Ep 2 - This Is Short and It Will Pass (Doc Knock)

[Deleted]

Week One, Day Six

Roulette hated the medbay for what it stood for. She didn't hate the medbay as a whole, though. And that was an important distinction to remember. Especially when she stood outside the doors and toyed with the notion of just leaving. A medbay would always mean pain to those who didn't work in there. Such as the lab would always evoke negative feelings for those who didn't work in said lab. So, while she knew how useful the part of the ship was...she still hated it.

She hadn't exactly dragged her feet from the bridge to the medical wing, but she hadn't exactly marched straight there either. Time was ticking away for her and soon Shockwave would come sniffing around for his proxy but she couldn't seem to make herself go at a faster pace. She didn't want to go through those doors and relieve the same events over again. Better to just bury and forget the memories and let sleeping dogs lie than to relive that again. She was thoroughly done with the day before. But, if Knockout didn't excise the demons, so to speak, then Shockwave would go digging. It was the scientist's nature.

"I need a vacation," she muttered in the quiet hallway before stepping close enough to the doors to activate them. They opened to a relatively quiet room and, before she changed her mind, Roulette stepped through the threshold and mentally girded her loins. What the slag did that even mean, anyway?

[Feldspar]

Right before the doors activated, a laconic voice drawled out from the speaker-pad next to Roulette's elbow.

"It means," it replied, with an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh, "that I'm never going to get one myself. So how can I help you today- oh, well, never mind, just let yourself in, that works too."

Knock Out was leaning up against one of the medical berths, scrubbing a rag between his fingers. The doctor had one leg crossed over the other, sloped and easy. Scattered around him were bits and pieces of things, but they were neat and cleaned up as if he'd been on an organizing spree lately.

All medical bays tended to smell the same. There was always that slight tinge of injury, no matter how much astringent cleaner was used to scrub everything down. Sometimes it might have been that the two scents were so constant that you smelled one and immediately thought of the other. Decepticon medbay reflected that Knock Out was a neat freak about his own spaces; everything was just so and clean.

Mostly because he loathed putting his hand down in a random puddle of something. One thing to be working- he didn't shy away from the worst gore. Another thing to have to clean yourself up all over again.

His glossy plating was burnished to a high shine. Under the pale, bright lights of the medical bay, the mech stood out for two reasons. The first was that gleaming red against the dull greys. Second in that his own vehicular mode was apparent. No planes here, no flight. Knock Out proudly sported the curve of wheelwell, the headlights that were embedded on his chest. He liked being a car thank you very much. Loved it. No plane could compare (at least to him) all drab and sharp angles.

"Well, hello again, Roulette," he chuckled. He finished wiping his fingers off and easily tossed the oily rag into a nearby bin. He didn't bother to move from his comfortable place just yet as the femme crossed his threshold. "Back again, so quickly? You know, the way you've been in and out of my medical bay recently, I'm starting to think it's because you wanted to spend time with me."

A wink. "I've been told I'm excellent at buffing."

[Deleted]

"Sweetheart, if I had to wait for you to look away from yourself in order to answer a door, I'd be waiting all day." She gave Knockout her most charming grin possible and shifted her stance. One hand rested on her hip, the other dangled uselessly by her side while she strove to appear aloof and relaxed. She was, however, very amused by the doc. The few times she's talked to him before, they'd generally operated (pun) on the same wavelength. It was hard to find someone who shared her sense of humor.

"Careful," she chuckled despite herself. "You don't want to start rumors. Everyone will start to think we have a thing." Not that Knockout wasn't attractive. He was just...completely not her type at all. For one, he was incredibly forward. And while she found ease in flirting and throwing out teasing, little barbs she also found the thought of hooking up with him a bit like hooking up with a version of herself. And that was weird. Besides, he was a doc and Con medics were known to be off.

"I was hoping you could give me a once over to make sure everything is working right." She gently knocked her fist against her helm. "I've had some...trouble lately."

