Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was an overcast Sunday afternoon. The roads were cool and it looked like it might rain. For once, there wasn't something going wrong on Griffin rock. Chase wondered how long that would last. He had dealt with more emergencies on Griffin rock than he ever dealt with on Cybertron. From natural disasters to Mr. Petty paws getting stuck in that same tree almost weekly, his job was quite eventful.

He was driving to Doc Greene's lab to pick up Cody. He and Franky were working on a school project, something to do with growing a sunflower and an avocado. Chief had asked Kade to pick Cody up but when the time came Kade suddenly had something planned with Hayley. Strangely convenient but Chase offered to go instead, he didn’t mind. The others were busy and Heatwave was training and Chase didn't want to bother him.

Chase had just messaged Cody saying he’d be there in about 14.5 minutes give or take due to possible traffic.

The traffic light just turned green.

There was a dark green truck nearing the intersection, going faster than he should.

His light just turned red.

The truck driver thought he had time to cross before the blue and white car.
Chase thought that the truck would stop, he didn't think much of it. Most people of Griffin rock followed the law. Chase had noticed they did it much more when he was around, a strange observation.

The truck sped up.

Chase was halfway through the intersection. So was the truck.

It happened fast. Chase didn’t know what happened at first, it happened so fast. For a couple moments all he felt was the impact on his right and an intense pain. The world was strangely silent for a moment. The next thing he knew, he had flipped over. He was upside down. His windshield was shattered. Chase felt dizzy. What just happened? He couldn't transform and he quickly found he couldn't move. Warnings kept popping up in his hud but he struggled to read them.

Chase tried to run an internal analysis, a lot of the categories immediately failed. Already not a good sign. What he got from the analysis was that he sustained heavy damage to his right, there was internal and eternal bleeding, there was damage to his roof, and most of his windshields were broken or shattered.

Chase was barely able to comprehend what was going on around him. His vision was swimming and everything sounded like it was underwater. There was shouting? Something that sounded like an alarm, he wasn't entirely sure. He eventually gives up trying to get his optics to focus because all he sees is the blurry upside down street. His vocaliser wouldn't work no matter how many times he reset it, there was only broken static.

Everything became distant. Everything faded into silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been about 5 minutes since Chase sent Cody the message. Cody was filling in the last observations on the sheet about the growth of different types of plants.

“You almost done Cody?” Franky asked.

“Yup, just finished” Cody replied. “Chase should be here to pick me up in like 10 minutes, what do you want to do in the meantime?”

“Hmmm, let's watch something on TV.” Franky said, reaching for the remote.

The TV turns on and is on the news station.

“Breaking news!” Huxley Prescott exclaimed. “Just minutes ago there was a car crash on Witwicky street, a bad one”

“Oh no!” Franky started. “I hope no one was hur-”

The camera pans to the crash. They see the dark green truck, the front is totaled and there is a bald man in a black wifebeater being helped out of the car. Then the camera turns and they see chase. He's on his roof and his side has a mauve dent. There's a pink liquid leaking from the dent and some is pooling on the floor beneath him.

“A man has t-boned the police rescue bot, Chase! We aren't sure what happened yet but don't worry viewer, I will get you the story the second I find out! Huxley Prescott, Griffin rock newscaster, momentarily signing off.”

“Chase!” Cody shouts, “What happened?!”

“It looks like he got hit! We got to call the others!” Franky gasped.

Cody pulled out his phone. He fumbled with it for a bit and called his dad.

“Hey Codey, whats u-”

“Dad! Turn on the news! Chase just got hit on Witwicky street! He's hurt badly!”

“We're on our way,” Chief said after a moment of silence. “Stay at Doc’s, we’ll get you in a bit.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the fire house Chief only took a moment to glance at the news. He sounded the alarm.

“What's the emergency Chief?” Heatwave said as he approached.

“Chase just got hit, we need to move now.”

“What!? What happened?” Heatwave said, optics widening. There was evident concern in his tone. Heatwave transformed and Charliel hoped in.

