"Hey uh, Knockout? Is the ship behaving differently to you? Doesn't it sound weird?"
Jetfire was leaned up against an energon dispenser located in an undisclosed breakroom. There were stainless-steel gambling tables galore - some were broken, split in two down the center, presumably by some loser mech who couldn't handle his high-grade, paying his debts, or losing a game or two - some combination of the three.
"Weird? Noises?! " Knockout laughed. "Jetfire, this is a warship! And an ancient model at that! I wouldn't worry too much about any strange sounds around here." Knockout said, with a risqué wink. "Hearing a bang or two around the walls is normal around here."
Jetfire rolled his optics in disgust. "Slaggit, not like that!"
'You dirty mech you.' He crossed his arms, but Jetfire wasn't mad - yet he couldn't help but to hiss in distain, when Decepticon-soldiers began to laugh at Knockout's risqué joke - everyone but Jetfire was thoroughly inebriated with cheap high-grade.
He was surrounded by a rowdy, clanking crowd of fumbling scrapheap idiots.
But Jetfire wasn't the type to drink and so he was left out of the party - high-grade preformed poorly, explosively within his tanks...
Some Decepticons were throwing punches, placing bets as each solider sized one another up.
It was amusing to see, he rarely saw mechs happy.
It reminded him of Vox - the few times he'd chosen to linger there.
'Someone is bound to get hurt...if they keep these silly play-fights up.' Jetfire shrugged his shoulders, not really caring one way or the other if someone got injured - he would patch anyone up regardless of the time, place, or event. Jetfire would just be happy to finally serve his part as a warship's medic.
He had little purpose otherwise.
Bored and unable to join the drunken brigade - he rolled out a cleaning rake and dustpan from a nearby supply closet - cleaning up broken smashed energon cubes, and anything else on the ground he couldn't identify as nothing more than garbage.
Jetfire was happiest when he made himself useful.
He smiled when he saw a few soldiers lingering at the edges of the room, a few nodding their heads in appreciation as he cleared away messes around their exhausted, stationary positions.
The little recreation center was technically an illegal set-up at the beginning of the war, but as the fighting persisted for millennia and millennia past its anticipated due-date, any mech who would've punished the matter atop the ship had simply, eventually, died.
Megatron knew about the operation, the " Secret-Yet-Not-So-Secret-Gambling-Den ," but he allowed it to persist within the warship - as a sort of morale booster for the troops. As long as the soldiers kept energon mines captured and their ration-cubes stacked high, Decepticons could enjoy leisure activity.
Jetfire smiled, his job done.
Finished with his superficial cleaning, he left any remaining sanitization work to the officially assigned janitorial mech or drone.
"You didn't have to do that you know?" Knockout said, his words slurred, his systems on standby before a proper shutdown.
"Do what?"
Knockout shrugged his shoulders, leaning back into his chair, exhausted "Making yourself look useful. You didn't have to do that. You're the only other medic on this ship." Knockout rubbed his helm, obviously suffering a hangover. "No one is going to mess with you, don't you worry about that."
Before Jetfire could respond to whatever nonsense Knockout was spewing, a disturbing epiphany struck him.
'Oh slag, no one is watching the clinic!'
Despite the unsolicited jokes from his new mentor, Jetfire and Knockout had gotten along civilly, as coworkers tended to do, the past few cycles.
But Knockout had yet to show Jetfire so much as to how to weld a superficial wound closed - technically, a simple procedure any dexterous mech could do, without medical training.
Jetfire told himself that patience was a virtue, but he'd been waiting for a proper medical-mentor for so long...
To think he wouldn't get even that after staying with the Decepticons...was a depressing sentiment he didn't dare to linger upon...
He would be patient this time.
If Knockout didn't want to train him right away, that was okay.
He wouldn't be pushy or demanding - like sometimes "Big Brother" Seaspray was.
Or Starscream, on the rare occasion Jetfire actually saw the mech.
He wouldn't be like how Pharma had been to him, so mean and rude - only training him with the simplest of explanations, as if he'd been stupid - a real mechling who couldn't calculate the nuisances required for surgeries.
And so, with so many bad examples of bot behavior bouncing around within his processor - Jetfire didn't blame himself for not knowing - that not being polite - that having no manners - did in fact have consequences...when working with Autobots...
He'd learned that lesson the hardest way with Ratchet.
The most memorable, bitter way it'd happened.
That old, grumpy Autobot Medic...
Was the sensitive, vindictive type.
If that old mech ever sensed an iota of disrespect or impatience from anyone, he'd shutdown a favor he'd promised to someone completely. He remembered the incident still - the one that caused Ratchet to reconsider training him... entirely...
He'd grabbed a cutting blade too swiftly - perhaps his expression had been too eager and uncollected, as he jutted the blade between the chest plates of a training-drone protoform...prepared specifically for a delicate surgery...
