Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Bite down on this,” Ratchet says, waving a thick piece of metal in front of his faceplate, and Rung does so without hesitation.

There’s not enough time to make it back to the Lost Light before he bleeds out, so Ratchet’s opted for his specialty—removing foreign objects from foreign locations, as both a field medic and Chief Medical Officer to Rodimus.

Rung wiggles a little underneath the doctor, his arms pinned down above his helm by another mech. Their grip is unfaltering, but their grimace turns into a smile half as wobbly as he feels when the two lock optics. He mirrors the expression. Rung thinks it’s Thunderclash holding him down, but he’s not really processing anything efficiently right now, stuttering out an, “Oh, ah—” around the bit as his attention is redirected to the medic poking around his left thigh.

He feels a cloth gently wipe circles over the exposed wires of his upper thigh, near the hip joint, and quietly begins to tremble. It’ll be over so soon , he tries to remind himself, even as it stings, it’s alright. The anticipation is always worse than the pain, but he’s lying to himself and he knows it. Some pain is worth all that anticipation, and this won’t be pleasant, not with how the injury radiates agony and promises more.

His vents come shallow and fast; dread all but drowns his processor, static clogging his optics, mind and body reeling as a second pair of servos joins Ratchet’s on his legs, steadying them to little effect. They glide up to his legs above his knees, and here they press down with a comforting deep pressure, giving the good doctor a better canvas to work with.

He remembers his venting exercises just as someone—no, Thunderclash—speaks up overhead, nudging him with a, “Hey, hey, c’mon Rung, try to vent.” 

He invents for five kliks, then holds for another five, the motion clearing his processor until he gasps out an exvent and the panic returns barely subdued. He holds again, optics shuttering closed, but Ratchet bumping him is enough for him to online his optics and lose control of his intakes again.

The embarrassing, sobbed sound of distress and hurt he makes is muffled by the metal bit, but his friends must’ve heard it with the way Thunderclash rubs a thumb over his wrist and whispers, “It’s going to be alright,” while someone farther down lightly shushes him.

Ratchet grunts something to Thunderclash, who nods and turns his helm to the side to yell: “WHIRL, GET YOUR AFT OVER HERE!” out into the sea of surrounding mechs.

Rung hears the quick tread of pede-steps to his left just as something loops up and under his leg, settling near his hip joint before being pulled uncomfortably tight around its circumference. He whines a little. 

A few moments later, three-toed, claw-like pedes — tapping out quiet metallic tink–tink noises in succession with each step — saunter to a stop on the ground next to him. A disoriented gaze upwards reveals the singular, yellow optic and large cockpit of the mechanism they’re attached to.

“Whir’l?” he calls. Whirl looks worryingly blank. “Are y’ou ok—okay?”

Unmoving, the helicopter stares down at him for a few more kliks. After a bit he jolts a little though, optic widening as he replies, “Yeah doc, I’m fine.” 

He pauses before continuing, “Right as rain, perfectly fine, Primus , eyebrows, shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

Rung smiles in spite of his unease, venting a half-laugh in response. He supposes so, casting his gaze downwards. Whirl follows his optics, both of them locked onto the constant state of motion of the medic further down.

“Ah, don’t look,” Thunderclash says above him, one hand gently tilting Rung’s chin back, and suddenly his attention is up here again. Except—except he can hear Ratchet clinking around his tools, and his leg is a very tingly sort of numb but he knows when it comes he’ll still be able to feel it, and it’s going to hurt and it’s going to hurt so bad—

It’s difficult to stay rational and composed when terror coils behind his optics, wraps around his throat and warps his spark. It is so very, very difficult. The scrap metal stuck in his leg isn’t helping much either.

“How about Whirl holds your servo?” Thunderclash abruptly blurts, grabbing his arm and moving it closer to Whirl’s claw. “Would that be nice, Rung?”

Rung looks back at Whirl, who looks one more moment of dealing with this as a bystander away from mentally exploding. That would be nice, he thinks, and fumbles about reaching out with his servo until it finally meets its target, latching on with surprising strength just as Whirl closes his claw around it with a similar fervor.

“I’m here doc, I’m here,” Whirl tells him. Rung nods. “It’s—it’s gonna be okay, Rung.” He nods again, with sudden, inexplicable tears streaming down his faceplates.

“Aw hell, don’t cry,” Whirl responds, voice shaky, “If you cry I’ll get all teary and slag and we can’t have that ‘cause we both know it’s gonna be alright.”

Whirl’s claw traces over the knuckles of the servo in its grasp. Thunderclash wipes falling tears with careful digits, rubbing the thumb of his free servo over the plating just under Rung’s optics. Primus, he’s so lucky to call them friends.

“I don’t—uh, well, I guess the worst that can happen is Ratchy Hatchy cuts your leg off,” Whirl tries to humor, and wow , Rung can’t help but make a sound caught between a laugh and a sob, “NOT, that he’ll—uh—do that, because he won’t, you only have a teensy weensy stab, like absolutely tiny , BUT if he did we could get you a peg leg! Or a leg that’s secretly a gun if we get Brainstorm on it, or!! Or, consider: we could stuff it with more secret compartments than your processor would ever know what to do with.”

Rung, ever grateful for the distraction, hysterically and quite degradingly thinks that he’s sure this event will have no negative repercussions on Whirl or his psyche. Then he scolds himself for the remark, because Whirl has improved significantly in his handling of uncomfortable and traumatic stimuli, and both of them will make it out of this alright. 

Well…No. Rung attempts to put his mind on mute.

