Of Bindings - A Weathering and an Uncertainty
Title: Of Bindings - A Weathering and an Uncertainty
'Verse: 2007 Transformers
Characters: Jazz. Prowl. Ensemble.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing.
He onlined, warnings and alerts screaming at him across his systems, but his processors focused onto only three things. The arms wrapped about his torso, four-fingered hands locked over his shredded chestplates, cupped protectively about his sparkchamber. The presence of the mech whose arms they were pressed against his back, systems running hard. And a low, shaky voice, pleading with him, Primus, to anyone who would listen that he would not die.
He shut off his optics to conserve energy, whispering softly. “Jazz.”
“Prowler.” The saboteur’s relief was palpable. “Don’t move, y’hurt bad, and I gotta stay in contact with you. Ratch’ says I’m keeping you stable; don’t know how, but something about your spark recognising mine.” The silver mech tightened his grasp, tone a rough departure from his normal smooth manner.
“Status?”
“We ran the ‘Cons and their drones off. Ironhide’s got a team sweeping the perimeter to check. The injured are being taken care of. Ratchet’s got his hands full with Sunstreaker right now, so it’s a good thing he figured I’m somehow helping you.”
All well and good to know, but Prowl was more concerned about the important details. “You?”
“I’m okay. They knocked me offline at first so they could get me away to work on you, then got me back up in a slagging hurry when you started to crash. Frag, Prowler, when I said the next one was on me, I didn’t mean for you to go out and take me up on the offer!”
“My apologies, Jazz.” The tactician couldn’t help the soft chuckle, and Jazz rasped, intakes hitching.
“Don’t laugh when you say that!”
The downed mech chuckled again, the sound cutting off with a soft gasp when energy pulsed through his spark, a sensation that was both disconcerting and slightly agonising, and felt the saboteur pull him closer with a fearful cry. Prowl waved the Ops mech’s anxiety away. He was fine. Jazz was with him. He tried to say as much, but only managed an “I’m glad that you’re here, I-” before Jazz interrupted.
“You are not going anywhere, mech.” It seemed like the Solstice’s thoughts had immediately leapt to the worst conclusion. Prowl sighed, scrolling through the damage reports his systems were feeding him. Ratchet must have deactivated the sensor nets around his wounds, because apart from his spark, the tactician was curiously in very little pain. Or perhaps the medic had slipped him an analgesic?
“You can’t follow me to the Matrix to haul me back anymore, Jazz.” Definitely drugged. Prowl hated sedatives, whether coding or chemical based. They made him say the first thing that came to his mind, regardless of appropriateness.
“I’ll find a way, dammit!”
He’d better calm Jazz down before Ratchet heard him. Their CMO could get prickly when interrupted during critical repairs, and Prowl didn’t want an aggravated medic repairing him if it was possible to avoid it. Ratchet knew how to bypass a bot’s audios, and had no qualms about doing so if he thought a lecture was warranted.
“I am certain that if anyone could, it would be you.”
“Got that right.”
“Mmm.”
The sedative was winning out now that he’d dealt with the damage reports clamouring for his attention. Idly, the doorwinged mech wondered what the Ops head would say that. Something along the lines of how Prowl couldn’t leave a report unread if he was lying on his deathbed maybe. Perhaps it was a good thing he was finally succumbing to the drug, because he probably would have vocalised those thoughts otherwise and upset Jazz again. And the energy surges in his spark were starting to feel like they would be best dealt with while unconscious. Tilting his helm back, he rested it on the Solstice’s shoulder and let himself fall offline.
= = =
Ratchet watched a silver mech pace back and forth and sighed, crossing the med bay to take hold of Jazz and boot him out of the room.
“Go refuel and recharge. Prowl needs to heal and stasis is the best way for him to do it. He won’t be online any time soon.”
“I can’t. What if his spark-”
“His repairs are done and I’ve got him hooked up to more sensors than anyone should ever have to deal with. The moment his spark so much as flutters, I’ll know.”
The Solstice protested all the way out of the med bay, up until the chartreuse mech unceremoniously shoved him through the doors and locked them. Ratchet turned to look at Prowl’s still form and sighed again.
Jazz had been brought back to consciousness when they realised the saboteur had a stabilising effect on the tactician’s spark. The visored mech had not been online two nanoclicks before he spotted the sparklight flickering weakly in Prowl’s chassis and uncovered his own, a terrible, desperate look on his faceplates as he lunged for the chevroned mech.
