Ep 0.5 - Housewarming - Closed
Apr 30, 2012 17:20:29 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2012 17:20:29 GMT -5
<<Set immediately before "Oh", in the first part of the fourth interim month>>
Stepping through the ground bridge was a flare of heat and light; from the artificial underground lights of base to brilliant natural sunlight, optic lenses spiraling to encompass a far greater spectrum and range than the cramped interior of the control room offered. Heat, solar energy that felt subtly different closer to the equator, spread as a radiant warmth across his plates and sensors in a rush.
The ground bridge had deposited him on the edge of a plateau, overlooking a vast red and beige landscape. He had heard humans describe it as arid, barren, but to optics that had seen more than their share of truly lifeless worlds the spread of the Sahara was anything but. Organic, so very organic, teeming with life, flush with an atmosphere that created thin wisps of clouds in the blue sky overhead and carved unique shapes into both rock and shifting sands.
It was, in its own way, beautiful, and he took it in with sensors spread wide, recording that first glimpse with hungry senses.
The same sensors alerted him to the steps behind him, but he didn't need sensors to feel the familiar, beloved pulse of field and spark, drawing him like a magnetic pole. Tipping his head back, he slanted a glance across his shoulder, just meeting the bright blue of Cleaver's optics where she stood framed in the entrance to the newly christened base. "Quite a view yeh've got, dahrlin'."
"Should see it when the star's on the horizon," Cleaver replied with a mirroring smile, moving from the tall slit in the mountainside towards him at an easy pace. "The colours... And never the same, twice. It's really something to see." And I want to see it with you every day. Can't. Wouldn't ask. But still want.
She came to stand alongside him with the recent detailing from Megatron's claws away from him, brushing a blade against his thick forearm. An ex-vent as tension eased away like it always did when Ironhide was near, and Cleaver brushed a kiss across his shoulder. "How you been?"
He leaned down to nuzzle against her helm, palm twisting to brush his fingers against the solid plane of her arm blade. "Been good enough," he rumbled quietly. "Quiet. Missin' yeh." He grinned, nudging her slightly. "Yeh been busy."
The medic's field tingled warmth from the stroke down the blade, and she hummed a soft note against his jaw and smiled. "One word for it." A nod back to the entrance and Cleaver quirked a brow at the red mech. "Still a lot to be done, but got folk living here now. Can give you the tour if you'd like?"
Ironhide ghosted a light kiss across her mouth, his answering hum warm and pleased. "Love to." He huffed a soft laugh. "Jazz said it was 'safe', an' 'big', and a lot of other single glyph descriptors that don't tell meh slag. Love t' see it proper an' hear what yeh're plannin' for it."
"Well, it's definitely ‘safe' and ‘big'. It's also a ‘fragging mess' and ‘something this femme is too scragging old to be messing about with'." A huff and she nudged his hand with the side of a blade, inviting him to fall alongside and follow her. "Come on - before I talk myself into abandoning it to Moonshot and living with you."
"Can't let yeh do that, dahrlin'," Ironhide agreed, and if his spark wasn't really in it he could at least put a note of teasing to it that lessened the unspoken wish. He matched his step to hers as she lead the way into the abandoned mine. "Yeh'd find out we're sitting on just as much of a mess, an' most of it ain't even Cybertronian design. Locals don't build t' our scale."
Cleaver grinned a laugh, conceding the point. "True. Cons on the other hand look like they've tunneled some of this place ready for a shuttleformer to walk through."
Case and point was the space that the entrance turned into following a sharp turn to the left that kept the wind out. The walls were chipped and ragged from being drilled out, and the ceiling was a high arch that Skyquake could have stood beneath. Deeper into the mine, the tunnels shrank to sizes closer to what she had seen of the Autobot base, though what would become the communal areas were of this same massive scale.
She stopped them just inside, gesturing to one side of the wall. "Gonna put a weapon's locker there. Typical drop-off point for DMZs. Got a credit system in mind where folk earn their High Grade spending time manning the locker, working the bar, bringing in energon, clearing out the tunnels, stuff like that."
Ironhide was already nodding, gaze following her gesture as he listened to her. "Good idea," he agreed. "Gets yeh ready an' willin' help, and gives 'em a reason t' downcharge inbetween rounds. Smart."
Eying where the weapon's locker would be, he shook his head slightly, venting a short laugh. "Yeh gonna take peace lock codes for built in systems, or make us strip it all off?" His field flickered wry against hers, underscored with real amusement. "Not t' say Ah don't enjoy th' look on a 'Con's faceplates when Ah'm unloadin' eight tons of artillery in front of 'im, but it takes awhile, an' even longer t' put back t' rights."