[Feldspar]

"Good things come to those who wait," he quipped and threw her an exaggerated, lavicious grin. His browplates lifted, accentuating the cocky, self-sure note in his voice, but there was an undertone that snuck through.

He was teasing.

Not that Roulette wasn't a cute little femme. No doubt certainly worth a quick fender-bender in the medic's mind.

However, if Knock Out was ever asked, he'd absolutely admit to the fact that it was flirting stage he enjoyed even more than the getting. It amused him more than anything all the reactions he got back, being an equal opportunity sort. He was the first to admit he wasn't a good gambler. Never hurt to double your odds.

Also, once you got past the wild ride, there more often than not showed up this thing called commitment. At this moment the only thing he was committed to was his buffer. It never asked the tough questions like 'do you think I'm pretty' or 'I think we need to talk about where this is going.'

"Ah, I already have rumors. A few more simply enhance my reputation," he chortled, swaggering towards Roulette with an utterly exaggerated cat-like prowl.

"Nice of you to mention that I am totally worth looking at, though," he said, preening a bit of invisible dust off his chest. "I appreciate a fellow automobile aficionado--"

Then he stopped in mid-sentence and frowned. "What, has everyone had head trauma lately?" he said, and motioned Roulette to take a seat up on the bench. "Is this left-over from your run in with MECH? Or something else entirely? Because if there's an issue, I need to know sooner than later, thank you."

[Deleted]

Roulette didn't feel hers was as extensive as Megatron's but she wasn't about to voice that opinion. As far as she knew she was fine. But she could be dreaming all this up and be a vegetable out in the middle of the desert. Which would sort of be her luck.

She lost the battle with hunching over, arms crossed across her middle in a purely defensive gesture. But she moved over to sit on the offered spot before Knockout got impatient. She had a feeling he was already going to be torqued at her having taken her sweet time getting to the medbay in the first place. How was she to know that the medic would have gotten herself MECH'D?

"No, the damage from Mech has healed. This is new. Just my luck, right?" Fidgeting, she slipped her hands under her thighs and wiggled her fingers on the bench. "I was out in the field on a menial task and something happened. I found this device and..." Here she failed at words to describe what happened. She was brain jacked? That sounded weird.

[Feldspar]

The medic turned and followed after her. Surprisingly, he didn't even make a comment about the view. Instead, he simply watched her crunch around herself defensively and gave her a bit of space to compose herself as she settled down onto the metal.

Underneath her, the slab was cool and clean. A faint haze of scratches marred the surface, a record of the souls that had passed through this medbay. The medic moved around her to turn on one of the swing lamps that were built into the wall, he moved it near her with a touch of a finger but didn't shine it into her optics.

"Unfortunately, you seem to be having quite a bit of it lately," he told her. "What is it about your brain module, you'd think with everything else that's the last thing anyone would care about."

He inclined his head and chuckled before he motioned to Roulette's wiggling fingers. "How is the hand doing? Inquiring minds want to know. Actually, just mine, it enjoys a good gossip session straight from the source - but that's neither here nor there, right?"

Knock Out observed her for a second, but didn't touch her just yet. He merely settled his hand on his hip and leaned a bit to one side before he continued.

"So I'm to understand you were out in the field on a task and- something happened? Based off of all of the things that happen around here I am assuming you didn't fall down and twist an ankle or something small and easily repairable."

A long-suffering sigh. "Because that would be easy. Nothing's ever easy with my job lately."

"Now. Do tell, please? All of it, so I know exactly what I'm trying to fix."

[Deleted]

"My hands are up to their usual devilry." She managed a small, twitchy grin. She wasn't nervous about getting an exam. If it was Shockwave, she would have been terrified. Mostly because there were no limits with the damnable mech. He didn't understand boundaries or even perceive that invasive surgeries really weren't that necessary just because he had a burning need to know. Knockout wasn't as obsessed. Thankfully.