It had taken both Ratchet and Ironhide to stop the saboteur, and then the Prime himself had to hold Jazz down so that the medic could explain things to him.
= = =
“Jazz. Prowl’s very weak right now.”
“It worked once, it can work again!” The silver mech thrashed in Optimus’s grip, and the medic caught hold of Jazz’s chin to look sternly into his optics.
“Jazz. Stop and listen to me. This isn’t like when you two first bonded. Prowl’s spark is whole, but the systems that help maintain a steady feed of power to it are fragged to the Pit thanks to Shockwave. Right now, you’re helping his spark ride out the energy fluxes, probably due to your previous connection to each other.”
“So let me bond to him!”
“You’re keeping him stable without being bonded to him. You can continue doing so without bonding to him. If you do that now, you could kill him and end up following him to the Matrix as well.”
“If he dies I’d want to follow him anyway.” Jazz whispered, and Ratchet glared at him.
“I’m not letting you, and Prowl wouldn’t either. Now, you can help our SIC while awake or you can do it unconscious, I’m not picky, but with you here Sunstreaker needs me more than Prowl does. So decide before I do it for you.”
Jazz meekly followed Ratchet’s orders after that, and the medic tried to put the image of him clinging to the tactician’s offline form like it was the only thing keeping him sane out of his mind. He needed to deal with Sunstreaker and with Sunstreaker came Sideswipe, who would be marginally more reasonable than their head of Ops, Primus willing.
= = =
Jazz haunted the med bay when he could, and lurked outside its doors when Ratchet kicked him out. He refuelled when Sideswipe or Bluestreak dragged him away to do so, and had broken down the CMO enough that he was allowed to recharge by Prowl’s side. Sometimes the two mechs would sit with him, with Sideswipe wandering back and forth between his brother and Jazz.
The silver mech brushed his fingers over the tactician’s helm. Sunstreaker had already been brought online and declared free to go, and Prowl still lay in stasis. Ratchet had just finished the last of the doorwinged mech’s repairs, but Prowl had yet to wake up. The medic said that it was normal, one did not just leap upright after taking the kind of damage the tactician had, but the weight on Jazz’s spark didn’t ease, and probably wouldn’t until Prowl was online again.
Resting his helm on his arms, Jazz became aware of something touching his hand. Thinking that Ratchet had come by to say that visiting hours were over, he looked up and froze when Prowl looked back at him. With a quiet sob he caught up the tactician’s hand in his own, pressing it to his cheek, his other hand going to lie on Prowl's chest where the other mech’s spark would be.
“Figures. We get through a whole fragging war spark bonded, and you wait ‘til I can’t do slag to keep you alive to nearly die.”
“I would say you did plenty, or did I imagine you at my back, both against Shockwave and later on?” Prowl murmured, smiling at the silver bot, taking hold of the hand resting on his torso. Jazz shuttered his optics, dimming his visor as he kissed the tactician’s palm. Then his optics flew open again when the doorwinged mech inhaled sharply.
“Prowl?”
The SIC only gasped, a shudder wracking his frame.
“Prowl! Ratchet!!!”
= = =
Sideswipe found the saboteur outside the base, optics focused on a distant nowhere, and settled next to Jazz with a slow cycle of air.
“Hey Jazz.”
No response.
“I heard Prowl woke up.”
Still nothing. Sideswipe leant back, seemingly content to talk to himself.
“Also heard Ratchet saying something about how he still isn’t quite up to spec. But I got faith in the doc. Our SIC will be back in action in no time, spoiling all my fun and wearing out my audios with lectures.”
The frontliner twin cast a sideways glance at the silent Ops mech. “I’m curious though. Why are you out here? You haven’t left the med bay without someone practically carrying you out of it these past few days. For that matter, if your spark helps Prowl’s, why haven’t you bonded with him again? He should be stable enough for it now, even if his energy distribution systems are still giving him the glitches.”
The moment he asked his question he regretted it, because Jazz just looked at him, expression blank.
“He won’t let me.”
The saboteur turned away.
“He didn’t say why before Ratchet put him under again, but he's done this before, pushed me away because he doesn’t think he’s going to make it and he doesn't want to take me with him. Only we were bonded the last time it happened and I refused to let go. But now...”
At the quiet words, Sideswipe pulled the Solstice into a tight hug. Jazz keened softly, and the frontliner thought that it had to be what a spark sounded like when it shattered.
