Cigarettes and Nitroglycerin
Blogger: ClankClank
Title: Cigarettes and Nitroglycerin
Fandom: Transformers [G1]
Characters: Wheeljack, Red Alert, Ratchet
AN/ prompt for this was Dishevelled Wheeljack
The explosion had come as a bit of a surprise.
This probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say to Red Alert as he was digging you out of debris, but Wheeljack was feeling a little concussed and he hadn’t realised it was Red. If he’d have known it was Red he certainly wouldn’t have told him that he didn’t have a clue what it was that had actually blown up as the Security Chief had then left him under the wreckage and, from what he could see, started poking around his lab.
He hadn’t heard what he’d been saying entirely. There was probably a conspiracy in there somewhere. There usually was.
“I’m sorry for leaving you Wheeljack, but I had to make sure that there weren’t going to be any secondary explosions.” Red Alert explained as he came back and pulled him out. “I couldn’t call anyone else here. Too risky.”
“’sokay.”
“Oh, and I found this over there.” He waved around something long, brown and articulated above his head.
“... what is it?”
“It’s your leg. I hope it’s yours anyway. If not then I’m going to have to ask you what you’re doing with other transformer’s legs in your labs.”
Wheeljack hadn’t realised his leg had come off. That was normally a bad sign.
“What on earth are you covered in anyway?”
“Uh. Stuff.” Wheeljack volunteered. He glanced down and saw that his outer chassis was caked in some brown substance. “Don’t know. My head hurts.” He tried to say as everything went quiet.
Wheeljack woke as he was being lowered onto a works table. He could catch part of the conversation. “There was an explosion?” Ratchet asked, surprised. “I didn’t hear that one. I’ll have to get Hoist to check my audios.”
“It was a fairly small blast.” Red Alert put in. “If I hadn’t been monitoring the systems then it wouldn’t have been heard. Wheeljack’s absence could have gone unnoticed for days. He would have just lain there, pinned underneath the weight, energon slowly leaking out of his systems until it was too late.”
“Well,” Ratchet started, unsure how to react, “thank you?”
Red Alert brightened “Would both of you support a proposal of daily role calls? To prevent any unnoticed absences due to death.”
“Errr... yeh sure.” Wheeljack agreed tentatively.
“A good idea.” Ratchet agreed. “Though perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis to prevent it from being too intrusive.”
Red Alert frowned. “But surely by that point Autobots would’ve been missed.”
“You’d hope so.” Ratchet dimmed one optic at Wheeljack. “You can’t guarantee it though can you? And it’s a motion that’s more likely to be carried and you can always ask for increased frequency once it’s gone through.”
“Hummmm yes. I shall go and work on that now.” He paused before leaving. “Will you both be alright?”
“I’ll be fine.” Wheeljack piped in.
“Sure.” Ratchet made shooing motions at Red Alert. “Now go. Let me work my magic.”
Red Alert nodded. “Wheeljack, I’m going to prioritise investigating the explosion as a security matter. I’ll be along later to interview you.”
“Make it a lot later.” Ratchet interjected. “I need to treat him first.”
“Oh of course.” Red Alert agreed. He considered Ratchet for a moment. “You could do a lot of damage to our forces if you were to ever become evil. Don’t worry; I won’t ever let that happen.”
They watched Red Alert as he left the medical bay and the doors closed behind him.
“Did he just promise to keep tabs on me?” Ratchet spluttered. “Did he just promise to keep tabs on me and expect me to be grateful?!”
“I think you need to put him on neural sedatives or something.”
“That is him on neural sedatives.” Ratchet smirked. “After his little ‘incident’ I got Inferno to slip him some whenever he can.”
Wheeljack glared at him. “Ya know, that’s the kind of stuff he’s worried about.”
“I know. But I’m evil and sinister so of course I’m going to do stuff like that.”
Wheeljack sighed. “The sad thing is, is you think you’re joking.”
“Oh relax.” Ratchet snapped back. “It’s not just ‘cause he’s annoying. He’s damaging his power core with the stress, but you try telling him anything.”
“He means well though.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Very dedicated.”
Oh yeah.”
“Maybe just a little bit obsessive.”
“Absolutely slagging barmy. Now shut up and let me look at you.”
Ratchet poked around in his insides for a couple of minutes, muttering to himself as he went. Wheeljack could probably have followed what he was doing but decided that was too much effort. He waited until Ratchet stood back and started making some notes on a data pad.
“So? What’s up Doc?”
