[ti]Ep 1.5[/ti]The Repair Crew (Closed)

[Deleted]

Thankfully, Zoom-Zoom didn't seem to notice that Thundercloud had been spacing out while he had been talking. That, or if he had noticed he didn't seem to care, which was just as good in Thundercloud's book. No harm no foul and all that slag, right? Right.

Glad that he didn't earn himself the tiny bot's ire by being a horrible listener (among other things), Thundercloud actually refrained from making a smart-mouthed comment as Zoom-Zoom climbed back up on his shoulders so he could give him a lift back up to the ceiling. He was totally going to be a mouthy fragger when the little red menace gave him reason to be, but for the time being he kept silent if only because talking over the sound of a power-drill wasn't his idea of a good time. Especially not with the headache he knew he was going to wake up with in the morning steadily brewing behind his optics - he had to hand it to Fortress Maximus. The mech hit hard.

In fact, Thundercloud was fairly certain he would be feeling all sorts of interesting aches and pains for the next few days, until his auto-repair systems finally got their afts in gear and did their jobs. The dents in his face and armor would heal the fastest, he knew, but he wagered that his shoulder would be giving him trouble for weeks to come. He couldn't feel any pain from the shoulder-joint down, so he had no real way of gauging how bad off he was, but the unhappy-sounding whining of hydraulics and grinding of wrenched metal was telling.

Unfortunately for Thundercloud and Zoom-Zoom both, Thunder couldn't actually hear those sounds of strain coming from his damaged joint over the sound of the drill. There was a low whine, a few clicks, and a sputtering hiss of hydraulics - all of it flew right under the radar, drowned out by the sound of the drill as Zoom-Zoom put it to work on fixing the ceiling.

The poor minibot would realize something was wrong before Thundercloud did, when suddenly the ground disappeared beneath his foot as Thundercloud's arm dropped clean off his body and clattered to the floor with a spray of sparks and a dribble of fluid.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom was thoroughly engrossed in the trying-to-fix-a-thing-that-I-have-no-idea-how-to-actually-fix. He was not prepared for one foot to suddenly be standing in air with no support. His body lurched to the side and he automatically tried to grab something to hold onto. The only thing available to grip however was the vent.

Unfortunately, in his panic, Zoom-Zoom had completely forgotten that the vent was a fragile and delicate thing in need of serious repair and that he was in process of delivering said repairs to it. The drill slipped from his right servo as he pitched to the side, one flailing hand caught a wall mount and the other hand grabbed the bottom of the vent.

The damaged, shorn off around a hole because a minibot fell through it bottom of the vent. And the bracket he'd grabbed was already loose, it was providing a small amount of support and had been scheduled for repair. The bracket broke off from the wall immediately and Zoom-Zoom's grip on the vent yanked more of the ceiling down as he lost his balance and fell. While Zoom-Zoom's previous fall had already coated Prime's room once with dust, it seemed like an equal amount was displaced by this second one. A cloud of white powder erupted from the ceiling and would coat both occupants in the room.

Zoom-Zoom hadn't fallen clear of Thunder either. During his scrambling, the minibot's feet had kicked Thunder several times, including in the gaping socket that Thunder's arm had previously occupied.

The minibot hit the ground on his side. He was stunned for a moment, watching the white dust swirl in front of him onto the tarps that protected the furnishings of the room. For a good long moment, it hadn't really sunk into him what was going on.

Then-

Zoom-Zoom's head popped up and he stared in disbelief at the even bigger hole in Prime's ceiling. Anger built in him swiftly, he knew Thunder was going to drop him. Had suspected the mech would act up right from the start and now look what had happened. There was even more things to fix and Zoom-Zoom would no doubt get blamed for this.

"What the slag did you do that for?" he snapped, still looking up at the mess. "Wow, that was really funny, you fragging moron."

He dropped his gaze to glare at the aerial and it was only then that he registered that Thunder was missing a limb and that this might have been an accident. Or maybe not, who walked around with an arm in such bad shape that it could drop off at any moment without seeing a medic? Zoom-Zoom's mouth, however, was still running full tilt and providing a direct feed to every thought that flitted through his processor.

"What the-"

"I didn't do it!"