'Verse: 2007 Transformers
Characters: Jazz. Prowl. Ensemble.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing.
He onlined, warnings and alerts screaming at him across his systems, but his processors focused onto only three things. The arms wrapped about his torso, four-fingered hands locked over his shredded chestplates, cupped protectively about his sparkchamber. The presence of the mech whose arms they were pressed against his back, systems running hard. And a low, shaky voice, pleading with him, Primus, to anyone who would listen that he would not die.
He shut off his optics to conserve energy, whispering softly. “Jazz.”
“Prowler.” The saboteur’s relief was palpable. “Don’t move, y’hurt bad, and I gotta stay in contact with you. Ratch’ says I’m keeping you stable; don’t know how, but something about your spark recognising mine.” The silver mech tightened his grasp, tone a rough departure from his normal smooth manner.
“Status?”
“We ran the ‘Cons and their drones off. Ironhide’s got a team sweeping the perimeter to check. The injured are being taken care of. Ratchet’s got his hands full with Sunstreaker right now, so it’s a good thing he figured I’m somehow helping you.”
All well and good to know, but Prowl was more concerned about the important details. “You?”
“I’m okay. They knocked me offline at first so they could get me away to work on you, then got me back up in a slagging hurry when you started to crash. Frag, Prowler, when I said the next one was on me, I didn’t mean for you to go out and take me up on the offer!”
“My apologies, Jazz.” The tactician couldn’t help the soft chuckle, and Jazz rasped, intakes hitching.
“Don’t laugh when you say that!”
The downed mech chuckled again, the sound cutting off with a soft gasp when energy pulsed through his spark, a sensation that was both disconcerting and slightly agonising, and felt the saboteur pull him closer with a fearful cry. Prowl waved the Ops mech’s anxiety away. He was fine. Jazz was with him. He tried to say as much, but only managed an “I’m glad that you’re here, I-” before Jazz interrupted.
“You are not going anywhere, mech.” It seemed like the Solstice’s thoughts had immediately leapt to the worst conclusion. Prowl sighed, scrolling through the damage reports his systems were feeding him. Ratchet must have deactivated the sensor nets around his wounds, because apart from his spark, the tactician was curiously in very little pain. Or perhaps the medic had slipped him an analgesic?
“You can’t follow me to the Matrix to haul me back anymore, Jazz.” Definitely drugged. Prowl hated sedatives, whether coding or chemical based. They made him say the first thing that came to his mind, regardless of appropriateness.
“I’ll find a way, dammit!”
He’d better calm Jazz down before Ratchet heard him. Their CMO could get prickly when interrupted during critical repairs, and Prowl didn’t want an aggravated medic repairing him if it was possible to avoid it. Ratchet knew how to bypass a bot’s audios, and had no qualms about doing so if he thought a lecture was warranted.
“I am certain that if anyone could, it would be you.”
“Got that right.”
“Mmm.”
The sedative was winning out now that he’d dealt with the damage reports clamouring for his attention. Idly, the doorwinged mech wondered what the Ops head would say that. Something along the lines of how Prowl couldn’t leave a report unread if he was lying on his deathbed maybe. Perhaps it was a good thing he was finally succumbing to the drug, because he probably would have vocalised those thoughts otherwise and upset Jazz again. And the energy surges in his spark were starting to feel like they would be best dealt with while unconscious. Tilting his helm back, he rested it on the Solstice’s shoulder and let himself fall offline.
= = =
Ratchet watched a silver mech pace back and forth and sighed, crossing the med bay to take hold of Jazz and boot him out of the room.
“Go refuel and recharge. Prowl needs to heal and stasis is the best way for him to do it. He won’t be online any time soon.”
“I can’t. What if his spark-”
“His repairs are done and I’ve got him hooked up to more sensors than anyone should ever have to deal with. The moment his spark so much as flutters, I’ll know.”
The Solstice protested all the way out of the med bay, up until the chartreuse mech unceremoniously shoved him through the doors and locked them. Ratchet turned to look at Prowl’s still form and sighed again.
Jazz had been brought back to consciousness when they realised the saboteur had a stabilising effect on the tactician’s spark. The visored mech had not been online two nanoclicks before he spotted the sparklight flickering weakly in Prowl’s chassis and uncovered his own, a terrible, desperate look on his faceplates as he lunged for the chevroned mech.