“What’s up is you’re not allowed to watch any more cartoons if you keep saying that fragging phrase.” Ratchet snapped as he scribbled. “If you want my initial assessment though, I’m probably going to keep you in here for a couple of days. I want to find out why your leg just came off like that.”
“It was hit by a 600lb tabletop travelling at 400mph. It’s not like it just dropped off.”
“That’s nothing. I didn’t even hear the explosion.” Ratchet joined together two wires at his hip. “Does this hurt?” Wheeljack nodded and the medic added some drugs into his fuel line before moving over to his leg and prodding the exposed ends there. “How about this?”
“That’s fine.”
“Good.” Ratchet worked in silence for a couple of minutes before predictably starting the conversation up again. Wheeljack reckoned that Ratchet’s vocal processors were linked to this motor cortex. He couldn’t talk without gesticulating and when he was doing fine motor work he had to make some kind or noise, be it shouting at or talking to the patient, or discussing ideas with Wheeljack or even singing quietly to himself, but that was only ever when the patient was unconscious.
“So do you remember anything else about it now?”
Wheeljack struggled for a moment. Everything seemed to be fine. He remembered cutting some wires. He remembered Red Alert waving his leg around. He remembered a swaying motion-
“Ratchet, did you carry me here?”
“Yep.”
“Oh heck Ratchet. You know that’s embarrassing.”
“You were unconscious. What the slag do you care? It takes too long to transform into Alt mode, get someone to load you into my back, travel the hundred meters between your lab and the med bay, get them to unload you and then put you on the table. For that distance it’s easier to carry you.”
“Yeah well,” Wheeljack sulked, “What about patients having the right to dignity?”
“What about Doctors having the right to recharge?”
“It’s the middle of the day!”
Ratchet faltered for a minute. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Woah. I need to get out more. Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes!”
“Frag. I owe Prowl a serious apology.”
Wheeljack’s snickered and the medic poked him repeatedly telling him to keep still or he’d cut him. “It’s really not that funny.”
“Oh but it is.”
“It’s not as funny as you fancying Jeremy Clarkson.”
“I don’t!”
“Then why did you get that Top Gear calendar?”
“To know the Earth date.” Wheeljack snapped indignantly.
“Sure, that’s why you’ve left it open on May. Which happens to be Clarkson with a Lancia.”
“You know me Ratch, I’m absent minded. I forgot to turn it over.”
“It’s three years old Jack. You’re not that bad. But fine. I don’t care.” He pretended to be affronted. “I don’t care if you don’t trust me. I’m only your best friend in existence.”
Wheeljack glared at him. “I could have sworn that a couple of seconds ago we were laughing at you.”
“Everyone knows I can’t take a joke. I prefer it this way.” Ratchet finished welding in the final connections. “There. I think you’re done now. Can you sit up?”
Wheeljack pulled himself up on Ratchet’s offered arm. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“That’s probably ‘cause you’re up to your optics in analgesics. I don’t want you walking on it.” Ratchet looked at the palm of his own hand which was now covered in brown gunk. “I do, however, want to get this chocolate off you.”
“Chocolate?”
“Yep. The brown stuff’s chocolate. I got Perceptor to analyse it when you came in. Now the question is,” He narrowed his optics, “how the fragging hell did you manage to cover yourself in that much chocolate?”
“Errm.” Wheeljack desperately tried to think of an answer. “I was really hungry?”
“Petri-rabbit shit. You tried chocolate once; I was cleaning out your gears for weeks.”
“I blew up a chocolate - oh, no, wait! I did! I actually did! I was fixing a chocolate fountain for Carly before the explosion!”
“You managed to blow yourself up with readily available human machinery?” Ratchet asked credulously.
“I don’t know if that was the epicentre...”
“Oh I can believe it.” Ratchet replied dismissively. “But only because I have faith in your ability to blow up argon. Come on. We need to go to the wash rack.”
Wheeljack gave Ratchet a funny look. “What? Oh. Right. No! You are not allowed to watch any more Carry On films! Actually, if Sideswipe likes it then you are not allowed to watch it. Period. You’re cleaning yourself up. I’m coming because I don’t trust you not to stand on that. I don’t suppose you’re gonna let me carry you?”
“Not like that.”
“Fine.” Ratchet transformed next to him. “No weight on that leg, you hear?”
“I hear ya, you tyrant.” Wheeljack grunted, falling backwards into the back of the ambulance.
However much of a shock it had been to Wheeljack when the chocolate fountain had exploded that morning it was nothing compared to astonishment Ratchet felt when the shower exploded black tarry gunk over both of them. It obviously wasn’t Wheeljack’s day.