"Oh wow, I suspected you were defective but I had no idea it was this bad."

[Deleted]

So. There was this thing on the internet, right, this thing that Thunder and Carbine had observed several times because virtually every video-sharing site they had visited seemed to have an overabundance of such content - specifically the little fluffy vermin called Cats. Thundercloud didn't know what the hell they were, but he and Carbine had spent more than what was probably a healthy amount of time watching dumb videos featuring those hairy little beasts, and as Zoom-Zoom lost his grip, his footing, and his dignity, he kicked the absolute slag out of Thundercloud's head in a fashion that reminded him very much of a cat with a stuffed rat. They were rapid and wild and they hurt like a son of a glitch, and to top it all off Thundercloud was pretty damn sure that if they had recorded this moment and uploaded it to Youtube, it would go viral. So yeah, just like the stupid cat videos he couldn't stop watching.

Eventually the kicking stopped once Zoom-Zoom hit the floor, but Thundercloud was too busy dealing with his own bs. to care about how the minibot was fairing. He was swearing up a storm, his vents whirling wildly as they tried to clear themselves of the plaster dust that had filtered into them, while his remaining hand busied itself with dusting off his head and shoulders which were likewise covered in the powdery white slag.

He didn't bother to look over to see if Zoom-Zoom was alright, not even when the mech first started talking to him. After all, if he was talking, then he was still alive, so there was no reason to be worried, right? Right. It wasn't until Zoom-Zoom got to that last part, said that particular word that Thundercloud finally turned to acknowledge him.

This was not necessarily a good thing.

He looked up sharply, his head spinning to shoot a hard look at the little bot.

"...What'd you just call me?"

It wasn't a question - he was just giving Zoom-Zoom the chance to say something different.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom was experiencing a whole gamut of emotions. Annoyance and anger and "dear fragging Primus, this is bad', primarily. Somewhere in the back of his processor, a more rationale part of him was frantically flailing and waving its hands, trying to catch his attention. It was also rather insistent about shutting up and hightailing it out of there, possibly to a whole other planet for when Prime finds out about this even bigger mess.

That part of him was thoroughly ignored.

Instead, he climbed to his feet and distractedly looked around at the floor for the drill he'd dropped during the fall. Not that he was about to get back up there and fix things up but because he had no idea what to do next. Do something about Thunder's arm? The big mech wasn't making a fuss over it, so Zoom-Zoom wasn't going to bring it up if he could avoid it. Get back to work? The loss of a limb kinda put a damper on that. (Call a medic maybe? Pfft, like the thought would even occur to the minibot when it wasn't his limb that had relocated itself away from his body).

"What did you call me?"

"A moron," the retort was out of Zoom-Zoom's mouth before he'd realised it. "An idiot. Imbecile. Take your pick. And get your audials checked because they're obviously as deficient as your arm."

Half a moment later, the minibot processed what he'd just said and he backed away from the other mech.

"Wait, did I say that. I meant none of it. Not a single word. Zero, zilch."

[Deleted]

Wow. Wow.

For a moment, Thundercloud didn't respond. He simply stood there, shooting sparks and leaking fluid from his exposed shoulder socket, and stared at Zoom-Zoom in quiet bafflement. He simply couldn't comprehend how someone - anyone - could possibly have a word-to-mouth filter that damaged.

Then, wordlessly, Thundercloud turned away from Zoom-Zoom and reached down to retrieve his fallen arm. It speckled the Prime's nice clean floor with flecks of blue, black, and green (energon, oil, and coolant respectively) as he lifted it, then gave it a good shake just to make sure the whole damn thing wasn't about to fall apart on him. Once sure of the reality stability of his severed appendage, Thundercloud finally turned his attention back to Zoom-Zoom.

There was no warning for what he did next. He gave no word, no threat. His expression didn't take a sudden malicious turn, his wings didn't twitch with barely-restrained irritation. His field didn't even ripple with anger or outrage.

He simply blinked down at Zoom-Zoom, then abruptly swung his arm back and then swiped it forward with the intention of dope-slapping the little slagger with his severed arm.  

[Deleted]

I can't believe I just said all of that.