It had taken both Ratchet and Ironhide to stop the saboteur, and then the Prime himself had to hold Jazz down so that the medic could explain things to him.
= = =
“Jazz. Prowl’s very weak right now.”
“It worked once, it can work again!” The silver mech thrashed in Optimus’s grip, and the medic caught hold of Jazz’s chin to look sternly into his optics.
“Jazz. Stop and listen to me. This isn’t like when you two first bonded. Prowl’s spark is whole, but the systems that help maintain a steady feed of power to it are fragged to the Pit thanks to Shockwave. Right now, you’re helping his spark ride out the energy fluxes, probably due to your previous connection to each other.”
“So let me bond to him!”
“You’re keeping him stable without being bonded to him. You can continue doing so without bonding to him. If you do that now, you could kill him and end up following him to the Matrix as well.”
“If he dies I’d want to follow him anyway.” Jazz whispered, and Ratchet glared at him.
“I’m not letting you, and Prowl wouldn’t either. Now, you can help our SIC while awake or you can do it unconscious, I’m not picky, but with you here Sunstreaker needs me more than Prowl does. So decide before I do it for you.”
Jazz meekly followed Ratchet’s orders after that, and the medic tried to put the image of him clinging to the tactician’s offline form like it was the only thing keeping him sane out of his mind. He needed to deal with Sunstreaker and with Sunstreaker came Sideswipe, who would be marginally more reasonable than their head of Ops, Primus willing.
= = =
Jazz haunted the med bay when he could, and lurked outside its doors when Ratchet kicked him out. He refuelled when Sideswipe or Bluestreak dragged him away to do so, and had broken down the CMO enough that he was allowed to recharge by Prowl’s side. Sometimes the two mechs would sit with him, with Sideswipe wandering back and forth between his brother and Jazz.
The silver mech brushed his fingers over the tactician’s helm. Sunstreaker had already been brought online and declared free to go, and Prowl still lay in stasis. Ratchet had just finished the last of the doorwinged mech’s repairs, but Prowl had yet to wake up. The medic said that it was normal, one did not just leap upright after taking the kind of damage the tactician had, but the weight on Jazz’s spark didn’t ease, and probably wouldn’t until Prowl was online again.
Resting his helm on his arms, Jazz became aware of something touching his hand. Thinking that Ratchet had come by to say that visiting hours were over, he looked up and froze when Prowl looked back at him. With a quiet sob he caught up the tactician’s hand in his own, pressing it to his cheek, his other hand going to lie on Prowl's chest where the other mech’s spark would be.
“Figures. We get through a whole fragging war spark bonded, and you wait ‘til I can’t do slag to keep you alive to nearly die.”
“I would say you did plenty, or did I imagine you at my back, both against Shockwave and later on?” Prowl murmured, smiling at the silver bot, taking hold of the hand resting on his torso. Jazz shuttered his optics, dimming his visor as he kissed the tactician’s palm. Then his optics flew open again when the doorwinged mech inhaled sharply.
“Prowl?”
The SIC only gasped, a shudder wracking his frame.
“Prowl! Ratchet!!!”
= = =
Sideswipe found the saboteur outside the base, optics focused on a distant nowhere, and settled next to Jazz with a slow cycle of air.
“Hey Jazz.”
No response.
“I heard Prowl woke up.”
Still nothing. Sideswipe leant back, seemingly content to talk to himself.
“Also heard Ratchet saying something about how he still isn’t quite up to spec. But I got faith in the doc. Our SIC will be back in action in no time, spoiling all my fun and wearing out my audios with lectures.”
The frontliner twin cast a sideways glance at the silent Ops mech. “I’m curious though. Why are you out here? You haven’t left the med bay without someone practically carrying you out of it these past few days. For that matter, if your spark helps Prowl’s, why haven’t you bonded with him again? He should be stable enough for it now, even if his energy distribution systems are still giving him the glitches.”
The moment he asked his question he regretted it, because Jazz just looked at him, expression blank.
“He won’t let me.”
The saboteur turned away.
“He didn’t say why before Ratchet put him under again, but he's done this before, pushed me away because he doesn’t think he’s going to make it and he doesn't want to take me with him. Only we were bonded the last time it happened and I refused to let go. But now...”
At the quiet words, Sideswipe pulled the Solstice into a tight hug. Jazz keened softly, and the frontliner thought that it had to be what a spark sounded like when it shattered.