'I bet you say that to all the boys.'
Title is apropos of nothing; I just have Meatloaf on repeat in my head. Anyway, this is going to be a slightly messy entry, I feel, so I'll sum it all up for you in advance: real life happened, and I committed fanfic.
I got one of my essays back - for Colonial History of Australia. The assignment had given me hell trying to find information for it, and in the end I'd just selected sources for having even one line that I could quote as being relevant, since I needed at least eight sources for only 1500 words. Anyway, long story short, I thought I'd be lucky to scrape a pass. I got a distinction instead. Admittedly it was 75%, and one less and it would have been a credit, but - Distinction! So, that was exciting.
M family came up to Wagga for Easter, arriving on Good Friday. It was fun. I left the uni and stayed with them in town, and drank a lot of alcohol. Saturday being the only day the shops were open properly on the weekend, we did about five hours worth of shopping. I scored a $169 and $129 dress for only $40 each, thanks to Myers mid-season sale, plus we found some NCIS and Lie To Me on DVD. My brother found some music CDs, my dad got an iPod after his old one was wiped by iTunes when he tried to update it, and my mother shopped for my aunt and nana instead of herself (with their money though).
That was Saturday. Sunday we drove down the Hume Highway to Albury/Wodonga (Albury being in NSW on one side of the Murray River and Wodonga being in VIC on the other side), since nothing was open, and wasted time at Lake Hume and driving around playing at being tourists. Then we came back to the motel, drank alcohol, and went out to dinner where some guy whistled at me while I was standing next to my mother. Or he was whistling at mum, but she thinks he was whistling at me.
Anyway, family went home on Monday, but that was okay because I had the AFL - the traditional ANZAC Day clash between Essendon and Collingwood. Collingwood being the reigning premiers, naturally they won, which made me sadface for a while, but considering the margin was only 30 points this year to last year's 80 (30 being not too bad and 80 being an absolute hiding in AFL), I was happy enough. Nobody has beaten Collingwood yet, so we're in good company. Aaaannnnddd nobody cares about the AFL. Right. Moving on.
Today I wrote fanfic, and it was . . . interesting. I finally wrote Decepticons! Constructicons, even, although I kind of wrote them when I did that one on Omega Supreme anyway. But yes, fanfic. Whee. Now I have to remember my header format.
Title: Its Own Reward
Characters/Pairings: Primarily the Constructicons, especially Scavenger, plus First Aid and Blades, though the other Protectobots get mentions too.
Verse: I am not entirely sure what universe this would fit into, so I am going to call it some sort of G1 AU until I can figure it out.
Rating: PG for off-screen violence and head injuries
Warnings: Off-screen violence and head injuries? Nothing much, really.
Summary: In which Scrapper is severely injured, First Aid fixes him, and the work is its own reward.
Notes: I know Hook's supposed to be some sort of surgical engineer or something, but let's pretend head injuries aren't really his specialty, considering the sort of in-depth knowledge you'd need for the sort of fiddly circuitry I imagine a Transformer has in their processor. I tend to see him as more of a general surgeon and medic - not a doctor, and not a specialist of any sort. And the rest of the Constructicons are competent field medics, but not qualified for much beyond standard injuries like loss of a limb or holes in plating. So yeah, just clearing that up before we begin.
The empty warehouse is wracked with the shudders, like some sort of pregnant animal, only there is no hope of new life at the end of the long, drawn-out pain, and Scavenger tries not to think about how when this is all over, there will be nothing left to rebuild from.
He’s not just thinking of the warehouse when he deliberately doesn’t consider that, either.
Somewhere further in, Long Haul isn’t complaining, and Hook isn’t practising his pedantry, and Bonecrusher has long ago run out of curses, so now he’s running through a list of prayers and gods, hoping to hit on some capricious deity who might be inclined towards mercy in one unguarded moment. Mixmaster is for once the one horrified, and Scrapper - well, Scrapper is another thing Scavenger is deliberately not contemplating right now.
Another bombardment hits nearby, and Scavenger leans back onto his tail, not quite cringing. He’s seen too much of warfare to cringe at it. He doesn’t even mourn, most of the time. There’s no time, for one thing, and even if there was it would only be a waste of a precious commodity. The dead are the dead; plenty have gone before them, and plenty more will follow after. Of course, none of those dead have ever been really close to him; not like now, not like . . . Scrapper.
He only hopes that the Protectobot medic is as good as he was supposedly programmed to be. For all his skill in surgery, Hook doesn’t have the ability to repair neural damage such as Scrapper has suffered, and Ratchet would only repair an enemy prisoner, not an enemy dying on the battlefield. And since they have no intention of giving Scrapper up to the Autobots - well, it’s lucky First Aid is the way he is, or there would be no hope.
Scavenger doesn’t think no hope is better than hope offered by Autobots, but Hook would just say he’s being naive and idealistic again, which is funny, because it isn’t like Hook doesn’t have his moments. They all do; it’s the result of having them all so open to the gestalt bond. Some amount of spill-over - feelings, thoughts, emotions, sometimes even personality traits - is unavoidable when there are five other people who are so deeply a part of you.
At the entrance to the warehouse, the Protectobot helicopter lands, stumbling a little at the constant vibrations running through the ground. Scavenger has enough time to note the scorching on his paintwork before he’s sprinting into the building, clanking and rattling and radiating rage at an almost improper level.
“Hush, Blades, please. This is delicate work.” First Aid doesn’t even look up to deliver the admonishment, but his voice is gentle and reassuring, rising in pitch only enough to be heard across the empty space between without ever being in danger of becoming a shout. The little Autobot has a talent for always seeming soft-spoken that Mixmaster once said had to be a trick, because nobody could be that nice all the time.