"Peace lock codes should do fine," Cleaver replied with a grin, running a hand over one of Ironhide's back panels and the monstrous weaponry beneath it. "Prime and Megatron are the two exceptions to the credits rule as the ones enforcing the zone ceasefire. And I reckon neither side's gonna want to show up and frag off their leader by breaking code."
"Reckon yeh'd be right," Ironhide agreed, grinning. "Though frag knows Ah can't get Prahm t' take a cycle off that ain't by medical order, an' not for lack of tryin'."
He tipped his helm back, eyeing the height of the space, optics flickering over the rough carven walls. "Gonna take some work t' make it more'n a mine. Lucky yeh'll have both sides trippin' all over themselves t' help if yer offerin' up high grade." He rubbed a circle against the blade of her arm with his thumb, warmth and a want that had little to do with frames and more for the spark deep feel of belonging flickering between them. "Don't have t' bribe meh, just tell meh what yeh want where."
The knowing touch, exactly over a transformation seam and a sensory node, sent a shiver through her field, and Cleaver had to make an effort to gently slide the blade away from his hand. She knew where those kinds of touches ended up, and her sideseam wasn't up to it yet. More than that, she was still actively invested in Ironhide never finding out about the injury, let alone the nature of it.
It wasn't a rejection, however, her field lingering in a caress as she started them walking again deeper into the mine. To him, she murmured, "And here I thought bribing you was half the fun."
Laughter swirled through his field, chasing after hers as he fell into step beside her. "Don't have t'," he repeated, grinning. "Less yeh wanna. Seem t' recall yeh still owe meh for some high grade, so that's not th' right bait."
Cleaver's optics flashed mirth, her field flashing the sentiment of an eye-roll. "Right on that, aye, and the longer you leave that uncalled, the more I get to wondering what you're thinking up. And I don't like being in debt."
They reached the main atrium just as the medic skirted away from Ironhide's hand again, motioning a blade to the cleared but empty space. "Recreation space. Sofas and entertainment units over there, bar up the middle and space for lobbing and general youngling stupidity over there. Not gonna tidy that wall up - it'll only get wrecked." She pointed to another, smaller, wall outcropping, slanting a glance at him. "That one needs to go, though. Think you can take a wall out as well as a hole?"
It was something of a game now, advance and retreat, and Ironhide let his field stalk hers, brushing without ever touching, pulses of warmth and love and the skating flicker of heat swirling through the space between their plates. "Ah think Ah can manage, yeah. Haulin' th' pieces out'll take longer than takin' it down. Yeh puttin' all that in, yeh'll never get th' younglings out from under yer pedes. We'll be draggin' 'em back to pull their shifts."
He hummed softly, one step closer to her one step back, amusement and love swirling through their edges. "An Ah thought yeh didn't want meh callin' in that debt - ain't been needin' a medic t' patch meh back up lately."
"Good to hear," Cleaver remarked with a forced archness, backstepping from his approach once again. She hadn't intended for this to descend into play, and was quite certain that it was going to end up exactly where she wanted to avoid going - at least for today. A few more days, let the protoform knit up properly, and then fine. But right now, forcing her posture straight and her blades away from the ground, and thus the instinctive propping to ease off her side, there was already a line of fire radiating out from hip to shoulder.
Two corridors led off from the atrium, and she pointed in turn, though didn't take her optics from his. Didn't trust him not to jump her in this mood she'd inadvertantly sparked. "Medbay and groundbridge to the left, quarters and washracks to the right. Storage beyond that. So far, that's everything."
Ironhide listened and looked, attentive, but kept coming back to her, focusing, and what he saw made him hesitate. Cleaver's field was warm, there, her touch against his plates easy to lean into, but then she was gone again. He had pressed a little, teasing to match her verbal tone, but she backed away again and without the playful invitation to follow that he had half expected. Her voice had gone brisker, more business, the voice of a femme with a base to see to and it was easy, as well, to respond to that - yes ma'am, no ma'am - but there was a tremor through the edge of her field that made him step closer, reach to cup the blade of her arm, pulsing warmth rooted in steadiness and comfort, not in heat.
"It looks good," he agreed. "Lots of space t' expand." Another pulse, gentle inquiry, a swallowed back need to hold her and ease whatever it was that was troubling her beneath the surface. "Yeh doin' alright, dahrlin'?"
The pulses, and the warm tone overlaying them, made Cleaver hesitate with a pang of unease that doubtless filtered up into her field and straight into his touch and attention. She shifted her pedes a little, turned the thick weld running the length of her upper-chassis away, but transformed the blade he was holding into a hand.
Taking his scarred fingers between hers, she squeezed reassurance crossed with dismissal. "‘m'fine. Just, worn out and feeling the size of this place. Didn't seem like so much work before it was real, y'know? Got lots of willing hands to pitch in, but still got to pull my part."
