"Ratchet," Arcee called out quietly. She stepped entered the medbay and stepped clearly of the door, so that it could slide closed behind her. "Have you got a minute?"
It was not uncommon, over the last few months, for the medic to treat an increasing number of returning refugees, for any and all manner and degree of injury or illness inside the Autobot base medbay. And Arcee crept further into the place carefully, still quiet, never sure of exactly who if anyone might be in recharge somewhere inside.
At the moment though the place appeared empty. Each of the several sliding dividers was pushed open, all repair tables and the couple of recharge stations were empty. No one occupied any chairs around the place. And it was only after one more careful look around that she found Ratchet, in the furthest corner, intently working on some project or other of his at a worktable, and with his back to the room.
Arcee wandered closer and stood behind him. For a moment she watched as he read complex sets of formulas from a data pad that he'd propped up to lean against the wall in front of him. Several small containers filled with energon of various colors and types sat to his left, and she watched him pick one up and swirl it lightly in before he held it up toward the overhead light he stood under. He shook his head, muttered a little, saying something too quiet for her to make it out and picked up the data pad. He read it over carefully, and then flipped the page backward to read from what appeared to be some shorthand notes.
"Is this a bad time?" Arcee questioned, more than willing to leave him to his work.
Immediately the datapad flew from Ratchet's hands and crashed face down onto the surface of the worktable, as he practically jumped from the floor, startled. He turned around fast with a hand over his chest-plate.
"Never sneak up on me like that," he said with a shake of his head and slight chuckle of laughter. "I'm an old bot, Arcee. You might just give me a spark attack."
"Sorry. I thought you would have heard me come in here."
"Hmm… I suppose sometimes I get so focused on my work… Then consider too, you are probably the only bot on this base that has any concept at all of walking quietly in the medbay, instead of all that stomping like a wrecker."
"Smaller feet," Arcee reminded him, laughing. She gestured toward the worktable, curious. "New science project?"
"I've been busy again with trying to create cybermatter. I thought this morning I was pretty close... but now it still looks like I'm missing something. Something so small you'd barely notice the mistake. But when it comes to a formula like this, even a tiny mistake can mean failure."
"Cybermatter? The basic building blocks of our planet? Ratchet, our planet is alive again. We succeeded. Is there really any reason for you to be trying to manufacture more?"
"It's more than just the building blocks of Cybertron." Ratchet stepped away from his work and began to gesture with his hands, in the obvious excitement of a bot passionate about his project. "On the most basic DNA level, it's part of every Cybertronian too. When the cybermatter project first started, I would have thought you'd have been right. Once we had just enough to make a good attempt at restoring the planet, that would be the end of the project. Because after all, there would be no further use for the stuff. We'd know we could make it, but we'd never really want to, or need to. But then Bumblebee fell into that pool of it in the midst of battle, and instead of killing him, it was obvious the matter had done something I was never able to do for all of my trying."
Ratchet took several stepped forward across the room, only to turn again and pace back toward his worktable, while his hands continued to wave with an enthusiasm that made Arcee smile. He went fight on speaking, and gradually the pace of of his speech increased until he was talking much faster than he usually did. "I've run scans of 'Bee's frame, inner workings, codes, wiring… I can find nothing wrong. No signs of repaired damages… It's just as if nothing was ever broken at all. Typically, when damage to a bot is repaired, even by the best medic, some bit of evidence of the damage will be left behind..."
"You're considering that cybermatter may have a medical use some day?" Arcee filled in the blanks, as the old bot kept on pacing in his short path back and forth.
"Indeed," Ratchet said at once. "Someday we will be back to where we were before the war, back to a point where medics will have far more to work with than salvaged parts and anything we can rebuild. But even then, in the idea situation, way back in the golden age, there were always many things medical science could not do, or at least not do very well. Vocalizers, spark casings, so many other components within a bot's body; we just never found a way to do much but to improvise, hope for the best and leave a bot to live with the best we could do…"
He stopped both speaking and pacing suddenly, and stood quiet and still in front of his worktable, facing her.
"Sorry, Arcee," he said after a second. "What was it you wanted?"
"I needed to speak to you for a moment… I can come back later if you'd rather get back to your work."
"Oh I'm pretty certain my work can wait a few minutes." Ratchet made his way to a chair a ways away from his worktable, and dragged another one closer to it, before he sat down, and invited her, with a gesture, to take a seat herself. "Now, what is it you needed?"