He hadn't known that was the plan - he swore.
"We'll wait till you get older before I train you." Ratchet had cruelly told him, as if it'd been nothing but a short time away.
But that would never happen, his elusive growth spurt.
At least back than, that's what he had believed when Ratchet refused to teach him.
And yet, Shockwave had managed to give him an adult-frame.
He hadn't even asked for one.
When he'd told Jetstorm about the bad news about Ratchet - Storm, his brother, had laughed at him, his impossible misfortune, then Storm had rudely thrown a rock at his head, for interrupting his work or something equally dumb. The rock had bounced off his helm, smashing into a course, bitter powder, just like his dreams.
He stared at that rock for a full breem, committing to memory that horrible day.
There in the Autobot guest room, Jetfire had stood shell-shocked for joors, staring at a broken mirror he'd stolen from a common room - his reflection had rippled across the surface like an invisible, melting flame against suffocating white air.
Then and there he'd called himself an idiot over and over - that "he'd never become an official medic," that "his claws could only render and tear - to bleed, to cause pain - not to fix, not to heal."
Never.
He tried so hard to understand...
"Hey, you fraggin' listening to me?!" Knockout angrily smacked a servo against the table, and Jetfire licked his glossa in nervous surprise, before his optics hardened, his claws became twitchy once he realized Knockout had been the one to accidently scare him.
"Yes." He said simply.
Knockout was holding one of his signature ceramic mugs, a ridiculous painted lump of clay not molded too well or expertly into a cup's even, circular shape, but it was clear Knockout still treasured the alien trinket, despite its hideous features - it looked handmade.
Dredging himself up and away from his unhelpful maddening thoughts, Jetfire fixated on the here and now.
He looked down at Knockout, smiling with teeth too sharp and numerous.
Jetfire meant to ask about the story behind Knockout's drinking mugs days ago, but his curiosity about the trivial matter had since evaporated into thin air.
As if it never existed.
Now, he had other priorities to worry over.
'Like who is going to watch the clinic!?' He scratched his helm in frustration, ruining the newly glossed layer of wax Knockout had insisted he would upkeep, after his so called nightmare-of-a-makeover.
That had been his first lesson from Knockout.
A good medic was clean, presentable, and trustworthy.
Not - whatever the hell he'd been - before.
"You overcharged doofus." Jetfire admonished, and Knockout looked bemused - his entire seated front stretched across the table precariously - his servos and arms trembled as if he were about to clang backwards onto the ground.
Knockout was drunk beyond all disbelief - but still he was careful to keep his ceramic mug safe and secure between his arms, keenly aware one wrong move would send it crumbling into shambles if it ever hit the ground.
"How do you expect yourself to perform emergency surgery on this ship with tanks full of high-grade?" Jetfire asked a very valid question, and the logic stirred some sort of professional veneer within Knockout, who rubbed his optics with both his servos, marring the typically hidden waxy polished finish into a ruined mess of caked-yellow residue - thick icing lines streaked down his cheeks and sideburns.
Knockout wasn't crying, but he didn't look flattering either.
"I don't, look kid, y-you scrapheap. I don't expect anything! You're right! I'm not fit for surgery, or even to calculate a prescription! But thankfully I have you now - my medical assistant." Knockout spit the words out venomously, almost mockingly. He continued and Jetfire looked at him with a careful, neutral expression.
"So, if anything comes into the clinic while I'm sloshed, I expect you to take charge of the issue - you're in charge Jetfire - congrats, if a mech dies it's your fault!" Knockout shouted, hiccupping drunkenly once or twice, spilling his words metaphorically like a vomit-purge across the table.
"I'm assigning myself sick leave for the day."
"What!? You can't do that!"
"I can, and I will!" Knockout left no leeway for a debate as he plastered himself to the table's surface.
Jetfire muttered a curse, too low to hear.
"You're in charge. Of the clinic." Knockout repeated, and any rage in his strange, unwarranted proclamation flittered away like solvent down a drain - he collapsed backwards against his chair with a final oomph - asleep in stasis-lock.
Jetfire's audial-receptors swiveled curiously, turning to point upwards like an owl's horns. He'd waited to hear words akin to "you're in charge," for a very long time - for most of his functioning really - he'd gingerly waited, for some recognition...
Quietly, he picked up the ceramic mug, the art piece had almost toppled over from the table due to Knockout's sporadic tantrum.
'And just when I was beginning to take Knockout seriously as my new mentor.' Jetfire tisked, annoyed he hadn't been left in charge of the clinic because of his skills, but because he was the only option the entire warship had!
The responsibility would've been overwhelming, if it wasn't so baffling.
How did the Decepticons expect to fight a war with only one doctor?
Wait.
