held her tongue, keeping that thought to herself. She knew it would be unwise a thing to say to someone who wanted the defector dead. Instead she went for a good hard kick to the front of his plating, almost letting herself think she could actually knock him backwards to the ground. Of course he didn't fall. Instead he advanced on her quickly and got in a couple of punches and a kick of his own before she promptly blocked a third hard blow with her arm.
"Are you sure you wish to continue this foolishness, Autobot?" Starscream demanded. He dealt a few more rapid blows, only half of which were deflected. "Surely you are more than aware of my skill in unarmed combat. And you do recall how last time you challenged me, it was you who lost badly, and wounded!"
"I lost because you tricked me, you worthless cheating coward," Arcee growled at him. Optics narrowed and glaring. For all her confidence, she knew he was far from lying about his skill. He could well beat her, and probably kill her when he was finished. A small part of her awareness screamed at her to listen, to stop, that the 'con right right about it being only foolishness. But the much larger part of her processor, which was now driving only by inexplicable rage, drove her to ignore any good sense at all.
"Troopers," Starscream yelled, over the sound of the blaster fire and Arcee had nearly stopped hearing entirely. "Hold your fire. Stop shooting at that Autobot you idiots. Let me handle this myself. I want to let that little black and yellow one watch while I destroy his friend here!"
Arcee heard the silence as the weapons-fire stopped. Form the edge of her field of vision, she saw Bumblebee step toward her, his blasters now taking aim past her and straight at Starscream.
"'Bee, don't," she said, her voice even. Her rage was never meant for him. "His team is holding their fire and so will you." She turned her attention once more to the Decepticon commander. "This creep is being honorable for once."
Starscream flung a fist forward, with great speed and force. Arcee stumbled back a couple of steps as it struck her shoulder panel with a terrible metal on metal clanging noise. A backhand across her face-plate sent her off balance and falling backward to the ground. He planted a couple of hard kicks to her side panel, before planting a foot right on her chest-plate.
"You should have killed me, Arcee, when you had a chance," Starscream said, almost laughing. He looked down at her and stared her in the optics. "You've had many chances. All of you have. And yet somehow you never could..."
"I don't take any great joy in slaughtering my fellow Cybertronians." Arcee spat her words at him, even as his foot pressed down harder. The threat of crushing her panel under part of his landing gear was more than clear. "I'm not a Decepticon. I don't need to kill without mercy."
"Too bad. You would have done so well on my side of the war." Starscream's expression looked far too serious. Arcee's rage reached well beyond boiling point.
"How dare you imply I could ever have been anything like you!" She screamed her words, even as his weight rested harder on her panel. "You're nothing more than a twisted, psychotic, broken bot without even a cause left to fight for."
"'Bee, don't," she snapped fast, when she saw Bumblebee again aim his blaster, out of the corner of her vision. She saw him step back. Saw the blaster lower again. Just barely saw the glimpse the uncertainty on her teammate's faceplate, as he wondered what exactly he should do. She shoved back her fury just enough to realized that Bumblebee was more than likely to break rank and shoot against her orders any second.
"Get off of me, you good for nothing scrap heap," she hollered as she grabbed Starcscream's lower leg and jerked her arms toward her. The motion was so sudden, it sent him stumbling. He hit the ground hard enough to just slightly shake the dessert around them, and landed awkwardly in a graceless pile of long metallic limbs.
"You… you stupid, ridiculous Autobot fool," he sputtered, as he struggled to his feet His motion spilled sand from the complex circuitry behind his wings. "What kind of pathetic move is that… you… you..."
"Efficient," Arcee answered, still glaring at him, as she jumped quickly onto her own feet. She hurried toward him and before he could block, while he still shook loose sand grains, she dealt him a few rapid kicks to his front. He punched back once, but she was quick. Grabbing his arm before he could strike her, she twisted it back so that he visibly bit back a scream of pain. She let go, laughing in his face. Her laughter stopped abruptly and she growled in a tone uncharacteristic of any Autobot, "We could have done a fine job of living in peace. You could have been part of it. You could have helped us instead of serving your own self interest for once in your miserable pathetic life."