"It's about Knockout," Arcee said. "This has been on my mind all day… we had a very bad night last night, and..."
"Now I suspected so this morning. But is seems you had things under control. You're good with him. Good with knowing how and when to handle something on your own, and when to comm for urgent help."
"What is his likely outcome going to look like?" Arcee was direct and to the point, and instantly she almost completely regretted her approach. She continued on far more awkwardly. "Please don't assume the answer will effect my choice to be his mate… I only ask because..."
"Arcee," Ratchet interrupted her firmly. He leaned forward and lightly put a hand on her shoulder panel. "Please, never feel like you need to justify anything. I understand it's not selfishness that motivates you to ask such things." He paused a moment and shook his head just a little. "The fact is I still just don't know for sure. I could give you my best answer, but it would only be a decent well educated guess based on what I've seen so far."
"I would like that much better than absolute unknowns," Arcee persisted, determined.
The old medic nodded slightly, and moved his hand away from her shoulder panel to place it back into his lap. He leaned back in his chair. "What's become clear to me in the process of working with him for so long now, is that we were actually dealing with three related but still separate problems, all caused by the same series of processor malfunctions. The first issue was simply that of the processor, and in turn the body, simply forgetting or losing so many of its ordinary functions and movements. That was always just a matter of forcing it to relearn the forgotten functions and movements. He's done well with that, and with more practice will get a bit further still. Writing on a datapad for instance is still a tricky one. But his handwriting is always improving. Then, there's an issue of both physical strength and balance. Again relearnable to an extent. But it will take time. Determination. The biggest problem I've seen in all this, is the third issue."
He paused for a moment, in which Arcee just stared at him, waiting for him to go on. When he didn't, she encouraged him with her intent focused optics, and the calmness on her face-plate to continue on, to trust her not to yell at him for the bad news that she always could see a mile away. Finally he went on, speaking slowly, in a tone of compassion and understanding.
"There were more than a few connections to both the frame and even the structure underneath that – all of them routed to the left side of the body as you can imagine – that look to be either severely weakened, or even, in the case of a few entirely obliterated. There's still the hope that the connection will repair on its own, to some extent, but I can't be sure of how much, if at all, and how long, if ever. Reteaching will do no good in this case either. How can I teach a processor to move and control a limb when it can't find that limb, or know that it exists."
"Sounds like he's gotten almost as far as he'll likely get..."
"No no, not at all." The look on the face-plate of the old medic was hopeful in spite of his news. "Successes now mostly be will be smaller ones. But still there could be so many of them. Writing neatly on datapads. Handling more awkwardly shaped objects without dropping them, balancing stacks of several things at once… And I'm not ready yet to say I've done all I can. I don't believe I have. I would like to see him sit himself up someday from laying. With the right equipment and his own strong will to keep on trying I think someday he'll be getting on and off the cart on his own. I'd like to try to teach him to roll to the side and back, both to reach something beside your recharge station, or just because who doesn't want to be able to move if they want to. The right arm could regain its full function. It's close now as it is, but simply lacks some needed strength. The left arm and hand could maybe do slightly more."
"He's been saying for a while that he'll likely never walk again..." Arcee felt the full force of the dread she been been denying herself as soon as she said that out loud.
Ratchet shook his head with a look of sad regret. "He understands his own condition well. Perhaps a little too well. I suppose that's the greatest downside sometimes in having a patient that is also a fellow medic."
"Even in his own struggle, he always tried to make sure I understood…."
"Knockout loves you more than anything, Arcee. If someone had hold me not so long ago that I'd be saying that, I would have dragged them right to medical in order to carefully examine their heads… He doesn't want to see it break your spark to watch him try and try at so many things that should be so simple, and to never fully function again."
"He feels like I'm giving up my life, my whole future to care for him. I explained that I don't think that way at all. He feels like asking me to is selfish and wrong." Arcee slumped a little in her chair. She sighed a little. "I told him this is what I want. That if our lives are different from those of others, that's not all bad. He just can't fully understand how no one just off lined him by now for being 'broken.'"
"Arcee, Knockout said it himself once. He never had the best role models. Your lives together will never be easy and I don't just mean because of his physical condition."
"I know. I think he and I both do."
"He would never tell me himself. We both know he's a stubborn fool when it comes to reporting his own medical status to me. But I need to know, have there been anymore random processor reboots?"
Arcee shook her head. "Not since the one I reported to you recently, that he had while laying on our recharge station."
"Good. And you'll report anymore that may happen?"
