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Knock Out paced the medbay and silently cursed every life decision that had brought him to this point.
He couldn't do much else. Even if he had been willing to defy Megatron – and he wasn't, even if that made him a coward – he couldn’t exactly storm some human military base. Given time, and strategy, and enough bodies to keep between himself and the enemy weapons, he could have made them regret ever coming near the Decepticons – but if there was one thing Breakdown likely didn't have, it was time.
He should have gone anyway, Megatron be damned. He would have wanted Breakdown to come for him, if he'd been captured –
Whether or not Breakdown would have was a separate question, of course. He might have, he might not, and Knock Out liked to think he wouldn’t have gotten himself into that position in the first place. But if it had happened, he knew what he would have wanted, and it wasn’t what he was doing it.
Defying Megatron's orders would have been suicide. Picking a fight with an army of humans would also have been suicide. Knock Out liked being alive.
But if Breakdown died –
Well, Megatron would end up on his exam table eventually. Everyone did.
Not that it helped now, of course.
So he paced the medbay, and organized things that didn't need it, and patched up a nervous Vehicon who fled the medbay like his aft was on fire the second Knock Out closed the last weld, and silently cursed his own options and Megatron's entire Primus-damned existence and whatever stupid decision had gotten Breakdown captured in the first place.
Maybe Breakdown would get himself out on his own. He'd pulled off the impossible before. Megatron clearly thought he should have been able to get himself out on his own, so perhaps he had a chance. Maybe in a few hours...
Knock Out knew how that math worked. Even the dumbest Vehicon did. The longer Breakdown stayed in human custody, the worse the odds got.
But just when he had reorganized the spark plugs for the fifteenth time and was telling himself, over and over, to stop saying maybe and what-if, because there was no point, the medbay door clicked open.
Knock Out spun so fast he nearly cleared the entire shelf with his elbow, and for a moment everything was all right, because Breakdown was standing right there, and he was fine and he was alive –
- and he wasn't fine, he was missing an optic and limping like he'd been tossed off a cliff, but Knock Out had seen far worse. As long as Breakdown was alive, he could fix anything else.
"What took you so long?" He was across the room in a few strides, reaching out and stopping bare centimeters short of grabbing Breakdown by the shoulders. "Do you have any idea how worried I was –”
"I know." Breakdown's voice was rough with exhaustion. "You don't have to tell me."
The missing optic was an ugly, gaping hole in Breakdown's face, apparently cut out cleanly and cauterized by someone with no experience working with living metal. Knock Out hoped they'd at least turned off his pain receptors - the clean cuts made that more likely - but if he ever met the mech responsible, he'd repay the favor.
Or, more likely, the human responsible.
He put a hand on Breakdown’s jaw, examining the injury carefully without touching it. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever seen, not a hard thing to fix for a good medic – if he’d had a spare optic on hand.
He didn’t.
“It’s a shame they’re organics.” Knock Out stroked his thumb across Breakdown’s cheek. “I’d rip their optics out for a replacement.”
Breakdown didn’t even smile at the threat. Knock Out pulled him into an embrace, and Breakdown only reciprocated after a moment of stiff silence.
“Breakdown,” he started, and then stopped, because what was there to say? I’m sorry would have been terribly inadequate, and you’ll be all right was dismissive, and what happened was a stupid question that they both knew the answer to.
Best not to go there at all.
“Washracks?” he said instead. “Looks like you could use it, and if I do say so myself, there’s no one better with a buffer.”
(Well, except Breakdown himself, arguably, but under the circumstances, a little exaggeration was forgivable.)
Breakdown hesitated for a too-long moment, and Knock Out was just preparing to offer to leave Breakdown to handle it on his own (as much as he loathed that idea, clearly Breakdown shouldn’t be left alone) when Breakdown said, “A’right, let’s go.”
Unspoken, hidden under a near-casual tone: As long as you don’t ask me to talk about it.
For once, the solvent in the washracks ran hot and clear. Knock Out leaned up against Breakdown’s side, and when Breakdown made no objection, all but draped himself over the bigger mech’s back. “Relax,” he purred (or tried to – it came out less sensual than he might have hoped), running slender fingers along stiff seams and tight cables.
“I am,” Breakdown grunted. Both of them knew it was a lie, but he let Knock Out work, even leaning into the medic’s clever hands after a moment. Years of experience meant that Knock Out knew every little gap and hidden nerve bundle where tension might hide, and he worked over all of them, the process a silent reassurance for himself as much as Breakdown.
“Door’s locked,” he said, conversationally. “Anyone comes through it’s going to find themselves missing something they’re very attached to. So relax and let me take care of this.”