"Dahrlin', yeh set all this up. Think that makes yeh base commander. One of th' perks of th' job is not havin' t' pull all th' weight - least, not by hand." He kept his tone light but his spark wasn't in it, not when there was something tight and uneasy in her field, reaching out to his own like a splash of need to be touched, eased, cared for…
Hot. There, across her side when he slipped free of her hold to wrap an arm around her, and he could feel her hydraulics shift to step away again but not before he felt the heat coming off of her and not in any sort of good way. Tight, sour, rancid heat lacing through her field, and that was a feel he knew as well as his own plates.
He caught her shoulder before she could twist away again, stepping around to her far side. The weld lines were fresh, still healing, cutting a thick ridge across her plates, and he took in severity and age with a tight, flat feel that cut through to his own core and left his tone dropped low and deceptively quiet. "Cleaver, love, yer definition of 'fine's' about as bad as mine."
Plates tightening a little, Cleaver thought better of shrugging out of his grip, though her field conveyed that she felt neither intimidated nor guilty perfectly well. "Repairs done, infection's out and welds are hard - qualifies as ‘fine' for me."
Ironhide's critical stare didn't let up beyond meeting her optics, bright with something before moving back to the welds. She clenched her denta for a moment, then replied,"I ain't as in need of protecting and coddling as you think."
He let her go, not quite stepping back, though he rocked unhappily on his pedes. Plates flared and tightened and flared again with quickly aborted protocols and Ironhide held his struts tight, locking down his weapon systems before anything could even think of spinning up hot. Her words, flat and matter of fact, cut through his first spark surged reactions like the heat of an energon blade. It caught them up in a knot that ached through his chassis, unresolved and suddenly, in the face of her words, unwelcome.
It flooded his tanks with something sour and, in the wake of the sourness, with a hot flare of anger that he couldn't even find a suitable target for. It made his voice flat and spiked acrid through his field.
"Ah don't think Ah've said a single fraggin' word about coddlin'," he said tightly. "An' Ah ain't said nothin' about yeh not being able t' protect yerself either. Would've been nice t' hear from yeh, though, instead of dancin' around it." Would've been nice t' be trusted, but he bit that back, unsaid, and swallowed it down. "What happened?"
Suddenly, Cleaver felt the stupid urge to apologise. To fix this so Ironhide wasn't looking at her like that, his tone ugly. It had, on reflection, been an unfair accusation to lay at him, but one that she was certain she was right in making. Because if he'd found out when the wound was fresh or the necrosis was eating away at her protomatter, he would have coddled and likely gone and done something stupid. And she couldn't bear the thought of the guilt if he got hurt over her. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him...
Throughout, Cleaver had only meant to obfuscate the facts from him, not outright lie. She certainly wasn't going to tell anything other than the truth now, and did so with her gaze directed away. "Went up to the Nemesis to get the DMZ agreed by Megatron." Which had been arrogant and stupid and terrifying like she hadn't imagined it could be. "And he..." A vague gesture, futile and weary. She shook her head a little, then finally met his optics. Waiting.
Whatever vague hope he had held out that it was something accidental - something maybe to do with construction, or jury rigging something, or some simple, normal task went wrong, something involving a fall against something sharp, or pointed, or just plain hard and immovable, and organic irritants to cause an infection - well, it was a very small hope and it died quickly. Ironhide vented, long and slow, and let his optics dim for a klik as he processed the first surge of hate that trembled through his spark and lines.
It was such an old emotion, though. Familiar, and, in the end, useless. So familiar it had become a base level, the only base, for near anything having to do with 'Cons, or, more importantly, the faction's driving spark embodied in Megatron. There wasn't anything else left in him to apply to them, hate and anger so well worn that a surge was only a sharpening of what was already there and didn't last longer than a few brief vent cycles.
It would have been a different story, he admitted to himself, if he had been there to see Cleaver with an open draining wound. It would have been a very different story if he'd been there in the metal to see the Warlord hurt her; that sort of rage was on an entirely different level, tapping everything in his core, and he would have been hard put not to 'protect' or 'coddle' like she said. If 'protection' meant meeting an active threat with weapons hot, or 'coddling' meant calling another fragging medic because he couldn't for the life of him see how she had managed her own repairs to a wound in her side that he doubted she could even properly see.