The Autobots only had one doctor, named Ratchet!?
He shook his head.
'Every glitch on this fraggin' planet Earth is batscrap crazy.' Jetfire mentally included himself in his own insult, but he liked to think he could keep his potential debauchery under control.
After all, he was a professional.
Two vehicons had kindly dragged Knockout back into his room, slapping him atop his recharge berth before dismissing themselves to their respective duties. It left Jetfire alone to evaluate the inside of Knockout's private quarters, finding the space utterly trashed.
'Damn, for a mech who cares so much about appearances, he doesn't keep tidy whatsoever.'
It was a strange contrast, to witness Knockout's hypocrisy so directly. The mech look peaceful as he recharged next to a pile of garbage.
Jetfire kicked his talons through a trash heap taking up an entire section of the room - it annoyed him to see. He could see a berth shining, buried somewhere underneath the mess.
'I could sleep on that unused berth, if Knockout literally got his scrap together.' Jetfire had to admit, sleeping on a smelly berth would've been preferable than sleeping between two smelly-rusty vehicon bodies.
He made a note to address that peculiar issue, in the short time he was left in charge of the clinic.
A trash pile in a corner stacked near the door caught his attention as he stepped out to leave.
His curiosity got the better of him.
Not bothering to bend down to take a closer look, he kept his servos clasped behind his back as one set of talons nosed through the garbage like a scavenging creature. He found countless ceramic mugs, some cracked or better molded than others. And he found that the custom parts and pieces he'd tidied up from the vehicon-parts closet were now just littering the floor.
He tisked, disappointed that all his scrubbing and cleaning of those particular parts had been for naught.
"Shockprods? In here?"
Now that got his attention.
He picked one up, and turned it on.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
It hummed and vibrated normally.
No repairs seemed to be needed, and so Jetfire proceeded to test each one against a hunky piece of junk-metal left on the ground.
Odd.
All of them appeared to be working correctly.
'Why are so many shockprods just stacked up here?' He thought. 'Shouldn't they be in the armory?'
Not really caring about the reason why, Jetfire took every shockprod he could find and subspaced each into his chest.
His weapons now.
Considering the shear volume of garbage he'd found the prods under, it was unlikely Knockout would notice his pilfering anytime soon.
'And if he asks for them back...' Well, that was Knockout's problem.
It was crazy what a little cleaning solvent did to wash away rusted-nasty, days old bled-out metal, back into an acceptable, pristine condition.
Jetfire made use of the spare wax Knockout had given him - not to clean himself but instead used it for the parts he'd scratched to hell and back.
His briefly acquainted vehicon roommates had tasted delicious - he could credit them that much; but outside of their flesh and sparks, there hadn't been anything remarkable about them or their parts.
It made hiding the evidence of their demises remarkably easy; simply mixing the unassuming parts into the stocks of the vehicon-parts closet had been a job done well enough - not even Jetfire could any longer pick out the squeaky clean remains he'd just placed there a mere half hour ago - everything looked and smelled the same.
All that was left to do was to melt down the unsalvageable scraps into ingots.
He un-subspaced a box full of twisted metal, plating and chassis bits broken into smelt-able shapes that would fit into the small clinic's crucible. The shockprods he'd pilfered from Knockout's room earlier were still seated snugly within his personal subspace - he didn't have anywhere to store the items without discovery, and he didn't trust that the vehicon-recharge slab he'd been given wouldn't be routinely checked for anything suspicious - especially since his roommates would soon be reported missing...ideally, as mechs missing-in-action.
If anyone asked about their whereabouts, he'd say that he'd never knew or met them, which was the truth.
The clinic's forge ignited under his sweltering servos, his palms itchy as he kept them spewing fire longer than normal. He heated the crucible full to the brim with verboten metal, letting his thoughts wander as he watched the wailing-spinning crucible fire...
For a few precious seconds, he genuinely missed the Autobots - at least those mechs had respected him and his brother's privacy - he could've easily hid the shockprods in his room for decacycles...
Briefly, he wondered how his brother was faring without him.
'He's probably happy I'm gone. Now he has that entire gigantic room to himself.'
The metal became liquid, red hot and almost ready to pour. Jetfire just needed to take the dross out, impurities in the metal which would not do in an ingot made by his own servos.
Vehicon metal was surprisingly full of impurities, as he was currently learning. Taking a specialized strainer found hanging at the blacksmith's station for higher temperatures - he skimmed the red hot liquid, removing the slag-ore floating at the top.
The resulting slag-pellets would perhaps, be remelted into lower quality garbage at a later date...but ideally...he'd just throw it away...
"Not bad kid." Jetfire almost dropped the tongs he'd been using to handled the delicate crucible as it poured fussy metal into mailbox-sized ingot molds.