“You sure about that? Wouldn’t be the first time you forgot to lock the door.” It was a weak joke, but it was something. Knock Out decided he’d take it.
“First, that was you. And second…” He slid a hand under a heavy armor plate to work along the cabling hidden under it, and was rewarded with a sigh that wasn’t quite a groan. “You’re not relaxing. Shush.”
Hands alone, no matter how skilled, wouldn’t do for cleanup forever. Once he judged Breakdown had relaxed enough to make it worthwhile, Knock Out retrieved a soft cloth from the locked box stored in the corner and went to work with a gentleness few, if any, of his patients ever saw. “Nothing terrible, really,” he commented, assessing the damage as he went along. “Nothing that won’t buff right out.”
At least…eventually.
The human-made lacerations were clean, if crude, and their bullets didn’t leave deep dents on heavy armor. Most of them would close up on their own, and the ones that didn’t would only take a few minutes with a welder – some medics might have taken longer, but Knock Out was very good at his job, if he did say so himself. He could have fixed those in his sleep.
It wasn’t just human damage. Breakdown had apparently encountered an Autobot somewhere along the way too, because he carried the deep dents and paint transfers characteristic of the kind of fight that Breakdown called “a damn good time” and Knock Out called “a waste of a nice paint job”, but none of those were particularly serious either. Pop the dents, scrub off the worst of the paint traces, put on a fresh coat and buff out anything left over – that was just standard combat aftercare (and, typically, led to a different but equally fun activity requiring a different kind of aftercare). An hour or two of work and it would be like the whole incident never happened.
Almost.
As for the optic…
They weren’t going to deal with that right now.
He didn’t have the replacement parts. Breakdown knew he didn’t have the replacement parts. Optics were delicate little things that they hadn’t had reliable replacements for since coming to this planet.
They weren’t going to get into that now.
It really was a shame human optics weren’t cross-species compatible. Not that it would stop him from slowly, painfully removing them if he ever happened to come across the culprits.
“You know, I could handle my own cleanup,” Breakdown muttered, though he didn’t even attempt to away from Knock Out’s busy hands. “Not like you gotta –”
“Shush,” Knock Out said briskly. “Here, turn around so I can reach.”
Breakdown complied, but continued, “Look, I appreciate it, but I can – it’s not like I need a medic, or anything.”
Knock Out opened his mouth to say of course you do, and shut it again, because – well, he did, but no Decepticon ever wanted to hear that. Especially not one who’d just had a stark reminder that Megatron wouldn’t waste resources to save a mech from his own mistakes. If Megatron had known, he might very well have ordered Knock Out to leave Breakdown to recover on his own.
Decepticon rules could be cruel, sometimes, even by Knock Out’s very low standards.
But Megatron didn’t know, and he hadn’t given any orders about it, and even if he had, there was an easy enough loophole. Knock Out had worked around Megatron’s orders before. It wasn’t that hard.
“Nonsense,” he said instead. “You need a shower with your conjunx.” To emphasize the words, he pressed a kiss to the nearest armor plate, which unfortunately was Breakdown’s shoulder and not anywhere more sensitive. “That’s all this is. Don’t fuss about it.”
Breakdown’s engine rumbled in what might have been satisfaction or discontent, and he leaned over to turn up the solvent temperature. Knock Out went back to his work, moving slower and more carefully, and after a moment, Breakdown grabbed a sponge from the bin and began carefully polishing his way along whatever he could reach of Knock Out. It wasn’t necessary – but under no circumstances was Knock Out going to stop him.
Scrubbing turned to polishing, and polishing to simply touching, and it didn’t take long before the sponges and cloths had been discarded. Knock Out ran a hand along Breakdown’s chest, tracing the outline of heavy armor shielding his spark chamber in a silent reassurance that it was all still there and intact; Breakdown ran heavy blunt fingers down Knock Out’s spine as if trying to erase the memory of the last thing he’d touched.
“Don’t scare me like that again.” Knock Out’s own voice sounded too loud over the sound of the quiet washracks.
“Wasn’t the plan, getting captured by a pack of organics,” Breakdown rumbled. Bitterness laced the words. “I don’t plan to repeat it.”
Knock Out would have liked to offer a promise that the Decepticons would crush MECH for their audacity – but he wasn’t that much of a liar. Megatron had made his opinion of the whole thing clear, and when he crushed the humans it would be for his own reasons, not in revenge. If Breakdown wanted vengeance, he’d get it himself – and it might have been the coward’s decision, but right at that moment, Knock Out didn’t particularly want to encourage that.
So instead, he said, “We’ll pay them back for it someday. Get me one on that table and I’ll make sure it never happens again,” and pulled Breakdown down for a kiss before either of them could say anything more.
The solvent had gone cold by the time they left the washracks.