"Turn Knockout over to me," Strarscream yelled, in the midst of his returned flurry of punches and a few more kicks. "I might just let you live."
"I'd never turn him in just so you could kill him for the crime of thinking for himself," Arcee snapped. She punched again and dodged what could have been a very dangerously placed kick. So that's what Starscream had been after all a long. She'd figured so.
"Tell me Autobot..." More kicks, more punches, and the now constant clanging of metal against metal. "Why do you care what happens to him? He's arrogant, selfish, he'll ever really be an Autobot. You of all bots should be happy just to once again be rid of him."
Arcee was almost lost for any words in reply. Her rage was quickly giving way to confusion over everything he had forced her to consider. Starscream was wrong. He may never know just how wrong he was, but she was hardly going to waste her time trying to convince him of that or anything else. When the words she might have wanted never came after another several long seconds she threw herself forward in reckless fury and let the force behind her own body knock the 'con back to the ground. In under a second she was leaning over him, wordless shouting her rage, and raining punches down onto his face-plate, as if that would be enough to wipe away his horrible smirk.
"Did you forget, Arcee, what Knockout did to your friend Bulkhead's human pet?" Staracream snarled at her, as she hit him again. Something in his tone, in the words themselves showed that he was getting desperate for anything he could grasp to scare her away. It only made her punch him again harder.
"You idiot," she roared, finding her voice again at last. "You dare point at him, when it was you that did the very same to my own human partner! Knockout was so clearly sorry for it. When will you be?"
Somehow, in the midst of her relentless blows, and while he managed to get in a couple of his own, the 'con had the nerve her smirk at her again. He even laughed in her face as he said, a little too causally, "hardly changes that fact that he was still involved, in that little Cybertron hostage incident, now does it?"
He finally threw her off, and again both were back on their feet in under a second. Once again they faced each other. Once again neither was backing down.
"He was only so terrible and sparkless, because you made him that way!" Arcee proclaimed. The energon inside her body was surely at the point of boiling by then. She could feel her plating heating up dangerously from the strain of her emotions that she could not get rid of, and the exhaustion she was quickly driving herself to. She could barely see anything beyond what was right in front of her. Every sound that might have existed in the dessert around here was gone entirely. She only heard her own voice as she went on yelling. "It was you and that horrible, evil master of yours. You corrupted the sparks and the minds of half of Cybertron.. Made young bots want to kill and cause pain. Made them want to hate. And when they get scared, when they get soft, when they get sick, or they think you might have been wrong, you leave them all for scarp like they were nothing! How many were there that might have been like your medic? How many might have had a dream once before they lost the chance to have a choice but to either kill for you or die!"
"Oh, I've had about enough of you, Autobot!" Arcee heard Starscream shriek.
He went for his weapon before either Autobot could react. He was pointing it low, nearly at the ground, and was barely even aiming at all. The noise of a single blaster beam tore through the air before for a fraction of a second. Starscream had jumped into the air, transformed with rapid speed, and flown away into the sky before anyone else even moved. The remaining troopers quickly retreated after him.
"Arcee..." Bumblebee said slowly. He stepped toward her, but he was quite strangely looking down toward the ground. The look on his face-plate was enough to make her look down as well and follow his gaze.
It was then that she realized she was standing in a steadily growing pool of energon, as it flowed from her lower right leg. She could barely see her own foot under the steady stream of glowing blue that poured over it.
"'Bee, I've sustained damage..." she said, knowing full well she was quite stupidly stating the obvious.