"I certainly will. Uh… speaking of random reboots… should he still be rebooting like that in the first place? It's been months..."
Ratchet sat silent a moment, considering, before he finally answered her. "Sadly, Arcee my answer here is the same as I've given to so many related questions. I just don't know. A case like his is something we study at the medical academy as a theoretical and highly unlikely scenario. No one was ever supposed to expect to come upon a case of severe processor failure quite like his, and if we did, medical teaching told to expect that our patient would die and quite quickly. There were once a total of four pages anywhere in existence, on the condition. And not one of then contain a single line of text pertaining to what to expect if your patient lives. When I say I'm working in the dark here, flying blind and improvising as I go, I wholly mean it."
"Maybe you'll write the book someday on catastrophic processor failure and the prognosis for recovery." Arcee grinned with a new level of admiration for the old bot. "Someday there will be a brand new academy of learning on Cybertron. There'll be a great need for new textbooks..."
"Knockout and I will write it together, yes." Arcee had been only partly serious, but the medic's tone implied strong future considerations already under way. Both smiled then to think that the bots yet to exist on their world, would once again pursue education in so many fields.
"Arcee," Ratchet said then, as he stood up from his chair. His expression turned back to professional and businesslike as ever. "When you have a moment, would you mind sending Knockout in to see me? Yeah, I fully realize he's likely going to grumble over hating me for this, but I really need to run scans again. I was supposed to have done that days ago. Give that bot a way to get around and all bets are off it seems… Ever since he's had his mobility cart..."
"I'll get him in here if I have to drag him," Arcee promised. She chucked lightly, but all the same she knew it was a serious matter. As much as Knockout disliked being in the medbay as a patient in even the smallest of ways, the frequint scans were needed due to the unpredictable nature of his health.
"Tell him I can scan him quick while he stays sitting on the cart," the old medic suggested as Arcee stepped toward the door. "No reason to fuss with hauling him off of it and back on again, and I just need quick basic scans with the hand scanner anyway. He might just hate me a little less that way." The old bot chucked.
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
"Hey Bulk'" Arcee said, smacking the big green bot lightly across the backs of his shoulder panels, once she had found him sitting in front of the monitoring board, near the far wall of the room that the bots used as their common room.
Bulkhead sat with his enormous feet propped up on the edge of the desk beneath and monitors, drinking from an energon container, which he nearly spilled onto himself, startled when she smacked him. He managed to steady the container, but then nearly tipped himself backwards and right off the chair while doing so.
"Sorry," Arcee said laughing, while she steadied the chair with both of her hands before he could fall. "Looks like I'm two for two today when it comes to scaring the scrap out of my own colleagues."
"You walk too quiet."
"So it would seem," Arcee gave another small laugh, and shook her head. "Bulk', have you seen Knockout? I've been over this base from top to bottom twice, and I can't find him anywhere. Ratchet needs him in the medbay..."
Bulkhead shrugged, then considered a second. "Did you look outside?"
"Twice."
"Comm him?" Bulkhead suggested. "He's gotta be somewhere."
"Well of course he's somewhere," Arcee mused. She chuckled again, with another little shake of her head. "I don't want to comm him, and have to explain on the comm why I'm looking for him. That will only give him more time to run away from Ratchet."
Bulkhead only shrugged again, and for a second his expression was one of genuine confusion. "But… Knockout can't run..."
"You know what I meant..." Arcee was interrupted by the chiming of her private commlink frequency.
-Arcee! Arcee. I have a bit of a situation… -
-Knockout?- Arcee's fuel tank dropped with dread, when she heard the urgent tone of his voice over the comm. -Where are you?-
-The far end of the main road. I need some help. Bots are screaming angry. Somebot's got a gun. Another one has a metal bar…-
Knockout cut the comm, before Arcee could even question what it was he was doing down the road from the base to begin with. She remembered that his weapons had never been reactivated again, after Ratchet had been forced to deactivate them at the beginning of his medical crisis. Of course even were he still armed, Arcee knew it would do him little if any good at all in his current condition. She turned her attention back to Bulkhead.
"Bulk'. With me. I'll comm Ratchet on the way out. He can take over the monitoring station. And call 'Bee to come with us too."
The Autobot base had once sat alone in the midst of crumbling buildings in various states of ruin. With the rapid and endless work at restoration, it now sat instead, at the edge of a small commercial district. A newly constructed and smooth little street made it's way right past the main doors of the base. And from there, it was only a very short dash up the road, to and ever growing row of little shops of every kind, each determined to meet the needs and even the wants of a steadily growing returning population.