But he wasn't, and he hadn't been, and he hated that he hadn't been. Hated that she was probably right; that he couldn't have restrained himself and toed the line of what she would allow. Hated that what he was allowed, even now, made him hesitant to put hands to her, offer to take the weight that was paining her, for fear of being 'pushy' or 'coddling' or other things she'd clear stated she didn't want. Hated, in a dull, empty sort of way, that his opinion and feelings about all things Decepticon wouldn't even let him keep a proper head of anger for more than a few kliks over something as severe as injuring someone he loved. A lifetime of function had made injuries something that just happened, and so long as it healed, so long as he hadn't had to watch it happen... well. They weren't, any of them, safe.
He cycled a few more vents and brought his optics back up to meet her own. "Ah'm sorry," he said, field reaching for her own to try to convey in a flicker of glyphs so much more than just the words - sorry she had had to go through that, sorry it had happened, sorry he hadn't been there even if she hadn't wanted him to be. Shaking his head slightly, he stepped forward once more, hands hovering slightly, hesitating to touch. "Cleaver, love, yeh got more bearings than alot of frontliners Ah know. Seems t' meh, though, medics spend a lot of time givin' advice an' never stop t' take their own. Or weren't yeh th' one, when we'd only just met, tellin' meh t' stop stressin' a strut Ah'd have said was 'fine'?" He settled on her shoulders as safest, a light tough, not adding one iota of weight to stress what was obviously already paining her. "So, is it coddlin' or just plain common sense when Ah'd rather see yeh sittin' comfortable an' tellin' meh all yer plans instead of trompin' all over this place puttin' stress on those welds?"
It was the barest edge of the want that was rising up past the lackluster hate - the need to see her comfortable, resting, to ease the pained heat in her field that he could still feel. She'd been clear, though, so he cut it off, strangled it back the way he would have for Chromia or Jazz once either had cuffed him upside the head and told him to lay off. Swallowed it down, sharp and bitter, and channeled it instead into the bare necessities, the 'common sense' that even stubborn cohort usually acknowledged as sensible after awhile. That, at least, he could do.
The medic stood silent for long moments, Ironhide's words sinking through her thin armor and meshing up with her own stubbornness. She'd forgotten, it seemed, the balance between independence and selfishness - that part of letting another mecha her into life was letting them into her vulnerability as well, despite her longstanding views that it was no one's fragging business. If it had been him, Cleaver could admit to herself that she would have wanted to know, to help as an expression of caring, and that being kept from doing that must have felt a lot like rejection.
Transforming both blades into hands, Cleaver stepped into the scarred mech and rested her fingers over his on her shoulders. Held them there, accepting the touch and the meaning and intent behind it, confessing in field that it felt good. She held his wounded gaze, felt her spark throb with something like anxiety.
"‘m sorry, love. Been living a long time where if you couldn't survive on your own, then you just didn't. Gettin' helped... feels like some of that's being taken away, getting tempted into reliance." Cleaver looked down with a sharp exvent, half-smiling with a bitter wryness. "An' I had visions of you ‘bridging to the Nemesis yourself if you found out whilst it was still, bad. Couldn't have you hurt like that and stand it."
Before Ironhide could say anything, she took one of his hands down to tug him gently into walking. Her field rolled out warm and throwing longwave with immeasurably greater ease than before. "Come'on - ain't finished the tour, yet. Got adjoining ‘racks in my quarters. An' the door locks."
To show that she wasn't changing the subject to avoid it, she squeezed his hand again before adding quietly, "I'm sorry, love. Weren't that I didn't trust you or want you... Honestly, at the time I'd wished you were there."
"Ah wish Ah'd been," he answered, sparkfelt truth and the ache that came with it, "but yer probably right. Best Ah wasn't, at least not right that klik." Venting softly, he shook his head, letting her lead him along. "Ah'm good, but Ah ain't got any illusions about bein' outmatched, an that'd be a bad one."
Her fingers were warm in his, her field easing somewhat, and pressed back the urge to wrap himself around her, press safety and warmth and comfort into her by glyph and EM and the touch of plates. "Ah ain't tryin' t' tempt yeh," he managed, softer. "Yeh can chalk it up t' mah own glitch, if yeh want - can't tell yeh th' number of times Ah've heard th' others tell meh Ah'm soft on it. Ah just... Ah don't like seein' yeh in pain. If there's anything Ah can do t' ease it, Ah want to."
"Got a couple ideas," she slid back, optics narrowing fractionally in a sidelong look.
As they had been on the (now largely dismantled) ship, her quarters were the first along the corridor - closest to the main living spaces and the medbay. She recharged easier knowing that she was on-hand if she was needed, whatever the hour. It was for the same reason that she rarely locked the door to her quarters, treating them as an extension of the medbay in many respects. Her berth was massive - easily wide enough to accommodate a patient still needing to be linked up to her by an umbilical line through a recharge cycle. It was just practical, a simple set of preparations already in place should the need for them arise.
Palming the sensor panel for the door to open, Cleaver resealed and locked it on the other side without pause. This was her time now. Their time.