This was the resounding thought in Zoom-Zoom's head. From the looks of things, neither could Thunder. He stared blankly at the minibot and Zoom-Zoom wordlessly gazed back.

Um. He was really, really sorry? No, no more talking. He'd already said enough and his mouth would only get him into more trouble. Thunder finally moved, Zoom-Zoom was pretty skittish and operating on a hairpin trigger right now, he backed up in response to Thunder.

Only, turned out that Thunder was just fetching his arm. Okay, fair enough, that was a reasonable thing to do. That was fine.

Then, without warning, Thunder lunged forward at the minibot, attempting to slap him with his own dismembered limb.

That was not fine.

"I'm sorry, alright!" Zoom-Zoom yelped, ducking away from the limb. "Really sorry. I didn't mean any of it!"

[Deleted]

Despite Zoom-Zoom's frantic attempts to apologize, Thundercloud was not mollified in the slightest. At the same time, however, he didn't seem as enraged as perhaps he could have been. He looked more annoyed than anything, though why he felt bludgeoning someone with his own severed arm was a proportional response to feeling annoyed was anyone's guess.

Rather than make any serious attempt to cause Zoom-Zoom grievous bodily harm, Thundercloud simply waved his arm around a little in his general direction, flailing the severed limb not unlike it was a cat toy dangling from a stick. Then, after he felt satisfied he had menaced the Minibot enough, Thundercloud ended his assault and drew his arm back towards himself. He looked from the ball-joint inside the end of his arm, to the hole in his torso where it was supposed to connect, then back again.

Then he tried, ineffectually, to just jam his arm back into the socket with all the finesse and precision of a toddler trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

"Aw, come on you stupid piece of--" Thundercloud growled in frustration as he discovered firsthand how difficult it was to shove a limb back into place when one only had a single hand to work with, then decided, to hell with it, and used the nearby wall to his advantage.

Holding his arm in place, Thundercloud rammed his shoulder hard against the concrete, hammering his arm back into socket with one hard shove. He wound up spraying various fluids all over the wall and floor in the process, but he didn't seem to pay that any mind, as he was too busy feeling accomplished for having jammed his arm back into place.

Moving away from the wall, Thundercloud turned his attention back to Zoom-Zoom, opened his mouth to speak - and promptly had whatever he was about to say cut off by a loud CLANG as his abused arm fell right back onto the floor. Thundercloud looked down at it, lying there in a puddle of its own lifeblood, and didn't even have the decency to look the least bit surprised.

"Well, I tried."

[Deleted]

To Zoom-Zoom's surprise, Thunder's attempt to hit him was more a half hearted affair than anything else. The mech basically flailed his arm for a bit but made no move to really hit him. It was...odd but he wasn't exactly complaining, not being hit was so much better than being hit. He continued to back up, keeping a cautious optic for whatever Thunder would do next.

...what Thunder did next was attempt to shove his arm back into its socket by sheer force.

Zoom-Zoom stared at the spectacle with wide optics.

His optics grew even wider in amazement behind his visor when Thunder decided to recruit the wall's help in his endeavours.

What the ever living frag.

…why?

He registered the energon splatters with a mild sense of alarm. It was not concern over Thunder leaking because he was damaged, rather Zoom-Zoom was worried how Prime would react to the gruesome mess the aerial had made on his wall. Things were already bad enough, what with the even bigger hole in his ceiling.

...well, at least it was Thunder, and Thunder alone, who was responsible for the all the fluids splattered on the wall. Zoom-Zoom definitely did not have a part in that one.

He watched as the mech stood back from the wall and turned to him. For a moment, it looked like he'd actually reattached his arm. Then the illusion was shattered as it popped off almost immediately.

He blinked.

This was all a little too surreal.

"Yeah, you definitely did," Zoom-Zoom commented dryly. His gaze focused on the wall. "Prime's gonna love that."

[Deleted]

Sighing, Thundercloud reached down to retrieve his fallen arm, which was now far more battered than it had been when he first walked in with it. The shoulder joint was a mess, the armor scuffed and pock-marked where bits of paint had chipped off, revealing the dark silver underneath. Fluids dripped from snapped cables, a mix of blues, blacks, and greens painting the once-pristine floor with flecks of color.