"Yeah…. You definitely did..." her teammate's voice was surprisingly collected as ever for a bot as young as he was. But there was obvious anxiety behind it all the same. Without wasting another second he carefully quickly lifted her right off the ground and gently carried her a slight ways so that he could set her down again with her back leaning against huge boulders at the base of a huge cliff. Arcee looked around idly, and understood they were now both protected by the cliff's overhang high above, and hidden from the road – as if that mattered now after all the weapons-fire and noise to make any nearby humans notice.
"Scrap," she mumbled, letting her head fall back to rest against the rocks behind her, as her processor finally caught up to itself and began to register pain. A field first aid kit was standard equipment, carried by every member of the Autobot troops. And 'Bee retrieved his from his storage compartment quickly.
"It'll be alright," he said, pulling the contents quickly out of the kit. He'd already sat himself down on the ground, and was trying to look at her optics while still looking down.
"I didn't think 'Scream was gonna fire a weapon like that," Arcee muttered. "Stupid me. I thought for once he would fight with honor."
"You're far from stupid, Arcee. But trying to fight Starscream on your own, thinking you could beat him that way..."
"I know it was a pretty dumb move. I just got so mad. Anger's always made me stupid. 'Bee… I think this may be more than just minor damage."
She saw Bumblebee nod once, with a serious expression, as he began to wrap a temporary metallic wrapping around her ankle joint. Clearly he was trying not to hurt her any worse, but she knew just as well such things were generally unavoidable. "His blaster fired at very close range. Looks like the beam was about halfway to blowing your foot right off."
"Scarp," Arcee mumbled again. The more seconds that past, the more she wanted to feel even stupider than she already did for her so clearly bad call. But she knew full well that the time to beat herself up was not then. Instead she looked down, trying to assess the damage a bit herself. There was not much to see under a still pouring energon flow. All she could tell for sure is that at least one joint was bent too far to the right, and something below that just looked wrong in a way her processor would not even let her register at all. "It's still bleeding so much. Somehow this kinda thing never bothers me when I'm trying to do field repairs on someone else."
"Arcee, I'm going to call for a bridge in a minute, alright," Bumblebee said, as he kept working with quick efficiency. "Ratchet will bridge us back to base, and he'll want to repair you right away."
She only nodded at him mutely and leaned her head back again. The desert landscape around her started to spin a bit and she forced her optics to stay open. Her frame, heated by the rage and exertion of not so long before had began to cool, and she now felt far too cold instead of far too hot. She shook a little as her body tried hard to warm itself back up. For a second her vision went white, and then she saw the sand and cliffs again.
"Ready to ground-bridge," 'Bee spoke again, and it took her at least a few seconds to realize he had at all. By the time his words made sense he was already running forward to a spinning vortex. He'd picked her up again, but she had no idea when he'd done that. When, for that matter, had he comm'ed back to base for the bridge in the first place?
"'Bee, I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I made a bad call. I shouldn't have tried to pull rank like that, when I knew you were right about retreating..."
"Hey, stupid calls happen," the small black and yellow bot said. "I just wish it hadn't ended this badly."
She was aware of motion as she was carried quickly through the bridge. For a fleeting second she saw the swirling of blue all around her before the swirling lights she had seen countless times, suddenly made her fuel tank flip in her frame. Closing her optics helped greatly with the sickening dizziness. But she quite clearly drifted off again briefly, because the next thing she was aware of, looking around again, to see the spinning and distorted view of the inside of the medbay.
"Ow, frag it," she mumbled, when 'Bee had put her down, gently as possible on top of the repair table, with her feet straight in front of her. She was fully registering pain now as she tried to look around a bit and it all just kept on spinning.
"I tried to deactivate her pain receptors before I brought her back here," Bumblebee was saying, with his voice now coming from somewhere behind her.
"Hmm… it looks like some severe damage to at least a couple of important sensory connectors here. Pain receptors may not fully disable due to such damage. At least you were still able to get a partial disconnection, or she'd be far worse off," Ratchet was explaining calmly from much closer to her. She tried to look at him, at least for a second. But her vision was not co-operating and the harder she tried the dizzier it seemed to make her.