Title: Cigarettes and Nitroglycerin
Fandom: Transformers [G1]
Characters: Wheeljack, Red Alert, Ratchet
AN/ prompt for this was Dishevelled Wheeljack
The explosion had come as a bit of a surprise.
This probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say to Red Alert as he was digging you out of debris, but Wheeljack was feeling a little concussed and he hadn’t realised it was Red. If he’d have known it was Red he certainly wouldn’t have told him that he didn’t have a clue what it was that had actually blown up as the Security Chief had then left him under the wreckage and, from what he could see, started poking around his lab.
He hadn’t heard what he’d been saying entirely. There was probably a conspiracy in there somewhere. There usually was.
“I’m sorry for leaving you Wheeljack, but I had to make sure that there weren’t going to be any secondary explosions.” Red Alert explained as he came back and pulled him out. “I couldn’t call anyone else here. Too risky.”
“’sokay.”
“Oh, and I found this over there.” He waved around something long, brown and articulated above his head.
“... what is it?”
“It’s your leg. I hope it’s yours anyway. If not then I’m going to have to ask you what you’re doing with other transformer’s legs in your labs.”
Wheeljack hadn’t realised his leg had come off. That was normally a bad sign.
“What on earth are you covered in anyway?”
“Uh. Stuff.” Wheeljack volunteered. He glanced down and saw that his outer chassis was caked in some brown substance. “Don’t know. My head hurts.” He tried to say as everything went quiet.
Wheeljack woke as he was being lowered onto a works table. He could catch part of the conversation. “There was an explosion?” Ratchet asked, surprised. “I didn’t hear that one. I’ll have to get Hoist to check my audios.”
“It was a fairly small blast.” Red Alert put in. “If I hadn’t been monitoring the systems then it wouldn’t have been heard. Wheeljack’s absence could have gone unnoticed for days. He would have just lain there, pinned underneath the weight, energon slowly leaking out of his systems until it was too late.”
“Well,” Ratchet started, unsure how to react, “thank you?”
Red Alert brightened “Would both of you support a proposal of daily role calls? To prevent any unnoticed absences due to death.”
“Errr... yeh sure.” Wheeljack agreed tentatively.
“A good idea.” Ratchet agreed. “Though perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis to prevent it from being too intrusive.”
Red Alert frowned. “But surely by that point Autobots would’ve been missed.”
“You’d hope so.” Ratchet dimmed one optic at Wheeljack. “You can’t guarantee it though can you? And it’s a motion that’s more likely to be carried and you can always ask for increased frequency once it’s gone through.”
“Hummmm yes. I shall go and work on that now.” He paused before leaving. “Will you both be alright?”
“I’ll be fine.” Wheeljack piped in.
“Sure.” Ratchet made shooing motions at Red Alert. “Now go. Let me work my magic.”
Red Alert nodded. “Wheeljack, I’m going to prioritise investigating the explosion as a security matter. I’ll be along later to interview you.”
“Make it a lot later.” Ratchet interjected. “I need to treat him first.”
“Oh of course.” Red Alert agreed. He considered Ratchet for a moment. “You could do a lot of damage to our forces if you were to ever become evil. Don’t worry; I won’t ever let that happen.”
They watched Red Alert as he left the medical bay and the doors closed behind him.
“Did he just promise to keep tabs on me?” Ratchet spluttered. “Did he just promise to keep tabs on me and expect me to be grateful?!”
“I think you need to put him on neural sedatives or something.”
“That is him on neural sedatives.” Ratchet smirked. “After his little ‘incident’ I got Inferno to slip him some whenever he can.”
Wheeljack glared at him. “Ya know, that’s the kind of stuff he’s worried about.”
“I know. But I’m evil and sinister so of course I’m going to do stuff like that.”
Wheeljack sighed. “The sad thing is, is you think you’re joking.”
“Oh relax.” Ratchet snapped back. “It’s not just ‘cause he’s annoying. He’s damaging his power core with the stress, but you try telling him anything.”
“He means well though.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Very dedicated.”
Oh yeah.”
“Maybe just a little bit obsessive.”
“Absolutely slagging barmy. Now shut up and let me look at you.”
Ratchet poked around in his insides for a couple of minutes, muttering to himself as he went. Wheeljack could probably have followed what he was doing but decided that was too much effort. He waited until Ratchet stood back and started making some notes on a data pad.
“So? What’s up Doc?”