It was almost a little pretty looking, if you were into Jackson Pollock. Which Thundercloud wasn't, because he didn't even know who that guy was, because that would have required him to dabble in human art history, which he had never done. Ever.

And if his internet history said otherwise, well, shut up.

"Yeah, well, that ain't my problem Short-stack. I'd stick around and help clean up - ha, nah, nah I wouldn't, couldn't even say that with a straight face - but I gotta hit the bricks. I lose anymore blood, and the doc'll have my ass."

He turned his back to Zoom-Zoom, taking a step towards the door, before pausing to look back at the mech he was abandoning to the mess he made.

"And not in the fun way." He added, completely unnecessarily, before turning once more to make his way towards the door. 

[Optimus Prime]

The second the door opened, Thundercloud would be face to face with Optimus.

The large Cybertronian stood before the threshold, blocking out the sole escape path with his mass that went toe to toe with Thunder's own. Stance bold, shoulders wide set and helm held high, he peered down with a judgmental look upon the other mech as if he was already well aware of the chaos that had happened, and the way Thunder was going to try to bounce out from his assigned task. If he was bothered by the sight of so much blood, he didn't show it, instead focused upon catching him in the act red handed.

Dusty air from the ceiling being torn further, and drywall being kicked up from movement, flowed out from the opening into the hallway from the door sliding open. The white powder glazed over the Prime's peds and shins, matting out the chrome accents and dulling out the bold blue color that ran along his limbs, as well as graying out the black rubber of the wheels on the sides of his legs. It started to settle out into the corridor, making a very apparent gradient that lead to the source of the filth as plain as day.

He did not speak. He did not ask any questions of what was going on, nor immediately fly into concern over Thunder's well being. Instead, he just stared down at the jet, making eye contact to pressure him and give him the opportunity to divulge everything without having to be prompted. Optimus wanted to know just what was going on, and why such a simple task had gotten so derailed, and he wanted to know now.

The Prime had been coming by to make sure everything was alright, having thought he overheard some rather notable banging noises that were concerning. Either the repairs were underway with far more gusto than he thought would be needed for such a patch job, or the two had gotten into some kind of squabble. Now... he was being faced with the fact that his team was a team of children, and they couldn't handle the simplest of tasks without turning it into a fiasco.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom wasn't exactly sure of what they should be doing now. Fixing the ceiling maybe, with Thunder's arm out of action? Cleaning up the wall? ...getting Thunder's arm reattached, perhaps...?

Thunder backing out on him and leaving him to clean up the mess? Including the one the aerial had made alone? That wasn't the option he wanted but was the one the other mech had apparently decided upon.

"Well, it isn't exactly my problem either!" he snapped indignantly, all attempts to curb his vocaliser promptly forgotten. "You’re the one who mashed himself on the wall there. By yourself. That's completely on you."

Not that that minibot's protests had any effect on Thunder. The big flier turned towards the door, leaving the fuming minibot behind him.

Zoom-Zoom glared at the gaping hole in the ceiling. He stubbornly ignored the mess on the wall, he was not dealing with that. Nuhuh. What the frag should he do now…?

The lack of movement by the door had him glancing back Thunder's way. Zoom-Zoom's spark sank at the sight of Prime -why was Prime heeere- blocking the doorway and staring down at Thunder.

And here Zoom-Zoom was, naively thinking that this situation had already reached its lowest point. Nope, apparently things could get worse.

He glanced at Prime. Then at Thunder. The wall. And finally the hole in the ceiling.

"He did it," Zoo-Zoom said, pointing at the mess of fluids on the wall.

The minibot jammed a thumb at the ceiling. "I did it," he sighed. "Well, actually, we kinda both did that one."

[Deleted]

Had Thundercloud known he was about to come face to face with several tons of pissed off Chosen One, he might not have responded to Optimus' sudden presence in the doorway the way he did. Or maybe he would have. It's really hard not to jump back like a startled cat and shout in alarm when you're staring death in the face and he's looking preeeetty cranky.