"'Bee, how long has she been drifting off and partly conscious like this?" the old medic asked next.
"Maybe ten or fifteen Earth minutes," the younger bot said. His calmness was still more than a bit impressive. "She managed not to fall and do more damage. I got her into a safe sitting position. But she was half asleep and shaky by the time I called for the bridge."
"The most pressing issue here is massive fuel lose. She's bleeding out energon very badly. It doesn't look like there's much else to worry about other than head to foot dents and a few bad scratches."
She folded both hands lightly in fists and forced herself to stay still, as Ratchet poured cleaner over her badly damaged lower leg and foot. She opened her optics again, found herself much less dizzy for the moment and tried to assess her own injuries again. The steady flow of lightly glowing blue from some obviously bad damage barely seemed to be stopping. It would not have bothered her had it not so obviously been her own that her lower leg was covered in. That might well have been what made her dizzy and sick again, on top of the fuel lose this time.
"I didn't notice when you started working on..." she started to say, but stopped when Ratchet gently took hold of her arm.
"Well just lay back and hold still now so I can keep working," he said, serious but still not without compassion either.
"Just intake for a bit," the old medic said after another second. "You're alright."
Arcee was far from new to damages sustained in a lifetime of endless battles. Limping, barely rolling forward still in vehicle mode, or being dragged or carried back to a base and the medbay was probably far ore common a thing that it should have been, had her life been an ideal one. Still though, the natural tendency toward a small degree of fear and panic never fully went away in such a situation. And it was only in the moment that she remembered just how bad it always was. She forced her focus toward taking in air and letting it back out again, only to do the same thing a couple more times.
"Is this as bad as it looks?" she managed to ask.
"Well I believe you've now beaten your own personal record for the worst you've ever gotten scrapped. But it's hardly anything I can't fix."
"Fair enough," Arcee said, with her optics shut again. Her hands stayed as they were, folded into fists, and she put some great effort into not yelling as the old medic continued on working with the cleaning solution.
"What's happened?" Arcee recognized that new voice speaking as Knockout's. His tone was a mix of confusion and great concern. He also sounded half asleep himself. Arcee tried to look toward him next, but her visuals were still spinning badly, as soon as she experimentally opened her optics yet again.
"I… I'm okay," she said, fearing at once that she must have sounded as out of it as she felt. "Things just didn't go as I planned."
"Arcee," Ratchet said. She felt his hand lightly on her arm again and tired once again to see something clearly. The red and white of his armor held her focus a bit at the very least. "Your damage is right at the borderline of where I may or may not want to power a bot down for repairs. But with your pain sensory network clearly still not doing what we'd like, I'm leaning well toward the option to power down."
Arcee only nodded silently, agreeing.
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"Well everything looks good," Ratchet said, helping Arcee to sit herself back down on the repair table with her legs danging in front of her, after she had talked a couple of careful, experimental steps forward and then stepped back. "You'll be able to walk a bit, as long as you don't put much weight on your repaired foot for a little while. How does it feel? Any pain?"
Arcee shook her head a little. "Just a slight throbbing ache. It's not too bad. Ratchet, thank you for..."
"Just doing my job." The old bot gave a rare little smile at her, before he held up a finger and shook it at her in preemptive warning. "Now, just because you can walk decently well, doesn't mean I want to do so much for the next couple days. I better be seeing you sitting on chairs and benches when you aren't in your recharge station, and I'd like to see that healing foot up, instead of dangling like that or flat on the floor."
Arcee nodded, and then felt a bit silly, but knew better than to say a thing about it, as the old bot helped her position herself back on the now inclined repair table with her feet stretched out in front of her again. She all but rolled her optics in compliant, when he moved to place a pillow under the damaged foot and ankle, and gave an audible laugh, when he paused to fluff it a bit with his hands first. He handed her a medical grade energon container, and though she far preferred good old semi-refined fuel, she understood the need after losing so much of her own fuel supply, and the shock to her systems.
