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Red Alert drove as fast as he psychically could. Something had happened, something went wrong during a battle, and now, dozens of bots were fatally wounded.
Nearly every medic was called to the battlefield, Red Alert included. There was no time to get all of them to the Ark, they needed help now.
He wasn’t a field medic, mostly based on his previous profession before the war, and he hadn’t gotten a good look at Cybertron in cycles.
It looked awful.
No time for sightseeing, he was almost at the location, and needed to get there quick-
“Red Alert!” He heard Optimus over his comm. “Get to cover, they’re going to attack the medics-“
The comm was cut off by Red Alert getting blasted in the tire. He swerved around before getting blasted again, and crashing right into a building.
*
Red Alert awoke in a cold cell, his hands in stasis cuffs.
What happened?
One moment, he was driving to assist bots, the next…
He looked himself over for injuries. His tire was completely blown out, and would need replacing before he could safely drive again. His plating was also covered in blasts and some stained energon.
He was sure that Optimus said that they were attacking the medics…they being the Decepticons.
Red Alert went on the defense when he heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. When they reached the cell, Red’s breath hitched.
Megatron.
“You’re a medic, correct?” Megatron started. Red Alert cautiously nodded.
“Good.” He opened the cell door, and a couple of guards came to Red Alert’s side, forcing him to walk. Megatron also started walking, and Red was forced to follow.
They ended up in what seemed to be a medbay, all run down, several bots scattered about, clearly injured.
“As you can see, we don’t have a medic,” Megatron explained. “We need a medic to fix up our soldiers.”
Red Alert needed to help anyone and everyone. Those were his medical oaths he agreed to.
In better conditions, he would help everyone here.
But what Megatron was implying…
”So you took me as a prisoner to fix your soldiers?”
“You would’ve had more help, but the other medics either got away or were killed.”
Oh.
One of the guards came to Red Alert, and placed their hand on the stasis cuffs.
“Your stasis cuffs will be taken off while you’re working. There will be guards watching you. Don’t try anything.”
Red Alert nodded.
He had no choice in this.
Megatron left the medbay, and the door closed. The guard took off Red Alert’s cuffs, and held their gun up.
“Get to work.”
Nearby, there were some tools and energon for him to get started. He grabbed some tools, and went to the first bot he saw.
“What’s the problem?”
The bot groaned. “My…my fuel pump…”
“Okay, what’s happening with your fuel pump?”
“It…it doesn’t feel normal.”
Red Alert sighed. “I’m going to need more than that. Is it not pumping energon, does your chassis hurt, stuff like that.”
“Uh…I’m not getting energon through…that could be because I’ve been at 38% for months now…” months? Had the Decepticons not done anything for months? “It sometimes pumps weirdly. Either too fast or too slow.”
“Okay. Okay, that helps me a lot. Can you open your chassis panels?”
The bot nodded, and slowly revealed their fuel pump.
“What happened to get it like this, do you know?”
“I think I got in a bad explosion…and couldn’t do anything without my HUD screaming at me. And collapsing.”
Ah. So the fuel pump took some damage during an attack, and because the Decepticons never thought to get a medic or train someone to be a medic, this bot had been suffering for months on end.
They said they were stuck at 38%…most definitely the fuel pump wasn’t pushing energon to where it was needed.
Red Alert grabbed a tool, and started to work on the fuel pump.
*
There was a bot in the corner, optics darks, blank expression.
Had they left the dead here…?
”He won’t answer.”
Red Alert turned to a nearby bot. “I’m sorry?”
“His optics are blown out, and his audials stopped working long time ago. He speaks hand, though.”
Ah. A blind and deaf bot. Probably why he was thrown in here.
Red Alert carefully grabbed his hand, the bot flinching, before pressing words into his hand.
Here to help. Problem?
The bot was unmoving, as if he was trying to think of something to say back.
Sockets. Hurt.
How happen?
Shot. Hurt. Help.
Red Alert grabbed a flashlight and peered into the blown out eye sockets. He held the bot’s hand, as a way of saying that he was still here, that he was checking out the problem. No doubt, they were infected, and they likely never properly recovered after the shot.
Infected. Have to clean. Will be back.
The bot nodded and Red Alert searched through the cart, trying to find some sort of disinfectant or cleaner or anything.