Seeing what is happening now, Scavenger isn’t so sure. Neither is Mixmaster, but he was hiding it deep under the worry they all felt for Scrapper. Now it’s kind of all twisted up inside of him with other things they don’t speak of, but that’s a secondary concern none of them really have time for at the moment. Pandering to Mixmaster’s neuroses is something they can only do when one of them isn’t possibly dying right in front of them.
Blades comes to a halt in front of Scavenger, dragging suspicion and hostility in his wake like so much personal baggage. It crowds around him, and Scavenger fights the urge to step away from it. He’s not used to people who wear their emotions so openly, when they could be keeping them private for the only other people who matter. But apparently the Constructicon gestalt is an unusual one no matter which side of the war you’re dying for, so he shrugs it off and gives the young helicopter an expectant look.
“You’re crazy,” Blades yells, with no care for the delicacy of the situation and every care for his brother. “You do know what it means for someone to be the enemy, right?”
There is no reply for some time; it appears First Aid is dealing with a particularly complex issue at present, and they all settle in to wait for his reply. Bonecrusher doesn’t want to wait, but Long Haul tells him to keep praying, and Mixmaster reminds him that not wanting to wait and not waiting are two different things entirely. Hook says nothing, and Scavenger thinks he probably needs physical contact to ground him, but Blades looks liable to shoot first and ask questions later, so he stays put.
Luckily Bonecrusher catches the thought and nudges Hook, disguising it as a prayer to a deity of violence that has Scavenger questioning why someone would pray to a god of pointless pain to help save a life, but he keeps that thought private. First Aid mumbles something to himself, then sits back to wipe oil off his hands and regard his work.
“They were only here to build,” he says, finally looking across the building. “Like we were only built to protect, and yet we all ended up fighting anyway. It happens like that sometimes, I’ve found.” It’s not quite the truth as Scavenger sees it, but it might be the truth as first aid sees it, which is probably more truthful to Blades than any version offered by a supposed enemy.
Blades doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t seem quite so antagonistic any more. Illuminated by the light of the door are two smaller figures; two more members of the Protectobot team, but Scavenger doesn’t draw attention to them, and they don’t draw attention to themselves. With four of them now at the warehouse, it is unlikely the fifth is elsewhere, but they make no move to combine or attack, or even report the Constructicons’ position to their superiors.
“How is he?”
Scavenger isn’t sure who asks the question; it could be any one of his brothers, or possibly all of them, but then he realises everyone has turned to look at him, and there is his answer. And now that he has started, the questions will not stop. “Are you done? Will he be alright? How much high grade do you want in payment? Do you want payment?”
“Why don’t you stop talking and let him answer?” Hook says in the barest break in the flow of words, but for once it isn’t a reprimand of some kind. “First Aid?”
“It’s done,” First Aid agreed. “There’s still damage, but it’s mostly in secondary circuit boards, and those are easily replaced. He’ll probably have lost most of his short-term memory - anything in the last few days, I doubt he’ll remember. There might also be corruption to a few permanent memory files, but it’ll mostly just be details, and I’m sure you can find ways around that. I have him in forced stasis at the moment, and you should probably keep him that way until you can patch up the cosmetic and structural damage, but apart from that he’ll make a full recovery.”
They stand for a moment, simply absorbing the information First Aid has just thrown their way. Scrapper is alive, and in no danger of deactivating. The damage is minor, despite the evidence of their optics in the not-at-all distance past. The warehouse is no longer shuddering under the weight of the war outside, but such a concern is secondary to their joy. Scrapper will live.
Scrapper will live, and be fine, and they owe it all to the Protectobot medic.
“And to answer your other questions, I don’t require payment,” First Aid says, as he draws level with Blades. The helicopter tries to place himself between Scavenger and his teammate, but is thwarted with a simple shake of the head. Scavenger can hear the smile in his voice as First Aid continues. “The work is its own reward.”
He walks out then, overprotective brother right on his heels and the remaining three all waiting for him at the door. There is a moment where they all look back, and Scavenger thinks in that moment perhaps they don’t have to be enemies, but then they are gone.
The bombardment starts up again, the vibrations running through everything and everyone, jolting them out of themselves. “Long Haul, Bonecrusher - grab Scrapper,” Hook orders, mostly to make himself feel better, because Long Haul has already transformed and Bonecrusher is doing his best to fit him in Long Haul’s tray.
Scavenger keeps out of the way, letting Hook roll past, muttering under his vents to himself. Long Haul follows, moving slowly so as not to jolt Scrapper out of his tray, and Bonecrusher follows as carefully as he ever can, just in case. Mixmaster is the last, coming up to stand beside Scavenger and peer back into the warehouse’s lonely gloom.
“We really owe them,” he says conversationally. “I don’t like owing A-Autobots favours, but somehow I don’t mind it with them.”
“I know,” Scavenger replies, looking at the dried energon on the ground and the rubble at the collapsed end of the building which had caused the damage in the first place. “We didn’t do so bad, did we?”
Mixmaster shrugs, the movement making his barrel spin, and Scavenger carefully edges away, just in case. “Depends what you’re talking about. But I guess we did alright. Now, if we’re done with the deep philosophical questions, maybe we should get back to base before M-Megatron changes his mind about our deployment?”
He transforms and follows their brothers, and Scavenger follows him, sparing one last look at the warehouse as it fades in the distance. “The reward is in the work itself,” he murmurs, as the flicker of an energon-fuelled fire swallows the moment in the red-tinged shadows of what it leaves behind.