Ep1.5 – Let Go – Closed

[Deleted]

“Optimus!”

Someone was shouting.

“Dammit! Bumblebee, get his other arm! Ratchet, I need you to prep medical now; Optimus and Fort Max are both hit. Fort Max can you make it to medical? Max, focus! Can. You. Get. To. Medic –” The sound cut out and every blurred lightsourced flared once, then went dark. There was nothing but static and the maddening jolt of malfunctioning bi-mechanics, jarring again and against inside his chest. There was coolant in his fuel lines, tracts of dirty energon burning through his framework. Everything blinked black and – “Frag! Optimus! Optimus! Bee, Max, stop walking! Rachet? His bio-pulse just stopped. No, just for a second, but Ratchet I need you. Bee and I can’t carry him and Max is–!”

He caught Arcee’s arm. Her optics were blindingly over-bright, smeared with motion drag. She stared, stunned, cut off mid-sentence.

“Command…” he said. He could feel his spark failing, shrinking in his chest, like a star trying to implode, like the inside of his chest was going to collapse in on itself in shreds of razored metal and wire. It hurt. He was denting his lieutenant’s arm – the same way Max’s grip on his arm around the warden’s shoulder was denting his – but he couldn’t let go until he… “You have command.”

“Optimus, stop talking.”

“Arcee.” Ratchet’s voice, cutting through the noise like it always did. He couldn’t see the medic – Arcee’s optics had, somehow, blinded him – but the bolt of pain that followed when Rachet took his other arm and shouldered the Prime’s weight was real enough. “I can’t do this alone. Not both of them I do not have the supplies here or the hands. Do you understand?”

“Dammit. Yes, got it. I’ll get her on the line.” A beat. Then, “Cleaver? This is Arcee. I’m requesting emergency medical aid. Is your base clear?” Another beat. “Absolutely clear? If your base is not clear just say ‘Nevermind then.’ If you’re under any duress –”

“Max?” Optimus voice was staticky, fading. “You can… let go…”

[Deleted]

Fortress Maximus staggered through the ground bridge and into the control room. He did not come quietly.

The night gave way to brightness. To noise and confusion. Shapes flitted around him. Shouting. Someone laid a kind hand on his plating and Maximus snarled, "Get off me."

Another of the dark figures moving beyond the glare of the silo lights gently tugged at the dying Autobot he dragged under his arm. The big mech let out a loud oath and raised the black-stained hand that held his rifle, ready to backfist the bastard away. God damned 'Con vultures. He'd kill them. He would kill all of them!

Except...

Something was wrong.

Things ached. Badly. His big war-built frame felt battered. The fight was over, and receptors shut offline to give him focus now faltered. Pain sang through his neural net. He hurt. He was hurt.

'As if there were any other outcome,' said a voice from the past, through smoke and smouldering ash.

Someone yelled at him to stop. Stunned, Maximus did.

It all came back to him.

He was no longer fighting. This was not a bitter last-ditch stand, with his rifle in hand and the hounds closing in. This was the Autobot base. He was just a beaten mech, carrying his mortally injured commander with him. Aching and defeated, both of them.

Optimus...

Someone took the Prime's other arm. Maximus did not let go. He gripped harder, felt metal dent under his fingers.

More chatter. The light was searing into his optics.

He felt numb. All of it had come back to him. Everything. Not just the pain, but the anger. The humiliation. He had lured out that Vehicon patrol, attacked it. Killed a lot of mechs. Megatron had stepped out of the night and everything had gone wrong. He had pursued revenge and only gotten his friend killed.

Optimus was speaking to him.

Maximus listened.

Iron pride had kept him on his feet. But now it floundered, and a hollow grief roared in. Slowly, Maximus knelt in pain. He crouched down onto one knee, the joint hissing as it spilt pressure and red hydraulic fluid. He placed the knuckles of one fist against the floor and lowered his head like a wounded bull. Let Ratchet ease Optimus away from his shoulder. The weight against his side was abruptly gone.