Generally, the little shopping strip was calm and quiet in daylight. Filled only with the noise of conversation, a burst of laughter here and there, the sounds of engines and bots yelling out word of new goods available. But that day as Arcee rolled up to the end of the road in her vehicle form, with Bumblebee and Bulkhead right behind her, the scene that greeted her was anything but one filled with calm and laughter.
"Frag the whole lot of you!" A large and intimidating bot in a dark green paintjob bellowed, over the many hushed conversations of refugees, probably discussing what to do or what to make of the situation. The Green brute waved around his integrated blaster, but thankfully showed no immediate threat of firing it. He waved his unarmed hand in the direction of a much smaller red and gold colored bot, with chipped paint and a nervous look in his optics. "You got a lotta nerve, tossin' me out. I didn't do nothin' wrong!" A small femme youngling, green just like him, and wide optic-ed with fright, tugged at his arm until he shoved her behind him with a snarl of anger, and a raugh smack against her shoulder panel..
"Hassling my costumers is hardly nothing," countered a smaller red and gold bot, who was obviously the proprietor of the little shop behind him.
"Hasslin' customers!" The green bot growled. His blaster waved though the air a bit, making the gathered crowd gasp with anxiety. "Please. I hardly think tossin' out trouble a useless shopkeeper is too dense toss himself is hasslin' anyone."
"No activated weapons in the street," Bumblebee shouted over the arguement. He stepped with confidence into the crowd and made right for the angry green bot. "Section five under the civilian legal code. Put it away."
Knockout had been at some point forced out toward the center of the street. And he now sat on the cart with a look on his face-plate clearly somewhere between helplessness, and burning anger.
"Ha, good. The Autobot army showed up to break this up," some other bot, a slightly smaller bright blue one, with his hands tightly clutching a heavy metal bar, shouted in a tone of mocking. He stood on the road, staring Knockout in the optics and brandishing the bar, with threat is his optics. "They'll get rid of this piece of slag for sure."
"You've got a lot of nerve!" A teal and white painted civilian hollered from the roadside. He pointed a finger in the direction of the bot with the bar. "Shoving a poor disabled bot into the roadway! You got rust in your processor? What's the matter with you?"
"He can shop here," the proprietor said over the growing uproar. "He wasn't hurting anything."
"He's Decepticon scum," the green brute hollered. Thankfully he had complied with the order to put away his blaster. But now he advanced toward the shopkeeper with two clenched fists held in front of him. His youngling tugged again at his arm.
"Creator please," she begged helplessly, with optics even wider. "Let's just go."
To the horrified shock of at least half of the gathered crowd, he shoved the youngling away from him hard enough that she lost her footing and fell onto the edge of the street. Her metal clanged against the road with the force of her fall. One lone civilian rushed forward to snatch her up and drag her backward into the crowd with an audible cry of his own anger.
"That's an Autobot," called another murmuring voice in the crowd. "Not a 'con at all. Can't you see his faction symbol?" Others began to mutter with their own agreement.
"Autobot symbol or not," growled the bar wielder, as he swung his makeshift weapon around again, "still looks exactly like a 'con to me. Anyone can wear a faction symbol. It don't mean nothing..."
"My Creators were Autobots," the big green bot yelled, continuing with on with his threatening tirade, and still brandishing his fists. "Fought the good fight in the war for this planet and both of 'em died, at the hands of scrap like him. If they'd had their way and I'd had mine, every slaggin' 'con would be lyin' in bits and resemblin' a scrapyard! If I'd had it my way every one of ''em would be tried for crimes against Cybertron. "If I'd had it my way..."
"If you have many opinions, then why weren't you an Autobot?" a voice yelled from somewhere in the crowd, and near the door of the little shop. "Scrap the 'cons for this, and try 'em for that, but I don't see any sign of you having joined in the fight you claim to believe in!"
"I have a youngling to care for," the green brute objected loudly and with another growl. He raised his voice back to a full on yell and hollered, "now here I finally managed to bring her home to the world she shoulda' been born on, and I can't even take her into a shop without running into some Decepticon!"
"He's an Autobot," another voice yelled, from a place near the first one that had spoken that obvious fact.
"You have a youngling to care for?" someone else screamed out at the green brute in the same second. "Maybe so, if by care for you mean abuse and treat like scrap. We all saw you push her to the ground like she's some piece of junk!"