But she also didn't want to go over everything all over again. She thought about just giving him the file to read, the one she'd sent to Soundwave. But it was a fairly long, detailed thing and she had an inkling that the doc wasn't one to read over a dry report when he could just go by word of mouth. Such was her luck.

"I think it was a sensor of some kind. I don't know who put it there. But it activated when I got close to it. When it did, something happened to me. I..." and here she paused again, trying to figure out how to word what exactly had happened. When she wasn't even all that sure! "...I know I got knocked out. But when I woke up, I wasn't in my body. I was in some other mech's body and I was on...Cybertron...don't say I'm crazy." She pointed at him preemptively, expecting the worst.

[Feldspar]

Knock Out eyed her, his red optics shining. "I think there are very few out there lately who haven't heard about your rather magical fingers, Roulette," he offered, figuring a lot of indignant response would take her mind off of the fact that she was sitting on his repair bench.

The medic strode past and went to pick up a small handheld scanner, thumbing it on. The screen gleamed, shimmering a hot blue before it thrummed back down into standard power levels.

He'd learned over the years. Keep them talking. Not only did he enjoy it, but he'd come to the sorrrowful conclusion that for every solid practical mech who came in injured and had him fix the things, there were fifteen who had some previous trauma with medics and proceeded to thrash vindictively around in his general direction. There were many times he'd thought about another line of work in the Decepticon army.

Maybe even a Sharkticon trainer. That could be done at a fair distance. With a long electric prod when they misbehaved. If only fixing Lord Megatron's crew was as easy as tossing a couple of energon sticks down as a placating gesture.

At her explanation, he paused, and he frowned. "It does sound crazy," he informed her. He crossed his arms and looked down at her, tapping his scanner against his elbow with a soft tick-tick-tick. "Then again..."

"With what happened with MECH and Lord Megatron, I am not about to dismiss anything at the moment, especially when it involves strange things in the middle of nowhere and causing mental pathways to route incorrectly. Are you sure you just weren't knocked unconcious by it and something from your past triggered a memory glitch, or a perspective loop?"

He eyed her. "Wait, some other mech's body?"

"Was he good looking, at least?" he asked, totally deadpan, right before he began to pass the scanner over her shoulder.

[Deleted]

"Doc...you need to fix your priorities." Still, the banter was coaxing a smirk to her painted mouth. Roulette wasn't as tense as she could have been. She'd rather have been on the repair bench than in the lab with Shockwave. There was no telling what he'd do to her if he got a chance. Which was why she had to head that off before he could insist. If she presented a logical reason for him not to dig around in her, than he'd have to abide by it.

"I never got a good glimpse of who or what I was in. It was a flyer though. I know that. And it felt like...I don't know. I don't think it was just an empty frame. Maybe I'm just crazy after all. But I don't think this was a memory loop or even a misfire. There was too much there. I was in the science academy on Cybertron. I'm sure of it." But the conviction she felt in her words wasn't exactly iron clad inside. Was she sure? She wasn't really sure of anything. But it had felt real. Real enough to send her running.

[Feldspar]

Knock Out raised his brow, even as his smile curled across his mouth. "Ah, but see, my priorities don't need fixing," he replied, as he passed the scanner over her shoulder. The tiny device whirred and chirped; the screen flickering green as it flashed data back at him. "I'm asking the good sort of questions here, because if I have some out of body experience, it better be a pretty beautiful body if I have to give mine up. Positively fantastic actually. Preferably with some high gloss color changing paint, the nicest that there is to offer out there."

A roll of his shoulder. He pursed his lips slightly and eyed her, listening to the rest of what she had to say. His red optics were focused on that device in his hand. At this point in time he really didn't want to hook her up to more intrusive scans than this- if it was a mere skip in her memory, so be it, easy enough. She did have a bit of a reputation as a drinker. Oh the things you learned just wandering by at the right times and those oh so wonderful Vehicon rumors. He would have paid money to see Commander Shockwave's face as he collected Roulette from her stint at the neutral base.