"So," she said, after she had drank a few sips and made a face at the medic over it. "What's my damage report look like."
"Well aside from a blaster nearly blowing you right foot off, and busting your ankle joint in two places above that, I fixed up at least six considerable dents anywhere between your head and hip joints. The worst of those was the front of you chest panel, where it looked like any more force might have compromised your spark chamber." Ratchet looked far from impressed. That was more than confirmed when he huffed once, shook his head and then stared at her with an admonishing look. "Arcee, Bumblebee explained to me that you tired to take on Starscream in hand to hand combat, like you were ready to roll with the wreckers! What the frag were you thinking?"
Arcee looked around the medbay, at first saying nothing at all. She glimpsed Knockout, in his now sadly familiar place at the far side of the room. He was laying flat on top of his recharge station, optics closed and not moving.
"Is he alright?'" Arcee questioned, her concern perhaps far too obvious.
"He's fine. Lost consciousness again for a minute, while we were in the middle of a conversation, not very long before you got back here. Still looks like simple processor rebooting. Now he's just in recharge. Arcee, don't think for half a second I'd let you get away with dodging my question."
Arcee lowered her gaze, to look down toward her hands resting on her knees. "I know what I did… or tried to do, and actually thought for a minute I could… was stupid of me."
"Now, I'm not asking you to go beating yourself up over some stupid lapse in good judgment. We've all made probably far more than our fair share of mistakes," Ratchet said. He waited for her to finally look back up at him before he went on. "I'm asking you why you did it. What drove you to such rage, that you actually believed you stood a chance?"
"I… I don't know," Arcee answered, mumbling and forcing herself not to stare at her knees again. "I guess I just got angry..."
Ratchet pulled up a chair and sat himself down on it, so that he could sit facing her. He gave a serious look, that clearly indicated he would wait all day to hear her answer, but would not simply drop it. "I'm a right in assuming there may just be a connection between this poor judgment of yours, and that obvious little spill of tears before you bridged out? You did promise you would explain that bit later."
"Ratchet, you're probably busy," Arcee said. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine now"
"I'm never that busy, I can't sit a minute and talk to a teammate who clearly needs to chat a minute." The old bot so obviously was genuinely concerned about her. Arcee glanced toward Knockout, still quietly recharging.
"Oh I doubt very much we'll wake him up anytime soon," Ratchet said, realizing her worry. "We could go and chat in my office if you really wanted to, but I see no real need. Processor rebooting will generally leave a bot a bit quite tired for a while. It's unlikely much will wake him up now that I've convinced him to recharge. But I assure you, it's not nearly as scary as it probably looks to a bot not in the medical profession. Now, we've established that you were angry. Though based on the hits it looks like you took and it sounds like you barely even noticed, I'd say that's a given. Why?"
"I just was," Arcee said, heplessly. She considered her words carefully at first, hesitant. But once she began to explain, she could barely stop her words from pouring from her mouth. "The war was supposed to be over. We're rebuilding. Shiploads of our people are coming home. We all just stupidly assumed it was over because we ended it. It takes both sides to end a war, and 'Bee is right. Starscream doesn't want to stop. I would have thought he'd be as tired of the fighting as any of us are. You know, I hardly think he even knows what he was ever fighting for. I don't think he cares. He's in this for power alone, and he'll never be stopped. I never thought in all my years, I'd see the day Megatron of any bot, would see his own wrongs and just walk away from his own evil cause. But nothing was ever done about his next in line, and I'm almost sure he's even worse!"
"Arcee. Starscream has always been a bit of a wrench in the system, for both sides of the war. Unpredictable. His very sanity entirely questionable. I think by now we all realize how sadly some bots are simply beyond hope of redemption. The only way to stop him will be to eventually destroy him, I'm sure. But that doesn't mean you could ever do it on your own."