"I'm a simple business owner," the red and gold proprietor yelled from in front of his doorway. He waved his arms madly around, in the air in front of and above him. "I can hardly sell goods to one side, either side, and not to the other. That would mean I've chosen a side. I don't care who fought the war and I don't care who won. I simply want to run a business without bots screaming and yelling inside my shop!"
"Knock it off. Everybody knock it off at once and disperse," Arcee cried as she pushed her way gently and yet forcefully through the small crowd gathered in and near the street, with Bulkhead right behind her. Inside her chest-plate, her spark pulsed with a decent mix of frustrated anger, and determination. She held a hand up in front of her, while the other gently but forcefully pushed bots to the side, as she walked forward.
A loud clang of metal against metal rang out over the noise of bots yelling at each other. A second later another clang followed. Knockout had been hit twice in the front of his chest-plate, by the bot that held the heavy bar. He sat on the cart, stunned, angry, and gasping hard for an intake of air.
"Ha! Got him!" The bright blue bot laughed as though it was some game, and waved the bar in the air, clearly meaning to hit him again. Not a second later he did so, to the gasps of shock from a mostly appalled crowd and a cheering growl from his rowdy dark green pal.
Any bots that still stood in front of Arcee and Bulkhead moved aside at once at that point, so clearly understanding their urgent intention of aiding a disabled bot now in clear danger.
"Fragging tin head!" Knockout yelled, his own voice sounding over the murmurs of the crowd. "Leave me alone. Please." His tone was one of anger, frustration at the ignorance of the bot that was still so clearly intent on beating on him. But behind that emotion that was fast building into rage, was a clear and obvious tone of fright, pain, and dread over further harm he was all but helpless to prevent.
He rolled himself forward a short distance on the cart, clearly only trying to escape the trouble maker. His right arm was expended outward, palm up to show that he wanted no trouble. He had traveled only a short distance, moving toward Arcee and bulkhead, when he was hit again, much harder this him, and from the side as he turned the machine. The red bot's frame rocked to the left violently and he bumped against the support frame, as one side of the safely harness was jerked loose and came unclipped from the buckle below the tray. He steadied himself as well as he could with his stronger right hand, which quickly started to shake from the effort of doing so.
Bulkhead shoved his way forward then, grabbing the cart, to steady it from the front as it rocked to the side from a final blow against the bot's frame by the heavy bar. In the next second he had let ago again, and turned to leap right at the offending blue bot, knocking him to the ground as the bar flew from his hand. Bots and weapon landed with a few thumps and clangs and Knockout sat, mostly steady, struggling and gasping again for an intake or air.
"I'm good. I'm good," Knockout gasped at Arcee when she approached fast and stood leaning close against the cart's frame, to his right side. Arcee looked from him to the crowd and back again, to see the group mostly dispersing no, and mostly shocked and disgusted. A few stood nearly, all of them bots who had clearly been against the actions of the troublesome pair. Further away a few more, had managed to shove the large green brute to the ground and hold him, while Bulkhead steered the blue fellow out of sight with a scowl of warning across his face.
"Ratchet will want to look you over when we get back to base," Arcee said to her soon to be mate, as she carefully helped him to sit himself up straight. She could the shaking of his body and even hear the slight rattle of his armor that it caused, and understood just how much he was struggling both physically and emotionally.
"Let me help, let me help," Bumblebee urged, with a steady hand on Arcee's shoulder as soon as he was able to run over to them. He quickly found the safety harness thankfully undamaged, and was able to refasten and tighten it, while Arcee helped Knockout hold himself as closet to sitting as he could.
"You think you can drive this?" he asked the red bot after he had stepped backward with Arcee. Knockout greatly disliked to be pushed on his cart. But it was possible if needed, to override it's motor with a click of a switch under a front wheel, to allow anyone to push it from behind.
"I'm fine," the red bot said at once, just as anyone might have expected, refusing to be pushed. As soon as Arcee had carefully lifted his left hand to place it near the hand control, he tapped his foot against the power pedal and rolled forward in the direction of the base.
"You okay?" Arcee asked him, after Bumblebee had raced on ahead in his vehicle mode. She reached out to put a hand on Knockout's shoulder panel as he rolled ahead and she walked slowly beside him, matching the speed of his cart. He turned his head a little, to look at her and kept on moving.
"It's just a few dents," he said. The anger he had showed in the street, the humiliation, and the helplessness all disappeared completely from his optics and instead he only smiled at her in assurance. "Surface damage really. Of course that bot knocked the wind out of me, but..."