“I’m not sure, something happened on Witwicky street. Cody called me and Huxley is already there, let's move.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heatwave was breaking the speed limit. He didn’t care. All he cared about was getting to Chase. Chase hadn't answered his comm. Heatwave just needed to get to his courtmate. Chief could tell how worried Heatwave was, he was too.

They arrived at the street. Chief got out and Heatwave transformed, immediately moving to Chase. The second they arrived Huxley turned his camera back on.

“Cheif Burns! I’m glad you've arrived on the scene. What do you think about this tragic accident? What will you do abo-” Huxley got cut off as Chief shoved the camera away.

“Not now Huxley.”

Chief walked over to the wreck. Heatwave was gently trying to flip Chase over and get him to respond. Chase was dead silent. The police man walked over to the driver of the truck who was now leaning against the side of it and there was a young man hovering near him. Chief thanked the young man and told him he would take care of it from here.

Charlie kneels next to the man, he can already tell that this man is intoxicated. The man struggles to stand still and cannot walk in a straight line. The breathalyzer read 0.1 BAC.

“Blades!” Heatwave says over the comms. “I need you on Witwicky street, Chase is injured and unresponsive.”

“What?? Uh-uh I’m on my way!” Blades stammered. “What’s his condition? What happened?”

“He was hit by a guy, Chief says he was under the influence of alcohol. Chase has a dent that’s bleeding on his right side and he was flipped on his roof.” Heatwave paused. “All of his windshields are damaged and there are other minor injuries.”

Chief called Deputy Barney to come pick up the man and bring him to the station. He walked over to Heatwave, his worry evident.

“What’s his condition Heatwave?” The police man asked

“Not great, Blades is on his way. We need to get Chase back to the Fire house.” Heatwave stated, a servo hovering over Chase's roof. Chief didn't miss the concern in the firetruck's tone. He also didn't miss Heatwave's growing anger.

Heatwave looked over his injured partner, what was that guy thinking? Heatwave clenched his servo, when he gets his servos on that guy… He’ll… He’ll just-

“Heatwave.” Hearing his name broke that train of thought. “You need to calm down,” Chief said calmly. “That guy will get the proper sentence. Yes, I know that people like him are Infuriating. They don't care about the consequences of their own actions, but that’s what people like me are for. We make sure those people face what their actions got them into.”

Heatwave remained silent. Chief looked at Chase, the pink liquid coming from his wound, energon. He couldn't imagine how much that must have hurt. Charlie looked up when he heard the helicopter propeller.

“Hang in there partner, help is here.”

Chapter Text

The damaged police car rested on the makeshift med birth. Blades fumbled with his tools while he looked for the ones he needed. Heatwave hovered nearby, he leaned against the nearby wall so as to not be in the way but he refused to leave.

They had to manually transform Chase in order to treat him properly. Blades said he had a tool that sends a small burst of energy that activates the transformation sequence in the area it's used in, it’s usually used when a bot gets stuck in alt mode or something is wrong with their transformation seams. Blades said its name but Heatwave wasn't reallly listening.

“Just tap it to the transformation seams but be extra careful because the damage to Chase’s side…” Blades mumbled mostly to himself. Blades talked to himself while he worked especially in stressful situations, it made him calm down while he talked himself through what to do.

Blades moved carefully, taping the tool to the major undamaged seams on the left first. Heatwave watched silently, watching Chase’s plating slowly move and transform. Blades did his absolute best to still his servos when he got to the dent in the police cars side. It only took about 6 minutes but it honestly felt like an eternity.

Blades looked over the damage. Chase’s right arm was obviously broken. It was bent in the wrong way and was bleeding from the joint, it was what took most of hte blow after all. There was damage to his side and hip as well if the drying coat of energon was anything to go by. His leg was also damaged, there was damage to the plating and there was a gash that was leaking energon. Lastly, there were scrapes all over him from when he got flipped, especially on his chassis.