<<Fade to black, continued elsewhere>>
Stepping through the ground bridge was a flare of heat and light; from the artificial underground lights of base to brilliant natural sunlight, optic lenses spiraling to encompass a far greater spectrum and range than the cramped interior of the control room offered. Heat, solar energy that felt subtly different closer to the equator, spread as a radiant warmth across his plates and sensors in a rush.
The ground bridge had deposited him on the edge of a plateau, overlooking a vast red and beige landscape. He had heard humans describe it as arid, barren, but to optics that had seen more than their share of truly lifeless worlds the spread of the Sahara was anything but. Organic, so very organic, teeming with life, flush with an atmosphere that created thin wisps of clouds in the blue sky overhead and carved unique shapes into both rock and shifting sands.
It was, in its own way, beautiful, and he took it in with sensors spread wide, recording that first glimpse with hungry senses.
The same sensors alerted him to the steps behind him, but he didn't need sensors to feel the familiar, beloved pulse of field and spark, drawing him like a magnetic pole. Tipping his head back, he slanted a glance across his shoulder, just meeting the bright blue of Cleaver's optics where she stood framed in the entrance to the newly christened base. "Quite a view yeh've got, dahrlin'."
"Should see it when the star's on the horizon," Cleaver replied with a mirroring smile, moving from the tall slit in the mountainside towards him at an easy pace. "The colours... And never the same, twice. It's really something to see." And I want to see it with you every day. Can't. Wouldn't ask. But still want.
She came to stand alongside him with the recent detailing from Megatron's claws away from him, brushing a blade against his thick forearm. An ex-vent as tension eased away like it always did when Ironhide was near, and Cleaver brushed a kiss across his shoulder. "How you been?"
He leaned down to nuzzle against her helm, palm twisting to brush his fingers against the solid plane of her arm blade. "Been good enough," he rumbled quietly. "Quiet. Missin' yeh." He grinned, nudging her slightly. "Yeh been busy."
The medic's field tingled warmth from the stroke down the blade, and she hummed a soft note against his jaw and smiled. "One word for it." A nod back to the entrance and Cleaver quirked a brow at the red mech. "Still a lot to be done, but got folk living here now. Can give you the tour if you'd like?"
Ironhide ghosted a light kiss across her mouth, his answering hum warm and pleased. "Love to." He huffed a soft laugh. "Jazz said it was 'safe', an' 'big', and a lot of other single glyph descriptors that don't tell meh slag. Love t' see it proper an' hear what yeh're plannin' for it."
"Well, it's definitely ‘safe' and ‘big'. It's also a ‘fragging mess' and ‘something this femme is too scragging old to be messing about with'." A huff and she nudged his hand with the side of a blade, inviting him to fall alongside and follow her. "Come on - before I talk myself into abandoning it to Moonshot and living with you."
"Can't let yeh do that, dahrlin'," Ironhide agreed, and if his spark wasn't really in it he could at least put a note of teasing to it that lessened the unspoken wish. He matched his step to hers as she lead the way into the abandoned mine. "Yeh'd find out we're sitting on just as much of a mess, an' most of it ain't even Cybertronian design. Locals don't build t' our scale."
Cleaver grinned a laugh, conceding the point. "True. Cons on the other hand look like they've tunneled some of this place ready for a shuttleformer to walk through."
Case and point was the space that the entrance turned into following a sharp turn to the left that kept the wind out. The walls were chipped and ragged from being drilled out, and the ceiling was a high arch that Skyquake could have stood beneath. Deeper into the mine, the tunnels shrank to sizes closer to what she had seen of the Autobot base, though what would become the communal areas were of this same massive scale.
She stopped them just inside, gesturing to one side of the wall. "Gonna put a weapon's locker there. Typical drop-off point for DMZs. Got a credit system in mind where folk earn their High Grade spending time manning the locker, working the bar, bringing in energon, clearing out the tunnels, stuff like that."
Ironhide was already nodding, gaze following her gesture as he listened to her. "Good idea," he agreed. "Gets yeh ready an' willin' help, and gives 'em a reason t' downcharge inbetween rounds. Smart."
Eying where the weapon's locker would be, he shook his head slightly, venting a short laugh. "Yeh gonna take peace lock codes for built in systems, or make us strip it all off?" His field flickered wry against hers, underscored with real amusement. "Not t' say Ah don't enjoy th' look on a 'Con's faceplates when Ah'm unloadin' eight tons of artillery in front of 'im, but it takes awhile, an' even longer t' put back t' rights."
