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“It happens to everyone,” Chromia said. “I promise.”
Prowl stared at the floor. Another ping from Jazz came to his comm relay. He rejected it.
Chromia nudged him with a careful elbow. He flinched away anyway, gritting his dentae against the fresh shock of pain through his chassis.
“Don’t pout,” she said. “It makes your chevron look crooked.”
“It’s attached to my helm,” Prowl muttered. “It doesn’t move.”
“I didn’t say it was crooked. I said it looked crooked.”
When he turned to glare at her, only the twitch at the corner of her mouth belied that she was holding back a grin. At least she had stopped laughing outright. It didn’t matter what Jazz said, that had been embarrassing beyond measure.
“C’mon, kid," she said finally, clapping him on the back. It jarred his doorwings right down to their aching bases. "Cheer up. Once Ratchet gives you a clean bill of health, we’ll get out of the city for a nice, long, hazard-free drive and you can get some practice in, okay? Might be able to talk Windblade into coming, too. She neds to stretch her wings more.”
Prowl sighed. Even rubbing a hand over his face made his bumper hurt. Bits of shattered headlight fell onto the waiting room floor. More insult to injury. “I don’t want to show my face for at least a week.”
“Well, your friends will either harass you about it for a day or two and then move on, or, if you’re extra lucky, something even more interesting will happen while you’re holed up in your room playing strategy games and everyone will forget.”
Prowl opened his mouth, ready to protest that his tactical sims weren’t games, but First Aid waved them back into the medbay before he could say anything.
“Let me guess,” Ratchet said, eyeing the mess of Prowl’s chassis. “First time out in your alt mode?”
“Got it in one,” Chromia said.
“It was an accident,” Prowl muttered. He climbed up onto the slab with as much dignity as he could muster. Ratchet watched him, optics intent in the way that Prowl had long since come to associate with the inevitability of a cuttingly accurate diagnosis.
“Well, no slag, kid. Mechs don’t go headlong into walls for fun.”
“That's true,” Chromia butted in from her seat near the wall. “Which is why we don’t go joyriding with our friends instead of waiting for driving lessons from an actual adult.”
Ratchet pulled a tray of tools over and steadied Prowl’s chassis with one hand, ignoring the seething tension in his frame. “Let me guess. Jazz.”
Prowl didn’t bother to respond.
“Uh-huh. I saw him in here not too long ago with a similar ‘frame adjustment’. Only been driving for a quartex now, then, by my count. Your mentor’s right.”
Chromia shot him a smug thumbs-up behind Ratchet’s back.
“However, I also seem to remember your mentor having a few fender benders back when her tires were fresh.” Ratchet raised his brows as he plugged the medscanner into Prowl’s wrist port and then brought out a clamp the size of Prowl’s arm.
Chromia shrugged. “Like I said, kid. Happens to everyone their first time out.”
“That's--” Prowl grunted as Ratchet popped his hood back into place. “Very reassuring.”
He was going to kill Jazz.