Then again it would have simply not been as fun; something about that rather emotion-less one eye ruined the moment. What was it the humans said? C'est la Vie? Or was it Bon voyage? He liked them both.

"Hmm, all right, you were in a flier? Were you one at one time before this? Couldn't be your brain coming up with a body it remembered in shut-down? I suppose," he murmured, bringing his free hand to rub at his chin. "That could be a possibility, a sort of - ah, sensory sidestep. Wait, the Academy?"

"Now forgive me if I'm wrong but is it possible that you've have had mention of that place in your dealings with Commander Shockwave?"

For once, his voice was restrained, even a bit careful. Most of his teasing had seeped entirely away as glanced at the reader and frowned.

"Exactly what were you doing there? While you were in-- ah, the other body?"

[Deleted]

"I...I don't know, doc. It didn't feel like a fabricated memory. Felt pretty damned real. And would a memory give me a cryptic message to another mech?" Thinking about the what ifs were painful and she hated every second of it. She didn't want to think about this shit. That was the doc's job. Maybe she should just have handed over the report from the start and hid herself until he'd read over it.

"I have a detailed report. Should have given you that first. I'm just...I'm not thinking straight right now and I'm..." She crossed her legs at the ankles and hunched her shoulders. It rankled her to admit she was bothered. Not because her pride was that grand. But because showing a weakness was against everything that had been shoved into her as a Decepticon. "...I don't want Shockwave to do anything to me. If he finds out, he'll start digging."

[Feldspar]

Roulette's admission was met by a surprisingly serious look from the medic. His easy-going, flirty demeanor slipped from him like rainwater off his highly polished surface.

They all knew Roulette was well, Shockwave's. Not like that, ugh, the very thought was completely laughable. Personally, he doubted that the mech ever had any interest in anything that wasn't science...

Now, yes, I would usually be the first to point out that sometimes a good roll in the berth is perfectly acceptable for working a lot of the kinks out, heh...

Of course, he probably would never say that to most of those who he thought most needed it; doctor's orders only went so far. There was certainly absolutely no way he would say it to Shockwave, not even flippantly. He liked not ending up being an experiment.

There was a quiet hum in the back of his throat, and then he lifted his hand. "You didn't come to me to relay a report," he assured her. "Also you haven't kicked over a bench or snapped about my lack of skill, something that is absolutely refreshing. You came to me for medical advice and to make sure MECH had nothing to do with it. Which is good, considering what happened to Breakdown."

Knock Out narrowed his optics. "The last thing we need here is someone having something slipped into them. There's a lot of damage they could do on board this ship. We cannot afford that.

"So far I see nothing of the sort, everything seems to be functioning normally with your main core systems. I suppose we can hook you up for a deeper diagnostic to be safe."

A sigh of air escaped the mech. He was still looking down at the scanner. It beeped and pinged and he scrolled through it, red optics locked on the readout.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Memories do odd things when they're unsettled. I think it is perhaps that our processors can't deal with it day in and day out, otherwise we'd find ourselves caught in memory loops constantly. Sometimes though, something that we brushed off earlier just triggers something baseline in full, but I admit- this is different. So no, I do not think you're crazy. Actually I'm not sure what to think, but..."

The glossy red mech lifted the diagnostic tool in his hand. "I have to ask you something," he said finally. His voice lowered, his accent drifting softly between them. He was suddenly so quiet that the hum of the machinery around them was abruptly apparent.

"You do know that you are absolutely ah - rife - with tracking devices, Roulette?"

[Deleted]

"Go ahead. I've probably had every procedure known to science and medicine performed on me already. What's a few more?" She spoke flippantly, but she wasn't sure how far her sarcasm rang from the truth. She knew that Shockwave had done things to her without her consent. The quiet horror of that was old news. She stopped being scandalized and a victim eons ago. But nothing beat that first time of waking up to a mystery weld and wondering just what had been done...

However, just because she was used to the idea, didn't mean she wanted any further invasive studies done her body. She was so far from what her original frame, half the time she wasn't sure if there was a part of that femme left. At least on the inside. Outside, the wrappings were the same.