"Peace lock codes should do fine," Cleaver replied with a grin, running a hand over one of Ironhide's back panels and the monstrous weaponry beneath it. "Prime and Megatron are the two exceptions to the credits rule as the ones enforcing the zone ceasefire. And I reckon neither side's gonna want to show up and frag off their leader by breaking code."
"Reckon yeh'd be right," Ironhide agreed, grinning. "Though frag knows Ah can't get Prahm t' take a cycle off that ain't by medical order, an' not for lack of tryin'."
He tipped his helm back, eyeing the height of the space, optics flickering over the rough carven walls. "Gonna take some work t' make it more'n a mine. Lucky yeh'll have both sides trippin' all over themselves t' help if yer offerin' up high grade." He rubbed a circle against the blade of her arm with his thumb, warmth and a want that had little to do with frames and more for the spark deep feel of belonging flickering between them. "Don't have t' bribe meh, just tell meh what yeh want where."
The knowing touch, exactly over a transformation seam and a sensory node, sent a shiver through her field, and Cleaver had to make an effort to gently slide the blade away from his hand. She knew where those kinds of touches ended up, and her sideseam wasn't up to it yet. More than that, she was still actively invested in Ironhide never finding out about the injury, let alone the nature of it.
It wasn't a rejection, however, her field lingering in a caress as she started them walking again deeper into the mine. To him, she murmured, "And here I thought bribing you was half the fun."
Laughter swirled through his field, chasing after hers as he fell into step beside her. "Don't have t'," he repeated, grinning. "Less yeh wanna. Seem t' recall yeh still owe meh for some high grade, so that's not th' right bait."
Cleaver's optics flashed mirth, her field flashing the sentiment of an eye-roll. "Right on that, aye, and the longer you leave that uncalled, the more I get to wondering what you're thinking up. And I don't like being in debt."
They reached the main atrium just as the medic skirted away from Ironhide's hand again, motioning a blade to the cleared but empty space. "Recreation space. Sofas and entertainment units over there, bar up the middle and space for lobbing and general youngling stupidity over there. Not gonna tidy that wall up - it'll only get wrecked." She pointed to another, smaller, wall outcropping, slanting a glance at him. "That one needs to go, though. Think you can take a wall out as well as a hole?"
It was something of a game now, advance and retreat, and Ironhide let his field stalk hers, brushing without ever touching, pulses of warmth and love and the skating flicker of heat swirling through the space between their plates. "Ah think Ah can manage, yeah. Haulin' th' pieces out'll take longer than takin' it down. Yeh puttin' all that in, yeh'll never get th' younglings out from under yer pedes. We'll be draggin' 'em back to pull their shifts."
He hummed softly, one step closer to her one step back, amusement and love swirling through their edges. "An Ah thought yeh didn't want meh callin' in that debt - ain't been needin' a medic t' patch meh back up lately."
"Good to hear," Cleaver remarked with a forced archness, backstepping from his approach once again. She hadn't intended for this to descend into play, and was quite certain that it was going to end up exactly where she wanted to avoid going - at least for today. A few more days, let the protoform knit up properly, and then fine. But right now, forcing her posture straight and her blades away from the ground, and thus the instinctive propping to ease off her side, there was already a line of fire radiating out from hip to shoulder.
Two corridors led off from the atrium, and she pointed in turn, though didn't take her optics from his. Didn't trust him not to jump her in this mood she'd inadvertantly sparked. "Medbay and groundbridge to the left, quarters and washracks to the right. Storage beyond that. So far, that's everything."
Ironhide listened and looked, attentive, but kept coming back to her, focusing, and what he saw made him hesitate. Cleaver's field was warm, there, her touch against his plates easy to lean into, but then she was gone again. He had pressed a little, teasing to match her verbal tone, but she backed away again and without the playful invitation to follow that he had half expected. Her voice had gone brisker, more business, the voice of a femme with a base to see to and it was easy, as well, to respond to that - yes ma'am, no ma'am - but there was a tremor through the edge of her field that made him step closer, reach to cup the blade of her arm, pulsing warmth rooted in steadiness and comfort, not in heat.
"It looks good," he agreed. "Lots of space t' expand." Another pulse, gentle inquiry, a swallowed back need to hold her and ease whatever it was that was troubling her beneath the surface. "Yeh doin' alright, dahrlin'?"
The pulses, and the warm tone overlaying them, made Cleaver hesitate with a pang of unease that doubtless filtered up into her field and straight into his touch and attention. She shifted her pedes a little, turned the thick weld running the length of her upper-chassis away, but transformed the blade he was holding into a hand.
Taking his scarred fingers between hers, she squeezed reassurance crossed with dismissal. "‘m'fine. Just, worn out and feeling the size of this place. Didn't seem like so much work before it was real, y'know? Got lots of willing hands to pitch in, but still got to pull my part."