Blades took a deep ventilation and momentarily shuttered his optics. O-Ok- He could do this. He needed to run a diagnostic, to check for any internal damage, which unfortunately is likely. Blades prepped the scanner and left it to do its thing while he picked up some damp rags to clean off the drying energon.

The scanner beeped, signaling that it was done. Blades looked over the results, yup there was some internal bleeding. But thankfully it wasn't that bad, Chase’s self repairs could manage to fix that without too much external help. Thank Primus.

“Ok uh, now- now I need to seal the open wounds… and reposition his arm and cast it so it stays still… remove the shattered glass…” Blades mumbled tossing the now dirty rags aside, he would deal with that later.

Heatwave shifted, he wished he could do something, anything, to assist but he didn’t even know the first thing about medical stuff, it’s just always been Blades’s thing so he had never looked too much into it. Even Boulder probably knew more about it than him. He was always more of a fighter than a healer.

Heatwave had zoned out looking at his courtmates face as Blades worked. The blue cop’s optics were shuttered and there was just a slightly pained expression on his face. Heatwave wondered if he could still feel the pain. Who even was that guy. Heatwave didn’t recognize him and Heatwave was sure that he knew everyone on the island on a first name basis at this point. The fire truck had basically saved everyone on the island at least 3 times if not more. Something was always happening on this island. After who knows how long, Heatwave was snapped out of his thoughts when Blades spoke.

“Heatwave? Can you help me get Chase to a stasis pod? Hey Chief- wait where did Chief go?” Blades said, looking around.

“He left a bit after we got Chase here, he went to pick up Cody then head over to the police station to deal with that guy.” Heatwave responded, moving from the wall. “Not surprised you didn’t hear him say he was leaving, you were pretty focused.”

Heatwave moved over to the birth, he didn’t miss the look on Blades’s face.

“Whats wrong.”

“I well- I just- I should be able to do more for him but I can’t” Blades stammered. “I just don’t have all the proper things- if I did I could help him get better faster and-”

“Blades.” Heatwave interrupted. “You’ve done all you can and that's all we can ask for. We have limited access to basically everything because all we have is what was on our ship and the mainland doesn't have much right now. He’s online and that’s what matters. You did good.”

“I- thanks Heatwave” Blades said, a small smile forming on his face.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Blades closed the stasis pod.

“Ok, his sparkpulse has mostly returned to normal and I’ve done what I could for the injuries, we have to wait for Chase’s self repairs to take care of the rest.” Blades said while reading the results of a diagnostic scan, there was an audible sigh of relief from Heatwave. “Uh but being in stasis should quicken the process,it will probably take 2 to 3 weeks.”

There was a moment of silence only broken by the soft whirl of the stasis pod starting up. Heatwave placed a servo on the pod. “Alright. Thanks again Blades, I don’t know where we would be without you. I-” Heatwave began.

“Where’s Chase! Is he ok?!” Cody asked as he slid down the fire pole.

“He’s been better- But he’ll be ok in a couple weeks or so.” Blades said as he glanced at the stasis pod.

Cody walked over to the bots, “That’s good, I’m so glad,” Relief flowing over him. “Dad got a call from Deputy Barney, turns out that guy isn’t a resident of Griffin rock, he was visiting family here so he doesn’t know about you guys.”

“That makes sense, didn’t recognize him,” Heatwave sighed, removing his servo from the pod. “That just means I can't give him a piece of my mind for being such a fraggin-.”

“AY!” Blades cut in crossing his arms, “Watch your language Heatwave, there is a youngling present.” Blades gestured to Cody.

Heatwave looked down at said youngling, “Tsk, he’s old enough to hear. Kade curses in front of Cody all the time, it’s not like he doesn't know what they are.” Blades huffed, he was definitely going to talk to Kade about that later.

Cody shrugged, “It’s fine, I’m not bothered by it.” Cody pulled out his phone, “I need to tell Franky that Chase will be ok, we were both really worried when we saw what happened on the news.”

“Right… you do that,” Heatwave’s tone noticeably dropped a bit as he looked to the pod. To his partner.

This was going to be a hard couple weeks.