"HOLY FU--"

He bit back a curse, knowing better than to make a bad situation worse by swearing right in the Prime's face, then stumbled backwards as hastily as he could. Alarmed, Thundercloud moved to bring a hand to his racing spark, only to smack himself right in the cockpit with his own severed arm. He looked down at it with wide-eyed surprise, as if it somehow betrayed him (or he simply forgot it was there), before looking back to the Prime. Somehow, he didn't even have the decency (or the common sense) to look the slightest bit sheepish or apologetic.

"You scared the bejesus outta me, man."

That was...about the exact opposite of an explanation for what had just occurred, but then, Optimus really ought to have known better than to expect anything  else from Thundercloud. Besides, Zoom-Zoom seamed more than happy to supply his own version of events, which meant the Prime wouldn't be left wanting for answers. Granted, they weren't coming from the person Optimus actually wanted answers from, but still. Points for trying?

As the little red mech opened his big mouth, Thundercloud turned to glower at him. Really? The mech was just gonna throw him under the buss right out of the gate? It was like the minibot had no concept of Honor Among Screw-Ups. To the little guy's credit, he did take some of the blame onto himself, which mollified a great deal of Thundercloud's annoyance. His defensive posture shifted, and he eased his weight from one leg to the other as he relaxed a bit.

"...Yeah, that's fair." He admitted with a shrug. "All the blood 'n slag is totally my bad. Sorry 'bout that one, boss. Tried to give the guy a hand, wound up givin' 'em the whole arm."

He actually had the audacity to smile a little, cheerfully gesturing with his severed limb. He didn't seem to be aware that it was decidedly NOT normal to be so gosh darn chipper despite having just been maimed - that, or he was just so used to having missing limbs that it didn't phase him anymore.

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus didn’t as much as flinch as Thundercloud reacted as if he had come face to face with an impending death sentence. He knew he wasn't here to bring harm upon them, and despite the... chaos... he was face to face with, he wasn't going to follow Megatron's footfalls and give Thunder a REASON to yelp in surprise at his presence alone. Violence didn’t encourage good deeds and efficiency; it just made individuals hasty and scared to mess up, ending in sloppy work.

That... didn’t mean he was content with what he viewed though.

This experience had been a rollercoaster that somehow kept plunging down into the ground as if it were trying to mimic an elevator. Any flickering of good favor, any rise on the track to getting his living quarters repaired, were systematically cut off and nipped away, leaving this mess that was before him. It was a mess that was getting worse and worse by the hour somehow, to a point that he wouldn't even permit a drone with no sentience to reside in such deplorable conditions.

As Thundercloud took a step back in alarm, Optimus could only watch while the jet slammed his own arm across his chest in a way that became a horrible double salute, the severed limb flopping with its slack joints while leaking fluids all over. The injury was heinous, and should be horrible to endure, but... Thunder seemed alright about it and unphased, so Optimus didn't focus on it. What he couldn't ignore though was the stench. One didn’t need a heightened sense of smell like Red Alert or Bolo to pick up the noxious tangs of coolant, hydraulic fluid, and Energon, it all mingling together into a toxic bouquet that would likely permeate his living space for some time to come. Reeking of wounds and injury. It was this salute and following spatter that ran down Thunder's leg that finally made his expression change, a minute twinge of distaste creeping into play.

Thankfully, Zoom-Zoom began to speak to offer up an explanation.

The moment the minibot started to address what was happening, Optimus' gaze broke away from Thundercloud to peer down at the little red Cybertronian. He allowed his features to calm again, neutral, understanding, trying to remain open to what had made the situation go belly up so... spectacularly... only to get no explanation. All he got was a checklist of who had done what, and where the fault should be placed. It didn’t really explain to him HOW Thunder got injured so badly, nor explain HOW they had made the hole in the ceiling even bigger.

Optimus looked up at the hole above them then, able to see more rockwork and more of the metal ducts that were woven just beneath. Some strips of sheetrock hung off with thin strings, barely teetering in place from the dislodged opening. It was then that fate pushed them; somehow knowing Optimus was looking their way, as they broke free and a large chunk fell down into the room. It clunked against the plastic covered berth, and fell to the floor, kicking up new rekindled plumes of dust and grit that swirled lazily up through the fog of white. It speckle coated the fluids spattered about, and the drips and smears closest the falling object were absorbing the settled powder readily to make a sludge like paste.