"Dahrlin', yeh set all this up. Think that makes yeh base commander. One of th' perks of th' job is not havin' t' pull all th' weight - least, not by hand." He kept his tone light but his spark wasn't in it, not when there was something tight and uneasy in her field, reaching out to his own like a splash of need to be touched, eased, cared for…
Hot. There, across her side when he slipped free of her hold to wrap an arm around her, and he could feel her hydraulics shift to step away again but not before he felt the heat coming off of her and not in any sort of good way. Tight, sour, rancid heat lacing through her field, and that was a feel he knew as well as his own plates.
He caught her shoulder before she could twist away again, stepping around to her far side. The weld lines were fresh, still healing, cutting a thick ridge across her plates, and he took in severity and age with a tight, flat feel that cut through to his own core and left his tone dropped low and deceptively quiet. "Cleaver, love, yer definition of 'fine's' about as bad as mine."
Plates tightening a little, Cleaver thought better of shrugging out of his grip, though her field conveyed that she felt neither intimidated nor guilty perfectly well. "Repairs done, infection's out and welds are hard - qualifies as ‘fine' for me."
Ironhide's critical stare didn't let up beyond meeting her optics, bright with something before moving back to the welds. She clenched her denta for a moment, then replied,"I ain't as in need of protecting and coddling as you think."
He let her go, not quite stepping back, though he rocked unhappily on his pedes. Plates flared and tightened and flared again with quickly aborted protocols and Ironhide held his struts tight, locking down his weapon systems before anything could even think of spinning up hot. Her words, flat and matter of fact, cut through his first spark surged reactions like the heat of an energon blade. It caught them up in a knot that ached through his chassis, unresolved and suddenly, in the face of her words, unwelcome.
It flooded his tanks with something sour and, in the wake of the sourness, with a hot flare of anger that he couldn't even find a suitable target for. It made his voice flat and spiked acrid through his field.
"Ah don't think Ah've said a single fraggin' word about coddlin'," he said tightly. "An' Ah ain't said nothin' about yeh not being able t' protect yerself either. Would've been nice t' hear from yeh, though, instead of dancin' around it." Would've been nice t' be trusted, but he bit that back, unsaid, and swallowed it down. "What happened?"
Suddenly, Cleaver felt the stupid urge to apologise. To fix this so Ironhide wasn't looking at her like that, his tone ugly. It had, on reflection, been an unfair accusation to lay at him, but one that she was certain she was right in making. Because if he'd found out when the wound was fresh or the necrosis was eating away at her protomatter, he would have coddled and likely gone and done something stupid. And she couldn't bear the thought of the guilt if he got hurt over her. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him...
Throughout, Cleaver had only meant to obfuscate the facts from him, not outright lie. She certainly wasn't going to tell anything other than the truth now, and did so with her gaze directed away. "Went up to the Nemesis to get the DMZ agreed by Megatron." Which had been arrogant and stupid and terrifying like she hadn't imagined it could be. "And he..." A vague gesture, futile and weary. She shook her head a little, then finally met his optics. Waiting.
Whatever vague hope he had held out that it was something accidental - something maybe to do with construction, or jury rigging something, or some simple, normal task went wrong, something involving a fall against something sharp, or pointed, or just plain hard and immovable, and organic irritants to cause an infection - well, it was a very small hope and it died quickly. Ironhide vented, long and slow, and let his optics dim for a klik as he processed the first surge of hate that trembled through his spark and lines.
It was such an old emotion, though. Familiar, and, in the end, useless. So familiar it had become a base level, the only base, for near anything having to do with 'Cons, or, more importantly, the faction's driving spark embodied in Megatron. There wasn't anything else left in him to apply to them, hate and anger so well worn that a surge was only a sharpening of what was already there and didn't last longer than a few brief vent cycles.
It would have been a different story, he admitted to himself, if he had been there to see Cleaver with an open draining wound. It would have been a very different story if he'd been there in the metal to see the Warlord hurt her; that sort of rage was on an entirely different level, tapping everything in his core, and he would have been hard put not to 'protect' or 'coddle' like she said. If 'protection' meant meeting an active threat with weapons hot, or 'coddling' meant calling another fragging medic because he couldn't for the life of him see how she had managed her own repairs to a wound in her side that he doubted she could even properly see.
But he wasn't, and he hadn't been, and he hated that he hadn't been. Hated that she was probably right; that he couldn't have restrained himself and toed the line of what she would allow. Hated that what he was allowed, even now, made him hesitant to put hands to her, offer to take the weight that was paining her, for fear of being 'pushy' or 'coddling' or other things she'd clear stated she didn't want. Hated, in a dull, empty sort of way, that his opinion and feelings about all things Decepticon wouldn't even let him keep a proper head of anger for more than a few kliks over something as severe as injuring someone he loved. A lifetime of function had made injuries something that just happened, and so long as it healed, so long as he hadn't had to watch it happen... well. They weren't, any of them, safe.