"I know. I know." Arcee's optics began to spill cleaner fluid again, before she could stop it. She tried to drop her gaze down to hide her tears, and she felt confused and ridiculous. But Ratchet gently placed the fingertips of one hand under her chin to lift her head back up, making her look at him again. She forced herself to speak, and inwardly berated herself for the still flowing tears. "Starscream made Knockout what he became, or at least he had a huge part in it. Made him terrified. Crushed his spark and made him broken. Ever since that day I went find him for you, and I heard him wake up screaming from yet another of his endless nightmares..."
"You wanted revenge?" It wasn't entirely a question.
Arcee only nodded, and wiped a hand over her optics helplessly. "I… I know it would never fix anything. But today Knockout told me his life should end, and it was not all because he may be left disabled from the failure of his processor. He can't stand the constant flashbacks, the fear, the fact that he's killed and hurt people to save his own tailpipe. Ratchet, I don't understand even why the idea of such a choice made me so sad and then so enraged. I know it's his right to..."
Ratchet gave her a strange look. One that she so rarely if ever saw on his face-plate and one that she could not read. He looked her in the optics and asked quietly, calmly and curious, "When we split up the team recently, why did you insist you stay with us here on Earth? Knockout asked you to, yes, but it was pretty clear you would have in any case. There was a ship to be met. Bots to be shown around the base. Endless paperwork. And I know full well how you hate to be away from work that could help in the rebuilding efforts."
"I… I just couldn't stand the thought of leaving him behind. I knew the other bots would be fine, and I'm only a space-bridge away if needed. Knockout was barely conscious, still in severe pain, terrified, realizing his body wasn't working, and he was asking for me of all bots in the base. How could I just run off and go dig through rubble and work on fixing the roads? I… I'm still glad I stayed. I thought of going back home days ago, since I'm less needed here now, but I still couldn't imagine leaving him…."
"And just when are you going to actually admit that you quite possibly love him?" the old bot questioned. His face-plate was serious and his optics showed understanding without a hint of judgment in them.
"I don't… that's just not… I…," Arcee stammered her words for at least half a minute, like a youngling without a clue of how to form a complex sentence. The old medic only nodded once a clearly look of knowing in his optics, as she began crying again. "I was always so focused on winning a war. I never even considered that I would ever love anyone really. Why is it the one I found when I wasn't even trying had to be a former enemy? We might have tried to kill each other once without another thought. I… I can't just let him give up..."
"Arcee, Knockout and I talked about that very thing after you bridged out. He said he didn't understand why you were holding on to him so tightly and crying like that. I told him that off-lining is his right of course. But I also made it clear that I'm personally against it, and I think I speak for the entire team on that. I don't think he's finished living, so much as tired of pain. He agreed with me. He's going to keep on trying to live."
Arcee smiled at the medic's words, but could not find the words herself, to give any reply. Ratchet took the now empty energon container from her and went on speaking. "The war did so much damage, not only to our world itself, to to our society. Cybertron was not always divided into factions that were just supposed to hate each and barely know why. You might be just old enough to remember the world as it used to be. Knockout might remember it too. Now I think you should rest in here for a while, before I let you go back to your own room. Bumblebee asked while you were still in power down, for a team meeting later about this attack in the desert. You will attend it, sitting with your foot up."
For some time after Ratchet had left the medbay, Arcee lay down under now dimmed lights and tried to follow his orders to rest a while. But no matter how she tried, she simply couldn't fall into even light recharge. She closed her optics and kept the shut, while she tried to get herself comfortable. But that was seemingly quite impossible. And it didn't help in the lest, that she couldn't seem to stop her racing thoughts. She tried to turn a bit to lay on one side, but that was impossible to do with her foot still resting on top of the pillow, and any try at keeping it up a bit in a new position, caused short stabs of pain to shoot up through the wiring in her lower leg. Eventually she gave up on resting, and sat herself up again, using the hand control at the head of the repair table, to incline the top section again.