"Get him to medical," he mumbled. He had no idea what he was saying. "I'll follow him shortly. Give me a moment."

[Deleted]

“Fort Max.”

The ex-warden was so big Arcee didn’t need to kneel down to get on eye-level with him, even with the giant mech kneeling and hunched on the floor. He stank like a fight – ozone, raw fuel and the alkali smell of scorched metal – heat rolling off his frame work in waves laced with fritzed EMF, the internal mechanisms of the mech’s wounded body-shell clattered a horrible rattling chord. She didn’t have time for him to go into shock right now, she needed him to keep running on fumes and panic because barring that he might die here on the control room floor, hemorrhaging his own internals. She was standing in a pool of energon, his, Prime’s, she ignore the slick of it under her pedes.

“Max!” She grabbed the metal guards that ran under his jaw, pulled his great head up with a yank. “Fort Max, can you walk? Max? Focus.” His optics weren’t refracting right, the red-light lenses not irising fast enough, not focusing on her. Dammit. “I cannot carry you. You need to stand the frag up and walk, soldier. Do you understand me?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, she just grabbed his arm, wedged her shoulder up under his armpit and pushed up as though she would single handedly move a mech that out classed Optimus Prime in dense-mass. “Get! Up! And go back through the ground bridge, I’ll reprogram it for the DMZ.”

He wasn’t budging.

“MAX! Now! That’s an order! Optimus did not fragging go out there to save you just so you can die, you glitchfrakker, get up!”




[[OOC: Will NPC Arcee as needed/requested for the thread.]]

[Deleted]

For a moment he was tempted not to respond.

It was easier to kneel here, on the far side of the beating he had taken. To rest his battered weight on one knee and let his pain and exhaustion sag over him, while his injuries continued to seep within his plating. Minor systems were already shutting down in a desperate attempt to stem the energon loss. It was an oddly lethargic feeling, to go dark bit by bit. Strange. His optics flickered.

And then someone hauled up his head.

When his gaze had focused Maximus recognised the small, fierce face glaring back into his - Arcee. Those blazing eyes. She was underneath his arm now and shouldering him upwards, dug in against his side. Growling at him. He almost laughed. She was so small. So small. And he was a tank.

But she had it. That voice. The command voice. Not many people did. Optimus had it. Maximus had it, once. Her orders rang straight to his core and Maximus responded to them without even thinking about it.

He stood up.

It wasn't easy. Every piston, every hydraulic fought against it. Maximus steeled his jaw with a grunt and pressed his knuckles into the floor. He heaved upwards. Pressure built and burst messily from ruptured lines, spitting black sludge - oil and desert dust all mingled together. He coughed, flecked his chassis in more dark fluid. One final groan and he rose to his full height, swayed, and stood upright. Lifted his own head.

He felt dizzy.

Optical sensors were not functioning properly. Inertia was off. No wonder. Where was his rifle. In his hand. Slowly, he returned it to its clip at the small of his back. The fight was over. He would have to remember to strip and clean it later. Thoughts were wandering. Concentrate, Fortress.

Maximus forced himself to turn around. The ground bridge. There it was, a beckoning spiral of green light. He trudged into it wearily. No idea where it would take him this time. He would find out soon enough.

Walk, soldier.

[Deleted]

Cleaver was waiting on the other side of the event horizon, hands ready. She'd have preferred to fetch the injured Autobot herself and begin diagnostics immediately. Seconds mattered in an emergency. She didn't have Omega's coordinates, though, and she sure as hell didn't want them. Cleaver didn't want anything that could potentially be extracted from her to threaten the Autobots. So every bridge came to her - from both factions.

The Medbay was twenty three steps away from this point, and she did not yet know how far into too far that was. Her incoming patient could be being carried, swift and sure, or dragged by an only slightly-less injured comrade for aid. She didn't even know who it was that was bridging through, though the candidates were rapidly whittled down as a massive form began to emerge.