He cycled a few more vents and brought his optics back up to meet her own. "Ah'm sorry," he said, field reaching for her own to try to convey in a flicker of glyphs so much more than just the words - sorry she had had to go through that, sorry it had happened, sorry he hadn't been there even if she hadn't wanted him to be. Shaking his head slightly, he stepped forward once more, hands hovering slightly, hesitating to touch. "Cleaver, love, yeh got more bearings than alot of frontliners Ah know. Seems t' meh, though, medics spend a lot of time givin' advice an' never stop t' take their own. Or weren't yeh th' one, when we'd only just met, tellin' meh t' stop stressin' a strut Ah'd have said was 'fine'?" He settled on her shoulders as safest, a light tough, not adding one iota of weight to stress what was obviously already paining her. "So, is it coddlin' or just plain common sense when Ah'd rather see yeh sittin' comfortable an' tellin' meh all yer plans instead of trompin' all over this place puttin' stress on those welds?"
It was the barest edge of the want that was rising up past the lackluster hate - the need to see her comfortable, resting, to ease the pained heat in her field that he could still feel. She'd been clear, though, so he cut it off, strangled it back the way he would have for Chromia or Jazz once either had cuffed him upside the head and told him to lay off. Swallowed it down, sharp and bitter, and channeled it instead into the bare necessities, the 'common sense' that even stubborn cohort usually acknowledged as sensible after awhile. That, at least, he could do.
The medic stood silent for long moments, Ironhide's words sinking through her thin armor and meshing up with her own stubbornness. She'd forgotten, it seemed, the balance between independence and selfishness - that part of letting another mecha her into life was letting them into her vulnerability as well, despite her longstanding views that it was no one's fragging business. If it had been him, Cleaver could admit to herself that she would have wanted to know, to help as an expression of caring, and that being kept from doing that must have felt a lot like rejection.
Transforming both blades into hands, Cleaver stepped into the scarred mech and rested her fingers over his on her shoulders. Held them there, accepting the touch and the meaning and intent behind it, confessing in field that it felt good. She held his wounded gaze, felt her spark throb with something like anxiety.
"‘m sorry, love. Been living a long time where if you couldn't survive on your own, then you just didn't. Gettin' helped... feels like some of that's being taken away, getting tempted into reliance." Cleaver looked down with a sharp exvent, half-smiling with a bitter wryness. "An' I had visions of you ‘bridging to the Nemesis yourself if you found out whilst it was still, bad. Couldn't have you hurt like that and stand it."
Before Ironhide could say anything, she took one of his hands down to tug him gently into walking. Her field rolled out warm and throwing longwave with immeasurably greater ease than before. "Come'on - ain't finished the tour, yet. Got adjoining ‘racks in my quarters. An' the door locks."
To show that she wasn't changing the subject to avoid it, she squeezed his hand again before adding quietly, "I'm sorry, love. Weren't that I didn't trust you or want you... Honestly, at the time I'd wished you were there."
"Ah wish Ah'd been," he answered, sparkfelt truth and the ache that came with it, "but yer probably right. Best Ah wasn't, at least not right that klik." Venting softly, he shook his head, letting her lead him along. "Ah'm good, but Ah ain't got any illusions about bein' outmatched, an that'd be a bad one."
Her fingers were warm in his, her field easing somewhat, and pressed back the urge to wrap himself around her, press safety and warmth and comfort into her by glyph and EM and the touch of plates. "Ah ain't tryin' t' tempt yeh," he managed, softer. "Yeh can chalk it up t' mah own glitch, if yeh want - can't tell yeh th' number of times Ah've heard th' others tell meh Ah'm soft on it. Ah just... Ah don't like seein' yeh in pain. If there's anything Ah can do t' ease it, Ah want to."
"Got a couple ideas," she slid back, optics narrowing fractionally in a sidelong look.
As they had been on the (now largely dismantled) ship, her quarters were the first along the corridor - closest to the main living spaces and the medbay. She recharged easier knowing that she was on-hand if she was needed, whatever the hour. It was for the same reason that she rarely locked the door to her quarters, treating them as an extension of the medbay in many respects. Her berth was massive - easily wide enough to accommodate a patient still needing to be linked up to her by an umbilical line through a recharge cycle. It was just practical, a simple set of preparations already in place should the need for them arise.
Palming the sensor panel for the door to open, Cleaver resealed and locked it on the other side without pause. This was her time now. Their time.
<<Fade to black, continued elsewhere>>