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It all happened far too fast. Rung wasn’t used to battle - he was kept far off the front lines, far from any areas of high risk. When they’d abandoned the base to the onslaught of an Autobot surprise attack, Rung had gotten lost among the smoke and fire. He’d been left behind. And the Autobots had found him.
When he woke, Rung was restrained for surgery - restraints holding his head steady and straps holding his body in place even though he was already held fast to a magnetic surgical slab. From what he could see and hear, he was alone save two Autobot mnemosurgeons.
“I’m Chromedome,” the big one said to him, optics curved into a smile behind his visor. That unnerving Autobot joviality made Rung’s spark crawl inside his chest. “Not that you’ll remember it for long, but still. I try to be polite.” Chromedome gestured to the back of a thinner mech arranging tools at the periphery of Rung’s vision. “I’m told you already know my associate, Trepan.”
“It’s been a while,” Trepan said without turning around. “Before the war, hasn’t it? I see you’ve been keeping yourself busy.” Rung remembered him - he’d been one of Froid’s people.
“You won’t get anything out of me,” Rung said, trying for bravery. What came out was closer to resignation, and had to be said through clenched teeth - the head restraint made it difficult to move his jaw. “I have very strong firewalls.”
Rung didn’t mention that those firewalls were designed to melt his internal hard drives down into a single solid chunk of slag, should anyone actually manage to break through them. It wouldn’t matter. They’d try anyway. Better they make the attempt unprepared.
Chromedome glanced at him, still smiling.”I do like a challenge,” he said, as if the idea entertained him.
To one side of him, Trepan laughed. He turned around, holding a tray of instruments, still mercifully at the edges of his vision. “Ready to get started when you are.” Rung heard the tools shift as Trepan put down the tray.
Chromedome gave Trepan an absent nod. He leaned in close and reached towards Rung’s face. Rung flinched. Chromedome carefully lifted Rung’s glasses from the bridge of his nose, then placed them on the table beside them.
“Normally, I tell people not to fight,” Chromedome said, a fuzzy yellow-and-white blur. “It’s easier if you don’t fight - easier for all of us. But you, with those firewalls of yours? You might not be able to help fighting.”
Chromedome stepped around to one side of him, vanishing from his field of view. He leaned in close, his electromagnetic field disconcertingly calm. This was nothing to him - just another day on the job, one mental violation among hundreds. Perhaps thousands. Rung already knew that, but to feel it…
An armor-saw clicked on, a loud, whirring buzz. Rung tried to flinch away from the bite of it in his helm, but the restraints held his head mercilessly still. Sparks flew. The air smelled like hot metal and burning energon. Trepan and Chromedome spoke to each other, barely audible over the sound of the saw. Barely worth noticing over the pain.
The lights went tinged with red.
At first, Rung thought it was a visual glitch caused by the saw cutting into his helm. But then the buzzing cut off abruptly, and the pain changed to a throbbing ache. With the saw turned off, Rung could hear the sound of an alarm.
He heard a muffled noise to one side of him, but couldn’t turn to see. Another sound, less muffled - a sound that may have been gunfire. Chromedome and Trepan spoke to each other - one of them was swearing. Something struck the wall hard enough that Rung’s surgical slab shook and the tray of instruments rattled, but Rung couldn’t see what it was - even if his head had been free, his vision was a wet blur without his glasses.
Something struck the wall again. This time it gave. Chromedome and Trepan both turned to run. One of them fell to the sound of gunfire. The other one screamed, somewhere that Rung could no longer see. There was screaming coming from the hallway, too - Rung could hear it, distant and receding.
Something huge and heavy landed in front of him - a blur of harsh angles and a familiar sound of rotors, pale blue splashed with the pink of spilled fuel.
Whirl.
Whirl peered at him, yellow optic spiralling narrow, coming into better focus as he moved closer. His optic shifted from Rung’s face to the surgical tools on the table and then the gap in Rung’s helm. One claw reached towards him, and Rung couldn’t flinch away from the curious touch of it against raw circuitry.
Whirl withdrew the claw tip and crouched down, meeting Rung’s gaze. “Doc. You still you?”
Rung sputtered. “Yes, Whirl. I’m still me.”
Whirl’s optic contracted to a fine point. “How do I know?”
Rung fought the restraints. “Fraggit Whirl, I’m still me! Let me out of this chair!”