“What’s up is you’re not allowed to watch any more cartoons if you keep saying that fragging phrase.” Ratchet snapped as he scribbled. “If you want my initial assessment though, I’m probably going to keep you in here for a couple of days. I want to find out why your leg just came off like that.”
“It was hit by a 600lb tabletop travelling at 400mph. It’s not like it just dropped off.”
“That’s nothing. I didn’t even hear the explosion.” Ratchet joined together two wires at his hip. “Does this hurt?” Wheeljack nodded and the medic added some drugs into his fuel line before moving over to his leg and prodding the exposed ends there. “How about this?”
“That’s fine.”
“Good.” Ratchet worked in silence for a couple of minutes before predictably starting the conversation up again. Wheeljack reckoned that Ratchet’s vocal processors were linked to this motor cortex. He couldn’t talk without gesticulating and when he was doing fine motor work he had to make some kind or noise, be it shouting at or talking to the patient, or discussing ideas with Wheeljack or even singing quietly to himself, but that was only ever when the patient was unconscious.
“So do you remember anything else about it now?”
Wheeljack struggled for a moment. Everything seemed to be fine. He remembered cutting some wires. He remembered Red Alert waving his leg around. He remembered a swaying motion-
“Ratchet, did you carry me here?”
“Yep.”
“Oh heck Ratchet. You know that’s embarrassing.”
“You were unconscious. What the slag do you care? It takes too long to transform into Alt mode, get someone to load you into my back, travel the hundred meters between your lab and the med bay, get them to unload you and then put you on the table. For that distance it’s easier to carry you.”
“Yeah well,” Wheeljack sulked, “What about patients having the right to dignity?”
“What about Doctors having the right to recharge?”
“It’s the middle of the day!”
Ratchet faltered for a minute. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Woah. I need to get out more. Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes!”
“Frag. I owe Prowl a serious apology.”
Wheeljack’s snickered and the medic poked him repeatedly telling him to keep still or he’d cut him. “It’s really not that funny.”
“Oh but it is.”
“It’s not as funny as you fancying Jeremy Clarkson.”
“I don’t!”
“Then why did you get that Top Gear calendar?”
“To know the Earth date.” Wheeljack snapped indignantly.
“Sure, that’s why you’ve left it open on May. Which happens to be Clarkson with a Lancia.”
“You know me Ratch, I’m absent minded. I forgot to turn it over.”
“It’s three years old Jack. You’re not that bad. But fine. I don’t care.” He pretended to be affronted. “I don’t care if you don’t trust me. I’m only your best friend in existence.”
Wheeljack glared at him. “I could have sworn that a couple of seconds ago we were laughing at you.”
“Everyone knows I can’t take a joke. I prefer it this way.” Ratchet finished welding in the final connections. “There. I think you’re done now. Can you sit up?”
Wheeljack pulled himself up on Ratchet’s offered arm. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“That’s probably ‘cause you’re up to your optics in analgesics. I don’t want you walking on it.” Ratchet looked at the palm of his own hand which was now covered in brown gunk. “I do, however, want to get this chocolate off you.”
“Chocolate?”
“Yep. The brown stuff’s chocolate. I got Perceptor to analyse it when you came in. Now the question is,” He narrowed his optics, “how the fragging hell did you manage to cover yourself in that much chocolate?”
“Errm.” Wheeljack desperately tried to think of an answer. “I was really hungry?”
“Petri-rabbit shit. You tried chocolate once; I was cleaning out your gears for weeks.”
“I blew up a chocolate - oh, no, wait! I did! I actually did! I was fixing a chocolate fountain for Carly before the explosion!”
“You managed to blow yourself up with readily available human machinery?” Ratchet asked credulously.
“I don’t know if that was the epicentre...”
“Oh I can believe it.” Ratchet replied dismissively. “But only because I have faith in your ability to blow up argon. Come on. We need to go to the wash rack.”
Wheeljack gave Ratchet a funny look. “What? Oh. Right. No! You are not allowed to watch any more Carry On films! Actually, if Sideswipe likes it then you are not allowed to watch it. Period. You’re cleaning yourself up. I’m coming because I don’t trust you not to stand on that. I don’t suppose you’re gonna let me carry you?”
“Not like that.”
“Fine.” Ratchet transformed next to him. “No weight on that leg, you hear?”
“I hear ya, you tyrant.” Wheeljack grunted, falling backwards into the back of the ambulance.
However much of a shock it had been to Wheeljack when the chocolate fountain had exploded that morning it was nothing compared to astonishment Ratchet felt when the shower exploded black tarry gunk over both of them. It obviously wasn’t Wheeljack’s day.