Arcee wanted to say far more. She wanted to question him and make him talk about feelings she knew he surely had about the whole incident. But his expression alone told her to give it a bit, to let him speak to her when he wanted to. The look in his optics was one that told her he surely would sooner than later, if only she let it rest for the moment and let him simply think over his own thoughts about it all first.
She had led him off the main road as soon as she could, ducking between a couple of close together shops, with him following, just barely fitting though on the cart. The narrow pathway behind the shopping strip was empty, quiet and the pair traveled together side by side with Knockout rolling on the narrow walkway, and Arcee content to tromp along next to him, over the uneven, bumpy, unworked ground beside the path.
"What were you doing out there at the far end the road, anyway?" she questioned, curious.
"I wanted to buy energon sweets," Knockout replied. He gave her a silly and almost embarrassed look, and kept on rolling forward. He turned the cart to follow a bend in the path. "I heard Smokescreen telling Bulkhead this morning about that little shop, and that the little old bot that runs the place, is running a decent little business, selling all manner of homemade old fashioned energon sweets. He apparently has almost anything a bot could imagine. That reminded me of your story of digging through the candy bowl for two specific favorite flavors. I thought perhaps he'd have some. It was all good and well too, until that big green lug-nut head, walked in and decided it was a good idea to demand the shopkeeper throw me out for no clear reason."
"We need to make a point of taking walks more often," Arcee said smiling. For a second she considered what she had said, wondering if that might have been a wrong way to say it, but realizing there was no other way to make her point without it sounding ridiculous or just awkwardly silly. The grin he flashed her way though told her he knew what she meant. "We'll go back sometime and buy sweets, now that we know there's a place to get them"
"This is close to my top speed," Knockout said after a moment. His expression turned serious. "This contraction could go a wee bit faster on a perfect and smooth walkway. But I'd still be moving slow."
Arcee only smiled at him again. "This world moves so fast, with everyone just racing around everywhere. We miss so much and never even think about it… You sure you're still okay with driving that yourself? I don't mind pushing you if you feel too unwell."
"I'm pretty sure I look worse than I feel. I can still take a bit of a pounding a be just as fine as any bot might be."
"Sadly I know I'm just as guilty as others of fearing it would take so little to cause you catastrophic damage…. of forgetting that I know very well it won't."
"I think it's in our nature to think that way." Knockout smiled with understanding, and nodded a little as he considered. "You really aren't bothered by going so slow, so that you can walk with me?"
Arcee gave a little laugh and then considered seriously for a moment, as they both kept on moving. "I think it truly bothers you, more than it does me..."
She stopped him and the cart, with a motion of her hand, so that she could kneel in front of it for a moment on the walkway. She looked over the bottom of the cart, considering its design for a second, before she stood up again.
"I'm the furthest thing from an engineer, or a mechanic," she said as he rolled forward again with her walking beside him. "But I wonder if its really possible to make it go faster outdoors. Let's talk to Speedbreaker next time we see her hanging around the base. She built your machine. If anyone has any idea how to upgrade it.."
"Ha," Knockout gave a loud laugh and grinned, shaking his head in amusement. "An image so quickly comes to mind of Ratchet trying very hard to kick her tailpipe for that."
"I'm not so sure," Arcee answered back. "I think he might just be okay with it. Ratchet is as interested as we are to see just how far you can go, how much you can do. He wants you to really have a quality of life just like anyone else. And if a faster cart would contribute to that… Speaking of Ratchet… before you comm'd for assistance, I was looking for you, because he asked me to. "
"Hmm," the red bot mused. Arcee could see right though his look of feigned innocent cluelessness in under a second flat. "I wonder what he could possibly have wanted? Rehabilitation work is usually later in the..."
"You've been dodging scans and a check up!" Arcee shoved playfully against his stronger and functional right side, as she scolded him and they went on moving forward along the path. The base came into view around another slight bend and they made for the security locked side door.
"I can't get much past you as it is now," Knockout protested. He stopped the cart and sat still near the door, while she entered a pass code into the keypad next to the door. He watched her smiling. "I'll never stand a chance against you once you're finally my bondmate after tonight."
"Nope." She grinned back, and gave him and the cart a playful shove through the door. "Now, decision time. Are you going to roll on into the medbay like a big bot, or am I going to drag you?"
The red bot raised his good hand up into the air in a gesture of mock surrender, and rolled forward with a mumbled, "I'm going, I'm going."