Ep 1 - Gravitational Singularity - Closed
Feb 21, 2013 22:17:18 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2013 22:17:18 GMT -5
<< ooc - set after 'What the Cat Dragged In' >>
Weeks.
A berth. A worktable. A stool. Five steps across either direction of space. Bare floor, bare walls, empty of even the handful of momentos that he still carried, the objects never having migrated from his subspace to the physical space around him, even though three quarters of the contents of his tool and parts pockets had.
Bare and empty, impersonal except for the half assembled bits of weapons. Nothing that said 'home'. Just a place to recharge and work. There were times Ironhide would have killed for a few days, never mind weeks, to hole up in the quiet and do nothing but work on the projects strewn across the table.
The silence was going to drive him glitched.
There was nothing keeping him there, technically. He was confined to base by last recorded order; there was nothing forbidding him the hallway, or the rec room, or any other place within the base proper. There was nothing, technically, binding him to the base at all except cohortmate, sparkling, and whatever lingering trace of reflexive loyalty remained.
The worktable was almost empty, the parts and tools scattered across the floor, those that weren't buried halfway in the wall. The imprinted shape of his fists bent the metal of the tabletop, warping it in craters. A stack of energon receptacles beside the door was empty, only because Jazz had invoked the wrath of Ratchet if Ironhide didn't fuel and recharge as regularly as possible.
"You need to go to Ratchet, 'Hide."
"Ah ain't goin' an' that's final."
"Look, you stubborn slagger-"
"Ah said NO!"
For the most part, they let him be, his cohort looking in on him once or twice a day. And Ironhide... Ironhide was hiding, the space of his quarters shrinking smaller while the base outside grew larger, impossibly large, too much to face or to handle. Hours of flux ridden recharge chased him into more hours spent huddled down into his own struts, trying, by force of sheer exhausted will, to still the tremors and the cascade errors that were ricocheting through his systems.
Weeks. Weeks, and Shadow was still out there, still no word or trace, and the feel of that - worry, grief, the pain of failure - marched in lockstep with the rest of his errors, like a drumbeat through his worn systems. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait, dreading, every passing day and hour. Should haves - he should have gone after her. He should have broken orders. He should have made certain Barricade was dead in the first place.
A million should haves and only one certainty - he hadn't done what he should have, not for Shadow, not for the Prime, and that lack gnawed him, errors in his circuits crunching away like scraplets, hollowing him from the inside out. Jazz had looked in, before leaving for patrol. Blue would be heading out shortly, but Ironhide had growled until the youngling left him alone. There was nothing and no one but his own aching mass and an empty room. Ironhide sat, back to the wall, aft on the floor, and listened to the ragged sound of his own ventilations, timing them around the error flags that trickled in a slow, steady stream across his HUD.
Weeks.
A berth. A worktable. A stool. Five steps across either direction of space. Bare floor, bare walls, empty of even the handful of momentos that he still carried, the objects never having migrated from his subspace to the physical space around him, even though three quarters of the contents of his tool and parts pockets had.
Bare and empty, impersonal except for the half assembled bits of weapons. Nothing that said 'home'. Just a place to recharge and work. There were times Ironhide would have killed for a few days, never mind weeks, to hole up in the quiet and do nothing but work on the projects strewn across the table.
The silence was going to drive him glitched.
There was nothing keeping him there, technically. He was confined to base by last recorded order; there was nothing forbidding him the hallway, or the rec room, or any other place within the base proper. There was nothing, technically, binding him to the base at all except cohortmate, sparkling, and whatever lingering trace of reflexive loyalty remained.
The worktable was almost empty, the parts and tools scattered across the floor, those that weren't buried halfway in the wall. The imprinted shape of his fists bent the metal of the tabletop, warping it in craters. A stack of energon receptacles beside the door was empty, only because Jazz had invoked the wrath of Ratchet if Ironhide didn't fuel and recharge as regularly as possible.
"You need to go to Ratchet, 'Hide."
"Ah ain't goin' an' that's final."
"Look, you stubborn slagger-"
"Ah said NO!"
For the most part, they let him be, his cohort looking in on him once or twice a day. And Ironhide... Ironhide was hiding, the space of his quarters shrinking smaller while the base outside grew larger, impossibly large, too much to face or to handle. Hours of flux ridden recharge chased him into more hours spent huddled down into his own struts, trying, by force of sheer exhausted will, to still the tremors and the cascade errors that were ricocheting through his systems.
Weeks. Weeks, and Shadow was still out there, still no word or trace, and the feel of that - worry, grief, the pain of failure - marched in lockstep with the rest of his errors, like a drumbeat through his worn systems. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait, dreading, every passing day and hour. Should haves - he should have gone after her. He should have broken orders. He should have made certain Barricade was dead in the first place.
A million should haves and only one certainty - he hadn't done what he should have, not for Shadow, not for the Prime, and that lack gnawed him, errors in his circuits crunching away like scraplets, hollowing him from the inside out. Jazz had looked in, before leaving for patrol. Blue would be heading out shortly, but Ironhide had growled until the youngling left him alone. There was nothing and no one but his own aching mass and an empty room. Ironhide sat, back to the wall, aft on the floor, and listened to the ragged sound of his own ventilations, timing them around the error flags that trickled in a slow, steady stream across his HUD.