When the long treds sharpened into view, the medic's spark contracted. Not Ironhide hurt. Good, but...

She didn't wait for Maximus to acknowledge her, moving in to his non-gored side and planting her solid medic frame beneath his arm. As she pulled his weight.into her, she began shuffling a priority list based on her scanner readings and what her olifactory sensors told her he was leaking.

"This way, Maximus," she uttered as she steered him firmly towards the Medbay. "Steady now."

To Arcee, she sent, ::Got him. Status update when he's stable.:: And, because she knew that they'd only send someone through like this if the Autobot medic already had his hands full with worse, ::Tell Ratchet I'm here if he needs an assist after Maximus.::

[Deleted]

“How about I confirm my Autobot’s status myself?”

The groundbridge closed, the light from the transwarp winking away just as the two-wheeler stepped through, her field a flat-line of tension around the small frame of her body-shell. Arcee didn’t wait for an answer, moving quickly to Fort Max’s other side and catching his other arm. Cleaver had the brunt of Max’s weight, but Arcee wasn’t there to offer her not so bountiful hydraulic strength. What she did do was keep her EM field a steady pulse of calm along the air between herself and the injured frontliner.

"Ratchet can handle it. He'll tell me when he can't."

Her expression didn’t exist – a neutral landscape save the too-bright blue of her optics. Her arms from the elbow down were covered in energon.

“Forwarding medical files,” she said, opening a shortwave. If Cleaver had been an Autobot unit medic like Ratchet, Arcee wouldn’t have bothered, but as it stood Cleaver would have no access to Fort Max’s medical history and she would need to if this was happening. “Delphi-data stamp if you don’t know it. Ratchet’s unencrypted the parts you need to know about and the parts you don’t, don’t bother with.” Her grip on Max’s arm shifted slightly as he staggered. “Like I said on comm: It’s Megatron’s handiwork. That means possible dark energon contamination, like the glitchfrakker isn’t disgusting enough.” She scanned the atrium. “Who else is on base? Do you have anyone on guard duty?”

[Deleted]

"Sideswipe and Cat are the only other ones here." Cleaver's tone was clipped and flat. She scanned through the unpacked file, pulling up baselines and schematics for the massive warbuild. Her field was tight and professional, but she still flashed deference to Arcee.

When they reached the doorway to the Medbay, she jerked her head towards the closest cabinet. "High grade cleanser." Leaving Arcee with the instruction to clean herself and then bring the vat over to give Maximus a liberal dousing, Cleaver manhandled the mech onto a berth.

Every fluid found in a Cybertronian (save innermost energon) was pouring out of him in dirty, black-flecked streams, and his tanks were pinging at 15%. Haste in getting Maximus onto at least one energon drip and the worst of his breaches clamped was significantly more important than his comfort, at this particular moment.

[Deleted]

Maximus was dimly away of the limping walk from the ground bridge, Arcee a ghost of electromagnetic radiation at his side. The darkness soon gave way to light and the sharp, antiseptic smell of solvent, and he realised that he was in a medical bay.

A sense of weary acceptance came over him. He was not unfamiliar with the inside of a medical bay.

The word medical files drifted through his mind.

Someone was wrestling him onto a berth. Maximus sank onto it. He did not lie back, but sat with his broad shoulders bent and his back bowed. He rested his elbows on his knee joints and let his hands dangle between his lower legs. The red optics darkened, shut. One of the big treads on his back ticked, tried to rotate, and ground to a halt with a tired whir. Dust filtered off his stained plating. Primus. His head hurt. He was worn. He was worn out.

He heard things clattering in the background. The two femmes spoke between themselves. Clipped. Professional. That one voice was vaguely familiar. Maximus distantly wondered at it. Where had he heard it before. Where.

Where was he.

Medical. Medical files.

Maximus went cold.

Delphi.