At the delicate question from Knockout, Roulette paused and slowly, ever so slowly, tilted her head to the side. Tracking devices. She was going to kill Shockwave. As horrified as she was (and that grew slowly and gradually like a mold in a damp environment) she wasn't surprised. She'd suspected but had never bothered to see for herself. The mech was clever as hell when it came to hiding something he didn't want to be found.

"...can you get them out? Or am I to set fire to myself and end this miserable existence?"

[Feldspar]

Roulette's flippant remark was more like the red mech was used to- but in some point of the medic's mind it grated on him. It wasn't her tone, it was simply one of those things he'd heard way too often from too many Decepticons lately.

Breakdown, however, had taken it with an odd sort of stride that he preferred. So be it, they got me, I'll wear this badge of shame given and turn it into something else. A goal, a drive; won't happen again, MECH. Roulette took it as a matter of fact, just what it was, her sarcasm bubbling out of her vocalizer. However, she expected it. Expected to be slapped onto a table on a whim.

One of those things that distanced him from Shockwave by far. Oh not that he hadn't dissected an Autobot or several himself, and not that he was above taking apart someone to see how they ticked, but...

Not someone who he had a professional relationship with, no.

Well, that was one thing. The most obvious thing was that Knock Out himself was absolutely handsome (if he did say so himself, but really, he never had to) and Shockwave was one of the most unattractive things he'd ever laid an optic on.

No thank you, that one-eyed blank stare. Ugh. He had no doubt where all these tracking devices had come from. Goodness, this was redundant. Seriously, what was this for, was this in case she got blown up he could recover every tiny piece?

Roulette's words fell between them.

Knock Out paused and rubbed his chin.

"Well, if you really want to set fire to yourself," he offered, "Be so kind as to wait until you're out of the medical bay. I haven't quite got the fire retardant systems a hundred percent on line yet.

"I'm going to assume you're joking though about that. As for getting them out-- ah, yes, I can."

A light sniff escaped him, a huff through his vents. "Of course I can," he informed her, and eyed her as he reached around her for the first set of diagnostic cables. "In fact I can pull out every single one and put them in a box with a bow on the top."

"That said, I'm going to ask you - are you sure that's wise? I can pretty much assure you those are not related to MECH, or whatever happened to you after you picked up the device. Hmm, you never mentioned what sort of device it was...?"

[Deleted]

If she had shame, she'd find herself embarrassed for staring at Knockout. Not because he was pretty. (Yeah, yeah, everyone knew how attractive he was.) But she'd never really been around that many medics before. Which was either hilarious or horrifying given how old she was. It wasn't like her first employer had a reliable healthcare service to offer. Kaon either had great medics, which was rare, or back alley butchers that would operate on the spot. That last option was too plentiful. It was rather normal to keep ones hand on a blaster while getting patched up.

She'd had a decent run with the academy. First time she'd had a real check up by someone who actually seemed to give a damn. After that, the black curtain that was Shockwave pretty much dominated her medical history. She wasn't being sarcastic to Knockout when she casually mentioned probably having been apart of every invasive procedure invented. She'd been young, intimidated, and hadn't known to keep herself on the defensive around him. She hadn't known the signs. Which was a bit unfair but it wasn't like any part of the war wasn't.

"I want them out so I can throw them into his stupid face." Roulette wasn't going to say what she was suspecting. He'd never find them all. Which was just...gross. But she knew the scientist too well. He was amazing at hiding something if he wanted to. He never even left weld scars unless he actually felt like it. Primus knew, he'd probably fused a tracking device to her freakin spark casing. Now wasn't that a nasty thought?

She shuddered and considered puking right there at the thought of that mech anywhere near her spark. However, she didn't think Knockout would appreciate the gesture.

"It was some sort of...actually, I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure what it was. I'm thinking a proximity sensor activated by movement. I'm just the lucky gal to get it. Though, begs the question of who left them in the first place."