Fortunately, he already knew what went bump in the night - he was guaranteed to be, one of the scariest things upon the ship, so he hadn't panicked or spilled molten-cybertronian everywhere, when a random voice had so rudely broken the silence behind him.
Jetfire looked over his shoulder, unimpressed, almost believing he'd imagined the voice - before a shadow moved - Soundwave, cloaked in the room's darkness, stepped up close, becoming illuminated by the roaring orange forge.
'It's him, dear ol' kidnapper. How annoying.'
Ignoring Soundwave at the moment, Jetfire kicked the poured ingots molds over with his feet-talons - which had significantly cooled after mere seconds out of the crucible's embrace - out each mold toppled over a respective, perfectly formed ingot.
'Now what to make these into.' He mused, tempted to work with the still-intensely hot metal, if Soundwave hadn't been there, behind his neck...
"Jetfire: I didn't expect - a beast - a makeover - of all things." It took him a click or so to realize that Soundwave was trying to have a conversation with him, by mimicking Knockout's voice - the sentence paused midspeech several times, as Soundwave gestured towards the predacon, curled up and sedated, chained to its miserable corner for the foreseeable future.
"Oh yah, me and Knockout gave it a makeover." He shrugged his shoulders. "His words, not mine." He paused in his work, looking over with a serious expression. "Why are you here anyway? It's the middle of a recharge cycle."
Soundwave cocked his visor to acknowledge Jetfire's words, before speaking a sentence of his own, in his own voice. "Laserbeak requires an additional checkup."
'Now that's a surprise. My first patient...'
Doing his best to come across as a professional, he began to reorganize the clutter of his blacksmithing station, ensuring everything was safe to leave unattended as he switched to play the part of a proper doctor.
"Is laserbeak with you?" he asked, his eyes uncertain as he scanned the room and didn't see a minicon anywhere.
Ccccrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr. As if on cue, Soundwave's chest clicked open with a guttural squeal.
'Geez, you ought to wax and oil whatever is squelching in there, Soundwave.' He thought.
Before Jetfire could say anything about the matter of Soundwave's potentially rusty chassis, Soundwave gingerly placed a compact cassette tape onto the clinic's examination berth.
It took Jetfire an embarrassing long minute to realize he'd been looking at Laserbeak the entire time.
"What happened?" he asked, unable to do much without any context.
Soundwave visibly shrunk into himself, his plating became flat against his person, and his EM field freely began to expel worry and mortification. "Laserbeak, she...experienced a highly explosive electrical discharge some cycles ago...due to...it was my... my..." Soundwave shook his head, preventing himself from explaining further, much to Jetfire's chagrin.
"Knockout says she is recovering in her stasis-locked state - and I inject her every start-cycle breem with fresh nanobots as instructed - but she needs an updated scan of her internal-systems - to ensure her path to recovery is smooth."
Jetfire nodded his head in agreement, having listened to every word. He'd taken out a datapad from the clinic's main desk, to look up the relevant information, surprised to find Knockout had managed to look over the patient just a few cycles before, without him.
That fact irked him greatly for some reason.
Perhaps it happened because it was a doctor's visit outside of the clinic?
Or perhaps the visit had occurred when he'd been out of the room; perhaps when vehicons escorted him out to go get served his energon-ration while under supervision?
The mystery would continue to bother and to elude him for sometime, but it was ultimately useless-mundane-trivial information, enough for him to forget the matter entirely, eventually.
"I see." He said simply, scanning the treatment protocols within the datapad and Laserbeak's assigned patient chart. The checkup consisted of running the same full-body scan done a few times already, cycles before.
He inputted his credentials within the clinic's computer, watching in relief as the correct sequences processed across the screen, and green scan-lights began to delicately comb over Laserbeak's ridiculously tiny body.
"I can confidently say, Laserbeak is on the path to recovery."
Nothing looked too horribly mangled, compared to mechs he'd handled before.
He tapped a command into the computer, willing a holographic-projection of Laserbeak's internals to flash onto a holographic screen in front of Soundwave, who held up a pointed finger to read the new information given.
"Her T-cog suffered when her systems performed an emergency shut down and transformation sequence. Falling to the ground as a cassette at that height and velocity is likely what saved her life and future flight capabilities. But her T-cog will need to be replaced. And due to the unique size and specifications a minicon demands, it will be custom-made."
"Jetfire: Will create the part? Perform the surgery?" Either Soundwave was gauging for his reaction, or was just that desperate for his friend to be fixed as soon as possible - either or, or both...
'I'll have to consult with Knockout first...but...' Then he paused in his thinking.
Why did he need Knockout's permission?
That drunken-shambles in recharge?
He saw no reason to deny Soundwave's demands.
'Finally, some recognition on this ship.' He thought, daring to smile at Soundwave, with teeth much too sharp.