The Delphi medical files. And everything about him they laid out in cool, stark detail. Everything that had happened to him.

It happened fast.

The next time Cleaver reached out to him, one of the great black hands moved. Moved fast. She would find her own hand trapped inside it, up to the wrist. The grip was firm, but not crushing. Given the strength inherent in Maximus' frame, it could be. Just like that.

He sat hunched. His white face was a mask of grime and gore, his jaw streaked. Once again those red optics burned into hers, but this time they struggled to focus.

"No medical files," he rasped. "No medical files!"

[Deleted]

Arcee was there instantly. Her grip on Max - hands closing, not around his wrist, but around the base of his thumb and forefingers - was slick, still wet from the cleaning solution. The chemical tang mixed with internal fuel was nauseating and familiar, how it smelled every day on the frontlines, how her whole history of the war seemed to smell in her mind. The panic in Max's feild, that ugly desperation - she knew that very well too.

"Max," she said very clearly. "Let go of her. I won't share your medical records." That was a lie, it was too late. She'd forwarded the whole lot. She knew enough about Fortress Maximus to know there was slag in his service history that wasn't for public anything, not even to medics, but the flip side was... everyone knew about Garrus 9. The details intimate to Max himself though... those... would be in those medical files. Her field softened just a little. "Just let go, Max."

When he lets go,commed Arcee silently, not looking at Cleaver. Sedate him.

[Deleted]

The red-eyed gaze slid from Cleaver to Arcee.

Maximus stared back at her. Her face swam when he tried to focus upon it. He studied the blue optics intently and said nothing. Those fierce blue optics. His own glare was cold and hard. For an instant he was the warden again, looming and hard-nosed and irked, a stone wall. Tried to gauge the sincerity in her eyes, but her field was fixed. Composed. He could not read her. She had a field commander's air of practiced calm.

He narrowed his optics. His hand tightened in a fearful reflex.

No. No. He caught himself before it could crumple metal.

Arcee would not give up his medical history.

Not that.

Something about the quiet assurance in her voice made him relax. Slowly, his grip over Cleaver's hand grew slack, his fingers creaking as the pressure gave way. After a tense moment he let her go. Maximus dropped his hand back to his lap and leaned onto his elbows, his entire frame sagging in exhaustion. He lowered his head and vented a deep breath, straight from his core.

"All right," he said. He was too tired to think of anything better. "All right."

[Deleted]

"Good - thank you," the femme uttered. "You'll be alright."

Cleaver had not needed Arcee to tell her the obvious, a datapacket to override combat protocols and induce stasis already prepped before Maximus had released her hand. She jacked into the closest intact dataport she had found on his specs, tucked beneath a heavy ancillary armor plate in the shadow of his left tread.

Stasis flowed through Maximus's systems over a number of seconds, giving Cleaver time to angle his shoulders back and bring his long legs up before his frame became a completely dead weight. Flashing a light across his darkened optics to confirm his status with the most basic of tests, then moved briskly around the berth to hook him up properly.

When both drips had been set up alongside the monitoring suite and regulating leads, Cleaver began dousing off the obvious contaminants with the potent solvent. It frothed in contact with Dark Energon, the chemicals she'd added from studying her own necrotic protoflesh fizzing as they neutralised the toxic fuel.

When the area was clean enough to make further incisions, she fixed her scanners on the gored wound to determine what needed to be clamped immediately, and what the impaled artillery was holding back itself. Without looking up, she said, "Thanks for keeping him calm. This would've been a lot harder with one hand."

[Deleted]

Arcee’s optics caught a brief nuclear blue as she looked up from the ruinous landscape of Max’s body shell, stared at the top of Cleaver’s head. The oil-slick of energon and coolant up her arms seemed like a natural second finish and she hated that. The stink of Dark Energon in the wounds was familiar, standing here over a ruined teammate was also familiar, listening to a medic’s false reassurances – also familiar. What was not familiar was the pressing sense of responsibility stuck into the back of her cranial casing like a molecular knife.