He wanted to just tell them to get out, the urge to demand they leave his ((now decimated)) sanctuary in order to keep it from being obliterated further a rather difficult to ignore desire. He had a feeling that if the two were permitted to remain, than they would somehow find a way to ruin more things. His entire ceiling would be nothing but rock, his berth would end up toppled over, and Thunder's dismantled arm would find itself thrown like a javelin into the computer terminal and ruin all the data he had stored on there. They'd probably try to mop up the paste like fluids and drywall combination, and just paint his entire floor a sickly smear of pastel colors that streak around with no rhyme or reason. For all he knew if he left now and left them to the task, he'd come back and not even have a door anymore.

Accidents happen.

No one would intentionally do this.

Things go bad for a reason.

"Thundercloud, go to Ratchet to receive medical care. Zoom-Zoom, return to prior objectives before this task."

He would have to find new responsibilities for each of them to make up for this nightmare, so that they didn't think they could get out of work by being royal screw-ups. But... he knew already he wanted neither of them in that room again, and would not assign them such things in the future. Another group job? Highly likely. A malicious tiny little sliver of retribution desired. But hey... teammates should be able to cooperate! They can learn to do so in the wilderness where their mistakes didn’t ruin other people's days.

After his dry commentary and direction, Optimus just took a casual step back and would try to gradually walk back down the hall and away.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom resignedly waited for Prime to get angry. His room was an absolute mess and even further away from being repaired than it had been when they had started out. Surely the chewing out that he'd avoided last time would finally fall upon the minibot now. Any decent, normal person would be yelling, not...this...weird...staring...thing Prime had going on.

Honestly, that freaked the minibot out more than any actual words from Prime would have. It was agonizing, waiting for the axe to drop. Any moment now, surely the mech would explode…

He shuffled backwards to put himself out of reach from both Thunder and Optimus. He had no idea how the aerial was so calm but Thunder was kinda crazy, so this wasn't all that surprising. It occurred to Zoom-Zoom that he should say something, that what he'd said didn't explain anything at all.

Maybe apologize even.

A chunk of something fell from the ceiling, as if taunting them. He didn’t turn to look at it, Zoom-Zoom just flinched and all thoughts of apologizing fled from his processor.

When Prime finally, finally spoke, the minbot was absolutely floored. His world rocked with sickly relief. Just go back to doing what he'd been doing. No punishment, at least, not now. No ripping into the two bots for the absolute frag-up they'd made of this job. And Prime didn't even hang around, he just walked straight out again.

This probably meant-

"He's totally going to kill me later on," Zoom-Zoom moaned.

[Deleted]

For one long, dreadfully silent moment, Thundercloud worried they had broken the Prime. This was it - the limit of his tolerance. They had finally pushed him past his bullshit threshold, and because of it they were likely going to die a quick (and probably incredibly violent) death.

Strangely enough, Thundercloud was pretty okay with that.

Granted, he didn't want to die, but the way he figured it, that would be a pretty badass way to go out. Getting killed by some nameless mook, some nobody with no reputation or clout - that was just embarrassing. Getting taken out by the Big Man himself? Now there was a story. Sure, he'd never be around to hear it, but still. The point was if he was gonna die, he wanted to die with bragging rights.

And you know what, getting the most tranquil, reserved Prime to ever hold the title to flip his shit and rage-murder you was something worth bragging about as far as Thundercloud was concerned.

Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, the Prime actually seemed to have the patience of a goddamn saint. Sure, Thundercloud had heard stories of how peace-loving and calm the guy was, but to actually see it in action was another thing entirely. If he was in the other mech's place, he would've been royally pissed, no questions about it, but Optimus - he just stood there. He stood there and judged the hell out of them, but when he turned and left they were still in one piece, which was more than Thundercloud had been expecting.

He blinked dumbly at the spot where the Prime once stood, wondering what in the hell sort of life he was living, then turned towards the door to do as he was told.

"Not if the Pretty Boy gets you first." He called to Zoom-Zoom over his shoulder, as he crossed through the doorway and made his way down the hall.