The ex-wrecker squeezes Rung’s hand again, “But it doesn’t matter what happens because you’re—” and Ratchet says something then, to Thunderclash and Whirl and probably also to him, but Rung only catches ‘ removal process ’ and ‘ hold him steady ’, watching Whirl’s optic condense to a little point, before his spark drops in its chamber.

And Rung shakes like he’s back on the fucking table again with the functionists, watching them test and tear and take him apart and vivisect in a way he hasn’t quite gotten over, vents frigid, limbs spasming with raw, nigh uncontrollable fear at the slightest flinch of a metal prong over plating. He’s there and he’s here, except the floor here is rough and his left servo has a vice grip on Whirl’s claw.

“—you’re gonna get through this, doc, it’s gonna be okay,” Whirl starts again, this time pressing down on his chassis with his other claw in a gesture comedically close to an embrace for the ‘copter. “Rung, Rung, it’s gonna be alright, fuck , it’s gonna be okay,” and Rung keens with panic underneath them all, and, and —

The large metal stake in his thigh slides out with a wet shlink , and all Rung feels is blinding white pain.

He chokes out a muffled scream in awful, mind-melting agony, back arching up into capable servos and a strong claw that push him back down . Behind its casing his spark flares wildly, scorching the air.

Oh Primus please stop it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts he begs even with the fuzzy static of the tourniquet, and he keens again in a pathetic, continuous, strained high noise closer to a whimper. His limbs convulse and writhe, arms and legs jerking against the servos holding them, his own servos clenching and unclenching on air and a slightly dented claw.

“—it’s okay, it’s okay, shhh—”

“—we’re here, get it all out—”

His jaw aches with the onset of something worse from biting down with such force. Tears blur his vision through already hazy optics, and he sobs loudly now, yelping when Ratchet uses forceps to dig around in his open wound. 

He whines every couple of kliks in broken tones with harsh vents, and the claw covering his chassis starts rubbing languid circles up and down his plating.

I’m not going to die , he repeats in a mantra to himself, I’ve been through worse and this is not going to kill me. It’s quite hard to hear his own words, especially when Ratchet’s work at stitching up his energon lines has molten black and white sparkling once more through his vision. 

He cries and sobs openly as the pain slowly trickles down from overwhelming to something more easily compartmentalized and distracted from; the sharp, throbbing hurt in his leg gradually reigns itself in to only his thigh, then only the incision. He cries as more stitches are laid and more words are spoken, as his venting slows and he relaxes gradually, until he only occasionally trembles with optics half closed.

Once he’s stopped flailing about so much, Thunderclash scoots up a bit to rest Rung’s helm in his lap. Rung himself lies boneless and strutless beneath these kind mechs, too exhausted to do much else other than to lean into the warm servos that hold and caress his helm. 

His head has ended up turned left, and he watches Whirl through dimmed optics, the mech still muttering little mindless placations that stutter to a halt when Rung gently squeezes his claw.

Wordlessly peeling his right arm from its place on the ground, Rung takes the metal bit out from his mouth, sighing with relief and turning the thing over to observe the deep marks left by his teeth. He holds it out for Ratchet to take, although when the medic does he seems to chuck it somewhere behind him at random. Rung’s arm drops with little energy supporting it.

It takes a couple more minutes before Rung focuses back on the ex-wrecker at his side. 

“Thank you, Whirl,” he speaks, voice crackly from overuse; he places his other servo on the claw resting on his chassis before a fit of coughing wracks his frame.

“Oh dear,” he gasps, clearing his vocalizer several times.

“Vent deep, you’re alright, vent long and hold it,” Thunderclash instructs to which Rung gratefully complies, weaving his digits further around Whirl’s claw in the meantime.

Whirl, meanwhile, blinks twice. “It’s—it’s no problem, doc,” he replies, more than a bit breathlessly, “I’m just glad you’re alright.” He pauses. “And your leg’s still whole. But then again, you’re a pretty tough guy, aren’t ya?”

Rung takes his glasses off then, placing them on the ground before looking up and into Whirl’s wide optic. Smiling open and free, his optics crinkle up. 

Euphoric from the adrenaline, he responds, “I’d like to think so.”

Following the motion, he tilts his head back, meeting the gaze of Thunderclash. Rung’s unoccupied servo reaches to gently cover the larger one on the side of his helm. “And thank you too, Thunderclash.”

Thunderclash’s grin back is unabashedly genuine. “Rung, of course,” he says, turning his servo around to fully grasp Rung’s, lightly squeezing it. “Any time.”

Rung has to shut down several thought processes to keep himself from crying again. His smile widens all the same, vulnerable and trusting.

“Almost wrapped up,” Ratchet calls, and with it comes the clinking of metal tools on a metal tray and another quick pass of a disinfectant wipe around his thigh.

“Who was that—earlier, by my legs—before they left,” Rung strings together, now that he’s conscious enough to remember the hold of servos and the vague form of a body beyond.

“That was tall, swords, and more swords,” Whirl answers. Pauses. “Drift,” he fills in, realizing a second, far more purple mech also fits that crude description.

Rung nods, smiling still. “I’ll have to send him my thanks as well. …Do you think he likes caramelized energon candies?”

“Only if we get first dibs,” someone, either Thunderclash or Ratchet, jokes. Probably Thunderclash. Probably.

Rung hums. His optics dim further, processor content to soak in the presence of the three mechs beside him. After a few minutes, he slips quietly into recharge, still just barely awake enough to feel the warmth of strong arms, carrying him home.