Chapter Text
“No.”
“Ja‒”
“No.” He didn’t need to. Prowl meant well, but, “I’ll be fine, I just need a little more downtime.”
Prowl didn’t budge. “It’s been a whole week. If convalescing on your own was going to be enough, you would have improved by now.”
“I have improved!” He had! A lot more than he wanted to let on, because that would mean revealing how bad off he’d been in the first place. “I’m on the right track, I just need to keep taking it easy for a bit and I’ll be right as rain.”
“And in the meantime, you’ll continue to be‒”
“Useless, yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t worry, Mirage can cover any‒”
“‒in pain.”
“‒emergencieeeeeexcuse me?” That wasn’t the angle he’d expected Prowl to go for at all. Kind of threw the counterargument Jazz had prepared out the window. “I thought you’d be more worried about scheduling and the active duty roster than something as minor as a little discomfort,” he said, once again downplaying just how uncomfortable the past week had been. He’d already started to worry about how long his self-repair was taking himself. Why worry anyone else?
Looked like Prowl was worried anyway. “Come on.” He took a step forward, undeterred. “It’s time to see Ratchet.”
Jazz didn’t shrink back into his chair, but it was a near thing. “No.” He couldn’t go to Ratchet now. Not after putting it off like this…
“...don’t wanna get yelled at.”
Primus. That really did sound as petulant out loud as it did in his head, didn’t it?
If Prowl thought so, he didn’t comment. “Come on,” he simply repeated, extending an arm out to Jazz. “I’ll hold your hand.”
“Oh, yeah, like that’ll help,” Jazz scoffed, even as he wound his fingers through Prowl’s.
It absolutely helped.