Ep 0.5 - Helpful Cat is Helpful - Open

Steeljaw took the data pad carefully, sitting back on his haunches to grasp it between both forepaws with some barely-there hint of magnetic clamp to ensure that he didn't drop it. He couldn't, of course, carry it like that - waddling about in tiny mincing steps on his hindquarters was not something his joints or gyroscopes were equipped for and looked beyond ridiculous besides. It let him transfer the pad from Ratchet's grasp, however, and then, once the medic had briskly turned away, Steeljaw set the pad on the ground, rolled one shoulder down and over it, and let the slim tendrils of his sensors grasp the edges of the pad so that when he stood back up it came with him, now balanced and held securely against the back of his neck.

Inventory, in a normal mech sized area, amounted to a lot of stretching, legwork, and climbing on top of things for Steeljaw. He made certain, several sensors tuned to the medic, that Ratchet never caught him at the more undignified climbing and leaping moments, and kept his steps as light as he could - when the medic did, occasionally, turn to look, it was always to find Steeljaw serenely perched on a countertop, data pad beside him, cataloging the contents of a drawer or container, with no hint as to how he had gotten there or gotten the container open in the first place.

(He had, the first time, opened one of the locked cabinets and started cataloging it before it had occurred to him that it was a singularly stupid thing to do. Venting in exasperation at himself, he had relocked the cabinet and then brightly turned to politely ask Ratchet to unlock it the right way, please and thank you.)

Other than that, Steeljaw never asked. He had enough rudimentary first aid knowledge to identify common things, and when it came to items he couldn't identify he pinged the base mainframe and combed through medical texts rather than interrupt Ratchet and ask him. The result, two breems later, was a period of whisper quiet uninterrupted work for the Autobot medic until the data pad miraculously reappeared at his elbow as Steeljaw stretched far enough up on his hindpaws to push the pad onto the medic's work table.

"Here you are," he announced, and that close to the medic he waved a polite and attentive pulse against the mech's field. "Anything else I can help with?" He caught his forepaws lightly against the edge of the table, steadying himself enough to rest his chin against it. "There's dust filtering in from the circulation vent on the ceiling, by the way. If you have a spare filter, I'd be happy to fit it up there for you. The last thing we need in here is contaminants."

Autobots, Steeljaw had decided, were just strange. Possibly universally DENSE, he wasn't sure. Any Neutral, presented with an offer of assistance, would have immediately asked what the assister wanted in return. Neutrals, by the second or third repetition of the mutual assistance, would have firmly drawn out a contract of the details of the exchange, who was getting what in return for what, and would then proceed to continue upon their mutually agreed upon state.

Autobots, collectively, as a group, did not do this. It was starting to make Steeljaw's processor threads burn for the sheer illogic of it.

He consoled himself that if he was eventually going to have to be so rudely blunt as to just come out and ask the medic then at least he could ingratiate himself into Ratchet's memory files as someone deserving of the favor. It was still a winnable situation, just in much slower and less clearly defined fashion than he was used to. Also, though he hated to admit it, he simply didn't have much of anything else to do, and at least this was useful

Taking the filter carefully with a few slim tool tendrils, he balanced it across the back of his neck the same way he had the data pad, walked to the wall and then, engaging each magna-clamp as he went, walked straight up it to where the vent opened up just beneath the ceiling.

In truth, it would have been a simple enough thing to do with sensor and tool tendrils. Something that would have taken him barely a minute, up and down and done. That, however, was not making his point, so Steeljaw carefully kept tendril use to the bare minimum of necessary tool use to unscrew the old filter. From there it was a somewhat precarious contortion, using magna-clamps to secure the grating between himself and the wall, painstakingly fish the old filter out with his teeth, and then use paw and nose to nudge the new filter into place before boosting the grate back into position. It took him a good bit longer than a single minute and probably looked ridiculously awkward from the ground where Ratchet was watching - in no small part because it WAS awkward, though he balanced that with making it look as smooth as habitual lack-of-grasping-digits workarounds could look.

Finished, the used filter secured between his teeth, he turned around and marched back down the wall to the floor, where he presented the filter to Ratchet. He waited until the medic took it, working a bit with a myriad of faces to get the taste of organic fibers from the filter out of his mouth. "There," he said at last. "Did you need any other help? I'm not doing anything else right now."

Ah well. If that was that then Steeljaw supposed he might find something else to do somewhere on the base. Probably not as honestly interesting as the medic's domain, but something.

He hesitated for a moment, then got up and walked forward, circling Ratchet's legs in a tight loop that let their fields brush even though their plates didn't, projecting honest enjoyment and willingness at the medic. "I'd be happy to, unless they have me doing something else. Comm me any time you need help."

The mech seemed genuinely happy with him and it was tempting... no. Primus, no, and he wouldn't sour the deal by being too hasty. He hadn't done nearly enough to ingratiate himself for what a frame upgrade would take, not even a limited one. Instead of his vocalizer, which he didn't entirely trust not to just blurt the question out, Steeljaw turned to bump the flat of his head lightly against Ratchet's knee.

[ooc - let's leave that to later. ^_^ I can add a bit to finish it here, or Ratchet can reply, whichever.]