Optimus Prime was down.

“You’re a bit short handed to handle a patient like Fortress Maximus,” said Arcee, skipping over the thanks that she didn’t know what to do with. “If we weren’t similarly shorthanded, we wouldn’t be here, so what do you need me to do? If you’ve got this, then I’m going to hail Autobose and go talk to Sideswipe. If he’s security detail, then he should know that there’s a possibility of Decepticon retaliation.”

Because Megatron hurt Optimus so badly, that the possibility of us sending him here with both you and Ratchet to do surgery wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility… and they might break a truce for a shot at ending the war. Easy. Because this place is nothing but a trap. She swallowed those words. Dealt with the toxicity of it.

“It got bad tonight.”

[Deleted]

Cleaver glanced up with just her optics, spiraled too tight to see Arcee properly across the width of Maximus's body. The femme's already large, scalpel-sharp optics were fractured and flickering like a fast cityscape. It was momentarily distracting in terms of complexity rather than luminosity, her magnified gaze switching back to the edges of the serrated metal without distortion. Focused despite the sick lurch that swept through so hard it reminded her of those initial nanoseconds when she grabbed Sideswipe's charged blade.

Who else? Anyone dead? Where's Ironhide? Of course it was bad: Megatron was there, all ship-shape thanks to you. Not the time. Later. Ratchet's got the more serious case, and Maximus is plenty serious. More critically wounded, or higher profile? Who else is hurt? Jazz? Prime? No, Primus, don't tell me. I shouldn't know.

Cleaver gave herself a mental clip upside the helm and got on with it.

The turret had been shredded up pretty good on penetration, the scraping impact of Maximus's armor mangling the uneven edges and sharpening them into a tearing blade. Whole circuit systems were tangled in, sparking from the flowing energon and blackened coolant. Not salvageable, her diagnostics reported back. Which was good, as there was no way they were going to stay connected to the warden's body, no matter how gently she removed the turret and splintered debris.

Cleaver made quick work of stripping away the surrounding armor, running an aspirator with every removal, because between the drips and dark energon contamination, the benefit of further leakage outweighed the risks. The vile substance fought self-repair systems and standard internal decontamination procedures, creating an additional slew of locked threads and congestion errors in a processor already thick with battle damage.

Once the area was exposed for surgery and his fluids were running clearer, she'd clamp off the leaks. Three more minutes, Cleaver estimated.

She tried not to think about the only other time she'd met this patient. Her voice was quiet, suppressing a litany of questions and concerns that Arcee absolutely did not need to deal with. "I've got this if you need to be somewhere else."

[Deleted]

Arcee hovered momentarily, caught for a second between saying something that didn’t need to said save for her own spite and frustration and departing immediately to take care of things. Fortress Maximus laid out on the table, his internal in display, bio-lights shining through his blackened endo-structures, protomass and tendoflex lines gleaming wet and almost organic beneath the medical lights – this was the starting point of her command. Arcee wondered if all the things she did were going to be couched in disaster – the chapters of her life marked by one gutted ally after another.

She didn’t have the luxury of melo-drama, however. So she set it aside.

“I’ll send someone to keep help keep guard,” she said. “Someone who’s worked with Sideswipe before, if I can. I will remain on base until one of them can relieve me.” She held Cleaver’s gaze very carefully, an unbroken span where she seemed to be scanning the other femme for some sign. “I am going to be clear: I am being forced to trust you. Lately you don’t warrant the trust of the Autobots but right now, I need you to be on our side.” If her ethics required her repair Megtraon, surely they require her give Fort Max the same attention. “I need Max alive so I can kill him myself, you see.”

She didn’t explain herself further. The two-wheeler left medical to find an AWOL Lamborghini and tried to dismiss the possibility that Optimus Prime might be dead. One disaster at time.




[[OOC: Arcee's out. Have fun kiddos. Let me know if you need her back. ]]