He barely had anything to work with.
It’s fine, it was fine, he had barely enough to work with on the Ark, he could probably make due.
He found some very old disinfectant and a cloth.
That…probably wouldn’t make things worse.
Found stuff. Will sting.
Don’t care. Help. Hurt.
Red Alert applied some of the disinfectant on the cloth, and carefully placed it on the rim, as a warning before he went deeper. The bot flinched and made a small noise, but other than that, seemed fine.
Hit me if something wrong.
Help. Hurt.
The bot must’ve been suffering for a long time, just like the last bot.
Red Alert dipped the cloth into the socket, and pulled out a disgusting amount of dried energon and grim. He worked on the sockets for what seemed like forever, and even when he could get all that the cloth could grab, the sockets were still disgusting.
All I can do.
Thank you. Hug?
Red blinked a couple of times. Even before the war, he rarely hugged his patients, the only times he could think of was when he was trying to help a scared newbuild, and even those were far and few between.
Yes.
The bot opened his arms up, and Red Alert wrapped his own arms around the bot. The bot immediately relaxed in the embrace, likely the only time he had ever gotten any sort of comforting touch.
The hug lasted for a few moments before the bot let go, and pressed thank you in Red Alert’s hand again.
Red smiled, and pressed back, no problem. Slam floor if need help.
The bot left, and Red Alert stood up, on to the next bot.
“How come I didn’t get a hug after you fixed me up?” It was the bot with the broken fuel pump.
“You didn’t ask for one. Do you want one?”
The bot opened their arms up. Red Alert put down his tools and walked over to the bot, wrapping his arms around them as well.
When was the last time any of them got a hug?
The bot let go, and so did Red Alert.
“Thanks, doc.”
*
The next bot had lost both of their legs. Usually, if the limbs were intact, and the amputation was recent, they could reattach the limbs back to the bot.
Clearly, that was not the case.
“I got my legs on myself. Even did the patchwork myself.”
“I can tell…” Red Alert muttered. “I think all I can do for you is replace the patches, and disinfect.”
Red Alert carefully removed the patches, and couldn’t hold back a gag. It was so rusty underneath, very infected, grim pretty much a part of the plating now.
”It’s not a good thing when the doctor gags, is it?”
Red shook his head. “No, it’s not…” he grabbed the same disinfectant from before and a new cloth. He applied the disinfectant to the cloth, and slowly, started wiping.
“How did they get you here?”
“Nabbed me from the battlefield.” They didn’t need to know all the details, mostly because Red Alert could barely remember them to begin with. Most of them could see the Autobot symbol on his chassis, and most of them had seen him come in with stasis cuffs.
Other than the blind and deaf bot, they all could make assumptions on why he was here.
After a while, Red Alert cleaned up what he could, it still looked so awful, and applied new patches on the leg nubs.
“That’s all I can do with what we have.”
“Do I get a hug as well?”
“If you want one.”
The bot extended their arms. “I want one.”
Red Alert leaned in and hugged them.
Primus, he didn’t really think that Decepticons could be like this. He would’ve assumed that they had least had some sort of working medbay, based on how many battles they could have and how many Autobots they could injure…
He heard footsteps behind him, and when he turned around, he saw the guards.
“Time to get back to your cell.”
Oh. He wasn’t going to stay in the medbay, or leave when everyone was checked out.
He apparently had a timer, and his timer was up.
He stood up, and held out his wrists, where the stasis cuffs were put back on, and he was led out of the medbay.
“…so they can’t even let him do his job?”
“He is a prisoner.”
*
In Red Alert’s cell was a small cube of energon, likely his rations for the day. Or week. Or however long they wanted to keep him for.
He took a small sip of the energon before stopping, and putting it in his subspace. The medbay barely had any sort of medgrade energon, they would need it more than he did.
Plus, he was at an okay level, he could afford to not have energon tonight.
Part of him hated that he was helping the Decepticons, forced to, but the other parts…
The Decepticons, at any point, could’ve found someone in their ranks, surely, someone, or at least attempted to help the Decepticons. Instead, they were left there, probably to die, suffering day after day.
He couldn’t just refuse, even if he wasn’t being held prisoner.
These bots deserved help.