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It was dark, but no darker than it had been for the past four solar cycles. At least, he assumed they were solar cycles, but the gravitational pull of the three triangulated black holes had distorted the space time to make it hard to tell even though his chronometer hadn’t been disabled. Perceptor had explained it all very well, and he had been paying attention, but some things went over his helm even after all this time listening. Still, he wished he had remembered more. It would have been something to distract him now.
He had used the first cycle or so to try and work through his captor’s mindset, but it had been a brief and futile effort that he knew was futile and did anyways. There was little else to distract himself with in this cell. They’d beat him rather badly, the first day, to make some sort of hostage video. Typical situation, really, but it was much harder to stay removed from it when he was the victim. He was no stranger to pain, of course, but he was old and used to comfort at this point, and terribly weak. Now, half blinded, with one hand crushed and both legs relatively inoperable and almost severed, Rung was beginning to wonder if he should prepare himself for the well.
It was something he had felt he was ready for a long time before, but now, in a way that surprised him greatly, he realized he was not.
When the doors began to slide open he curled in on himself, though the effort it took was nearly worse than whatever was coming. However, when the door opened it brought with it not just the blurry figure of his dark captor but also a scream of sirens and metal against metal.
“Down! Stay down!”
Rung didn’t need to be told, but remained still as the mech slid to a sloppy halt, closing the door and bracing over his prone form. He was holding a blaster; even in such a state of disrepair Rung recognized the shape. Similarly, he recognized the clear signs of panic that gripped his body, the stress tensing his joints, the wide glow of his visor.
A loud slam of something against the door, possibly a body, made them both jump.
“WH-what is going on?”
He was used to asking questions, and so it was his first response. Not a wise one. The mech smacked him across the cheek, hard, knocking his jaw out of alignment and splitting open the light scars over his broken optic, the glass of his spectacles still jamming the mechanisms of his face and making fresh energon spill. He cried out, not loudly, but loud enough to earn him another slap.
Something else hit the door, three times in quick succession, and with a great billow of smoke the seal was breached. It was a laser, and another two shots blew the doors off their sliders and onto the floor. It was too dark to see clearly, even if Rung had been at full function, but there was a figure, angular and sleek, that shot into the room with such fury that his captor jumped away from him an attempt to escape, into the smoke. It was not a smart move.
Rung could not see the battle, but it ended so quickly he doubted he would have wanted to. There was a spattering of sparks, a cry, a laugh, and the sick gurgle of fluids bubbling from a gaping wound, and something collapsed.
“Hey.”
Out of the mist of pixilated fog surrounding his line of vision, Whirl emerged.
“o-oh, W-W-W-.”
Apparently that last slap had knocked more out of alignment than his jaw. He tried to push himself up on his good arm, but it wasn’t easy. He was afraid. Whirl was a wildcard, easily aggravated, turned on by violence. He could not be sure where this would go, and he scrambled against the floor to move away, to get back, but there was little he could do. Whirl was on him in nano-kliks.
“W-W-!”
“Settle down, glasses.”
As kind as he wanted those words to be, there was something dark and evil in them. Hunching over his body like a predator on prey, Whirl gently tapped the blunt side of his claws to Rung’s cheek, turning them this way and that. Rung let him, relaxed, body language as open as he could make it. He wanted to ask who else had come down, what was happening in the halls, but he couldn’t. Words were his greatest asset and now he was divorced from them. It was natural to be afraid, he told himself. Natural. That didn’t change anything.
“They really did a number on you,” said Whirl, a long, high whistle underlining the words. He crouched lower, the undercarriage of his breast inches away from Rung’s thigh.
“Those slagging grease stains are dead.”
His helm lowered down until he was nuzzling Rung’s cheek. Having no idea how to react, Rung remained still.
“You want that, right?”
There was a genuine hop in his voice that was so sincere Rung would have agreed to almost anything, but even though he would have firmly denied him the promise of murder there was no way he could express that. It mattered not; a moment later, someone else rushed through the door.
“Autobo-!”
Whirl turned, still caging Rung with his body, and shot the mech’s head right off. Whatever he was packing, it was not standard issue. Probably something Brainstorm had cooked up. He didn’t care, shying into Whirl’s arm at the sound of it.
“S’alright, little guy, I got you.”
“Whirl?”
Footsteps echoes down the hall, that, he now noticed, had grown significantly quieter.
“You in there?”
He couldn’t quite make out the voice, but whoever it was sounded like they were half hoping they were wrong.
“Yup.”
He didn’t move, though, forcing the other person to stick their head through the hole where the doors once were.
“I-is that him? Is he alive?”
Whirl chuckled deeply, still not sounding fully right, and pick up Rung’s tried undamaged hand to wave loosely.
“Sort of.”
Rung spat a surprised line of static, more sheepish than upset.
“Oh, great. I’ll call Ratchet.”
The mech moved back out of sight and Whirl shifted over him, hunkering down. Rung gave him the best questioning look he could manage at the moment.
“Sorry,” said Whirl, surprising him again, “that you got all banged up. Probably sucks worse for an old guy like you.”
Rung smiled weakly, feeling a little dizzy from it all. More feet were clanking down the halls, and then a group of bots entered the room, led by their chief medic.
“Alright, thank you, Whirl we’ll take it from here.”
“No,” hissed Whirl, “I don’t think so.”
Rung couldn’t really see the reactions from the crowd, but he could se the way Whirl suddenly seemed to become more prickly, more angular, as if he had grown spikes. His claws danced around Rung’s head in a way that made him freeze nervously. He knew Whirl didn’t want to hurt him, at least not right now, but he also knew excitement of any kind could have dangerous repercussions.
“Excuse me?”
“I said no, doc. I can handle this.”
And then he was being swung into the air. It hurt, his joints and wounds all popping and sparking at the sudden movement, but once he had settled he realized he was significantly more comfortable than he’d been before. Whirl had him up like a bitlet, held around the left side of his windshield across the crook of one arm supported by the other. Rung was not very short, but Whirl was relatively large by normal standards and after the days in darkness he found being held so high very disorienting, making him clutch at the arms that held him.
He couldn’t see it, but the group of blood spattered non-affiliates holding a makeshift stretcher were torn between reaching for their guns and rolling their optics.
“Whirl, he needs medical care.”
“Which he can get in the med bay!” Whirl crowed, taking an offensive step forward and pushing them all back.
“Exactly my point-”
“Exactly my point, Ratch. We’ll just catch you there.”
Everyone was getting tense, and Rung knew it. He waved again, this time of his own volition, trying to signal that it really wasn’t as bad as it looked. Besides, something about the protective hug was making him feel a little warm inside, meaningless as it may be.
“See? He agrees with me.”
Not exactly what he meant, but it was sometimes better to just let Whirl have his moments. Ratchet sighed, shaking his helm.
“And what if he goes into shock or some other systems failure?”
“Then he’ll be in good hands. I mean, about half way there.”
He clacked his claws. Rung heard a sigh, and Ratchet seemed to relent, because they were on the move again. Whirl, trying his best to be his knight. It was probably the first time someone had insisted on carrying him around like delicate parcel. He might have laughed, had he been in the shape for it. As it was, he simply pulled closer, wondering exactly what repercussions this was going to have on their future relationship.
He couldn’t be as professional about it as he would have liked.