"You should be resting, Arcee," a voice admonished from across the room. She looked over to find Knockout, quite clearly awake himself now and laying flat with his head turned a little so that he could look in her direction. She wonder if spacial relation, and left and right were finally making more sense to him, or if he had simply heard her move and turned in the direction of a sound.
"I am resting," she said, with a roll of her optics. "I'm just sitting up, and not exactly in recharge. How are you doing now? Ratchet said you..."
"Out like a light again?" Knockout nodded slowly, and gave an optic roll of his own. "Unfortunately. Trying to reboot at random it seems. Ratchet said more than once it's nothing to be scared off, but from my perspective it's always pretty scrapping scary anyway."
"You are far stronger and braver than I am," he said smiling at her with a look of unmistakable admiration, when she looked at him sadly, and sympathetic. "Ankle joint and foot nearly blown apart, and all you say is ouch, and then you ask if it's bad. I've worked on so many bots that would have been screaming in pain over less than that. Primus knows I would have!"
Arcee carefully moved so that she could swing her legs over the edge of the repair table and then slowly stand up. She let her weight rest on her uninjured foot as she even more carefully took a few steps so that she could sit herself down in the chair beside Knockout's recharge station. She pulled her foot up to rest it on part of the metal frame underneath, so that she could keep it up, and follow medical orders.
"You need to be resting..." Knockout began to admonish again. He took a moment to study her optics, before he said, "I think you're in far more pain than you're letting on."
"Honestly yeah. But I'll be alright. And I can just as well sit and rest here, as I can over there." She looked him in the optics for a long moment, saying nothing, before she finally asked in a serious tone, "you know what I would call true courage and bravery?"
The red bot shook his head a little and look at her. She went on. "You stared your own very possible end right in the face recently as you felt your own processor failing badly, and calmly told me you were ready. How's that for courage? You lead the Autobot team out of a crashing warship minutes after pretty well assuring Starscream would end up later signing your death warrant for defecting. How about not panicking and getting bots possibly killed at that building site on Cybertron? Or facing months, probably years of nightmares and getting up to just keep going?"
"Arcee, come here," Knockout said, as he lifted his right arm so that he do do his best at hugging her. She leaned over so that she could rest again with her head against his chest-plate as she had done earlier that day. "I heard you talking with Ratchet. Well some anyway. I woke up but I didn't wish to interrupt… It wasn't my intention to eavesdrop."
"Sorry if we woke you up," Arcee answered, apologetically. She stayed where she was for a long moment, just letting him try his best to hold onto her. After a second however, a realization dawned and she felt her spark flash with her growing embarrassment. That feeling evolved fast into dread and she tried to sit herself back up.
"How much did you..." she mumbled, as she still tried almost too halfheartedly to pull herself up. He still held onto her with the one arm he had good use of. His hand warmed her body armor as she began to grow cold and she wondered why.
"More than I'm sure I was meant to," he said, speaking quietly and with every bit of the confidence many who knew him far less would have expected in a second, gone entirely. "I love you too. I think I have since that day we sat together one the edge of the well. Or maybe it was the morning you talked to me in the medbay and you said you actually trusted me..."
"I know you can't get that other hand up high enough to give me a proper hug, so I'll just hold that one instead," Arcee said, as she reached for his left hand gently.
"I have so little to offer you in the way of a good life..."
"Knockout," Arcee snapped with a laugh and coolant in her optics again, she shook her head the best he could with it still pressed against his armor and him clearly not planning on letting her go. "We're rebuilding our whole fragging planet! No one has anything to offer anyone anymore but the hope of starting over together."
Notes/ RoboDiamondDragon09 commented once that they wanted to see Arcee and Starscream fight at same point. It seemed like it could be fun and funny to write such a thing, so implied challenge accepted. I simply needed somewhere to logically fit it in. I hope I wrote something like you were hoping for.
Okay… since when did I start writing sappy romance. I did it this once. Can't be sure I'll ever do it again…. Maybe… ?