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Minimus Ambus stared at the ceiling of the Lost Light's medibay, feeling very, very small.
Ratchet had ordered him onto a circuit slab. Minimus Ambus had protested - he was functioning well within normal parameters, there was no need for Ratchet to run any further tests on him - but the CMO was having none of it. Apparently he was concerned that the neural feedback from "having his fragging head crushed" might have some lingering side effects. (Ratchet hadn't taken learning Minimus had gone off to confront Tyrest alone well.)
He'd gone poking around in Minimus' chest, too, and when Minimus had inquired, had simply muttered something under his breath before storming off to check on the only other patient in the medibay. Privately, Minimus suspected that medic had wanted to double-check Pharma's work - after all, Ratchet had given the former Enforcer of the Duly Appointed Tyrest Accord only days to live. Minimus could have told him there was no need. Ratchet's former colleague might have been mad, but Tyrest did not tolerate failures.
Failures like him. Minimus' tiny hands clenched into fists at his sides.
His headless outer shell lay on the berth next to him. He'd been clutching it to his chest, having just retrieved it from the storage locker where Rodimus had put it for safe-keeping, when Ratchet had arrived and ordered him to the medibay. The medic hadn't even let him collect the scattered pieces of the Magnus armor.
Without it, he felt very, very small.
And cold, too. A loadbearer like himself could handle the additional strain on his circuitry that fully integrated neuroware like the Magnus armor demanded. But without that extra load - without the increased power output that wearing the suit required - temperatures other mechs found comfortable left Minimus feeling rather...chilled. His outer shell helped take the edge off, but now, stripped down to his irreducible self, he felt cold. Very cold. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been outside the armor before -
- before Tyrest had stripped him of it.
At least the only other patient in the medibay didn't have the same concerns he did. He always ran hot.
The mech in question lay on the circuit slab on other side of Minimus Ambus, optics closed, venting slow and even. He was hooked up to significantly more monitors than his second-in-command (former second-in-command? Minimus' tank churned at the thought), having been thoroughly pulverized by Perceptor's modifications to the killswitch.
But it was more than that. To Minimus' optics, Rodimus looked somehow dulled, as though all his sharp edges had been worn down and all his colors had faded away, just a little bit. Minimus knew logically that what he saw was only the result of combat damage and dust, and that after Ratchet's repairs and a good thorough rinse Rodimus' frame would look as good as new - but it felt like more than that. Rodimus looked tired. More than tired - Rodimus looked exhausted.
Someone had gathered up the parts that had fallen off the captain in Tyrest's control room and piled them up at the foot of the his berth, although it was a bit hard to tell the pile of Rodimus apart from the general mess the Legislators had made of the ship. Minimus trusted Ratchet would notice if he accidentally replaced any of the captain's plating with a bit of bulkhead -
That did it. Minimus Ambus would give Rodimus a thorough visual inspection and make a complete mental catalog of his injuries so he could present it to Ratchet upon the CMO's returned. It would give him something to do instead of - instead of -
"37 (109) C."
Minimus started. "Pardon, Captain?"
"C'mon, Magnus," Rodimus chided, optics still closed. "Duly Appointed Enforcer and all that. You probably know the Tyrest Accord better than ol' hole-head himself did - before he started changing it, anyway. Section 37, subsection 109, paragraph C."
Minimus, confused, answered on automatic. "Phase Sixers; the engagement of; close quarters combat, protocols for - "
- ah.
"Captain, I can explain - "
"I looked it up after you - after you were - ...yeah." Rodimus shifted on the slab and winced. He still hadn't opened his optics yet. Without thinking, Minimus reached out for him, but with his significantly shorter arms, Rodimus was too far away. "Anyway, I looked it up. 'No Autobot shall engage a Phase Sixer in hand-to-hand combat without a direct order from their superior officer.' "
"Captain, I - "
Rodimus continued on as though he hadn't heard. "Should be a bit in there somewhere about confronting Tyrest, too. Section something, subsection such-and-such, paragraph whatever - 'don't leave your captain locked up in a cell while you go running off to confront a zealous maniac with an army of giant, mindless automatons at his command.'"
The faintest of smiles flickered over Rodimus' face, and at last he opened his optics, turning his head to look over at Minimus. With another start, Minimus realized he was still reaching for his captain, but before he could pull his outstretched arm back and stammer an apology, Rodimus stretched out his own arm and caught his second-in-command's hand in his own. He twined their fingers together and then, apparently contented with that, closed his optics again.
Minimus didn't realize how just how badly he'd been aching to be touched until he felt the warm press of Rodimus' palm against his own. He drew in a shuddering breath, and Rodimus gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
Sometimes - before - Minimus would disconnect himself from the Magnus armor's neural interface. He would dim his optics, curl up on his side, and lay there in the dark, permitting himself to simply feel the armor all around him, wrapping him up like a warm embrace. Or at least he assumed it was like a warm embrace - it was warm, certainly, and while he'd never been embraced per se he imagined it might feel something like that -
( - or maybe even better - )
- but he hadn't felt the urge to since he'd joined the Lost Light.
Because Rodimus was touchy. Once, he'd been so eager to show Magnus something on his console that he'd actually clambered into Magnus' lap, looking back at him with a excited grin on his face as he pointed out their latest lead on the map. Magnus had been flabbergasted - he had no idea what to do with this, with superior officers who sat in their subordinates' laps -
( - and who were curvy and warm and squirmy, too, why couldn't Rodimus ever sit still - )
- and so maybe in the end it was just sheer bewilderment that had him touching back. But Rodimus would beam up at him - or frown up at him or pout up at him or sigh up at him - but he never told Magnus to stop and before Magnus even realized what had happened he was helplessly, hopelessly hooked.
He'd even hugged Thunderclash.
Tyrest had listed that among his many failings.
"You scared me, you know." Rodimus' voice brought him back to to the present. It was softer now, staticky around the edges, and the captain's thumb began to trace gentle circles over Minimus' knuckles. "When I saw you - when Overlord - when you - "
"You called out to me," Minimus wondered, and only then realized he'd spoken aloud, but Rodimus merely nodded.
"You had me pretty worried on Luna 1, too," he murmured, and then the corners of his mouth turned up. "It's almost like you want me screaming your name."
Minimus felt a flush of energon under his faceplates. Rodimus had lit his optics again and was gazing at Minimus through febrile, half-shuttered optics, and Minimus felt his fuel pump knock and hammer in his chest, but -
- but Rodimus flirted. He always flirted.
( - and he certainly wouldn't want Minimus now, would he, stripped of his armor, a laughingstock, a nobody, a joke - )
Minimus cleared his throat. "I apologize for causing you concern, captain." Perhaps Ratchet had been right to run his tests - Minimus seemed to have gotten some static in his vocalizer, too.
( - and if it hadn't sounded like Rodimus' usual flirting - if it had actually sounded like Rodimus was asking him a serious question - )
- but 'screaming' conjured up some more recent, much more unpleasant images, too, so instead Minimus said:
"Captain, when you were attached to the killswitch - when you told me that you didn't want to die and - and -"
- and when the reassurances he'd given to Rodimus were as much for himself as for his captain -
"Aww. Were you worried about me, too?"
Minimus felt like his spark had been laid bare. Yes. "Yes, captain."
A moment passed, and then another -
Rodimus sighed. "We screwed up, didn't we, Magnus." It wasn't a question.
So Minimus didn't answer. Instead, he simply squeezed Rodimus' hand.