Whirl stared, weapons systems still activated. His expression was utterly unreadable, his electromagnetic field dampened by centimeters of thick armored plate. He turned away, glancing around the room, then turned back again with Rung’s glasses perched between his claw tips. He delicately pushed them up the bridge of Rung’s nose, his single optic curved into a fond smile.
Rung blinked as the world came back into focus. Whirl jabbed the button that operated the magnetic surgical slab, then ripped through the rest of the bonds with the sharp inner curve of one claw.
He lifted Rung with energon-soaked claws, took a few steps towards the exit he’d made in the far wall, then immediately dropped him.
“Oops.” Whirl ducked down and scooped him up again. Rung clung desperately to anything he could reach - guns or armor plate or still-hot rotor blades. “Claws weren’t really made for carrying people.”
It was true - Whirl’s claws had been altered for usefulness in battle, more weapons than tools. Rung slid down another half meter. Whirl carelessly pushed him up again, pressing him too hard against his chest plating.
Whirl's optic curved into a gleeful grin. "Hey, wanna try riding on my shoulders?"
“Whirl, for Primus’ sake, put me in your cockpit.”
Whirl cocked his head. “Will you fit? Don’t think you’ll be too comfortable in there.”
“I’ll manage.”
It was unpleasantly cramped, but with some shoving from Whirl, Rung did fit - doubled over, body pressing up against Whirl on all sides. Around him, Whirl’s electromagnetic field shifted into sudden sharp clarity.
Whirl got them out alive, of course, leaving a trail of corpses, spent bullet casings, and bits of his own armor in their wake. Rung was glad for Whirl’s increasingly opaque windshield, splintered and spattered with other peoples’ fuel; it meant he didn’t have to watch. Even after all these years, he’d never developed a tolerance for violence.
He was glad for his empty fuel tanks, too. He’d never developed a tolerance for flying either, and it was hardly a steady flight.
“Whirl,” Rung asked him, once they’d lost any Autobot pursuit and Whirl’s giddy laughter had finally died down, “was this mission authorized?”
Whirl’s laughter started up again - a different kind, this time. “Did I go rogue, you mean?” Whirl did a few celebratory dips and spins that made Rung’s fuel tanks churn. “Nah. Megs didn’t want them poking around in your head. ‘Bring him back alive, or else bring back his corpse.’” Whirl’s impression of Megatron was accurate enough to make Rung smile despite everything. “He sent me because he knew I’d get the job done. That’s all.”
An immense relief. Whirl would be getting praised for this, not getting beaten.
Head still leaking fuel, forehead pushed up against his own knees, Rung passed out.
A series of tests awaited him once he got back to base. UV light scans, the results of which Rung awaited with nervous anticipation - memories could be altered, and the fact that he remembered no one accessing his mind didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Scans of his internal hard drives and his firewalls. Scans of his innumerable secret compartments, to make sure the Autobots hadn’t hidden any trackers or other unwanted surprises inside of him.
Rung suffered through the tests; they were painless, but years of medical abuse at the hands of the Functionist state had left their mark on him. The last scan was still running when he got the ping - a summons from Megatron.
Well. Megatron or not, it would have to wait until his head was declared untampered-with.
An hour later, Rung finally answered Megatron’s summons.
“Lord Megatron,” he said, bowing. “Apologies for my lateness. They wouldn’t let me out of the medical bay until they’d verified —”
Megatron absently waved him into silence. Not in the mood for formalities today, apparently. “You’re intact, then?”
An odd way of putting it. And there was something about Megatron’s voice… “Yes,” Rung said. “They’d only just gotten started before Whirl… interrupted them. The medical team has been testing me since I got back, just to verify. No tactical or personal data was compromised.”
Megatron gestured him closer. Rung obeyed. Like Whirl, Megatron’s electromagnetic field was quite faint, suppressed by heavy armor, but this close Rung could feel the prickling edges of it even through the armor.
Megatron gripped Rung’s head with one big hand and tilted it to the side. He ran his thumb across the weld where the mnemosurgeons had sawed Rung open. Rung could feel the weight of Megatron’s gaze. He could feel something else, too, in the faint texture of his electromagnetic field.
Megatron let him go without a word. Rung stood still for a long time, waiting for Megatron to speak.
“Lord Megatron,” Rung finally said, “if there’s nothing else, I—” Megatron glanced down as if he’d half forgotten about him. “The medics ordered me to refuel and get some rest.”
“Ah. Yes, of course.” Megatron waved a hand at him and turned away. “Dismissed.”