Vigil, Part 4
Title: Vigil
Rating: PG
Warnings: Just a bit of language, throughout.
Main Character(s): The Dinobots, Wheeljack, Ratchet, Optimus Prime
Genre: Introspective-y Drama
Summary: Swoop mostly dies. Everyone else spazzes out.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
On his one hundredth circuit of it, the Romper Room looked exactly as it had on his first. Not that Sludge really expected it to change. He was just hoping that it would. Nothing he did, it seemed, alleviated his boredom, much less assuaged his worry about Swoop.
Sludge again found his gaze wandering to the chronometer mounted on the wall and he stared at it dully, as if he'd never seen it before. Six hours, it had been. Six hours since Swoop had gotten sick, since he had fallen to one knee, lost consciousness, and not woken up again. It had been the worst six hours of Sludge's life so far, stuck as he was in the Romper Room, waiting for news from Grimlock that didn't seem to be forthcoming any time soon.
But being there to watch Swoop get sick...That had been even worse, one of the worst sights Sludge had seen in all of his brief life. He kept replaying the past morning in his mind, from the time Swoop, who'd tired of listening to Slag and Snarl arguing, had suggested a sparring match until the moment that he had fallen ill. He kept trying to determine whether or nor he should have seen it coming, whether or not there'd been some sign, however subtle, that Swoop was in trouble.
There had to have been a sign, Sludge's mind insisted. But there hadn't been. The sparring match had progressed the same way that they always had, with no sign of trouble. No sign that Sludge could remember, at least. No sign that he could recognize.
Sludge sighed. Recognition was, of course, the problem. Swoop hadn't shown any sign that Sludge could recognize that he'd been in trouble. But that didn't mean that he hadn't really shown any signs. Someone else - someone smarter - might have recognized them easily, but that had apparently been an ability beyond Sludge's grasp.
As usual, Sludge thought bitterly.
Sludge often felt that he had gotten the short end of the stick, as the curious human saying went. He always seemed to catch on to things just a little slower than everyone else did. Leaps of logic or intuition that seemed so easy for Grimlock or especially for Swoop to make seemed to Sludge far beyond his reach, took him more than a few minutes to understand, and sometimes he never understood, even when Swoop tried patiently to explain. Facts that seemed to stick easily in Swoop's memory seemed to slip through Sludge's brain like water through a sieve, no matter how frantically Wheeljack and often Swoop sought to stuff knowledge back into his head. Sludge, it seemed, was always struggling just to keep up - and the truth was that he couldn't always keep up, no matter how hard he tried. Sometimes he had no hope of doing so. And Sludge, of all people, was all too aware of that fact.
So Sludge had settled into a pattern in life. He wasn't particularly aggressive like certain of his "brothers." He wasn't smart like some of them. He wasn't graceful or agile or particularly skilled at anything. But he was strong. No one could deny that. And he was loyal to a fault. And his psychological makeup was such that he found himself drawn to those who could use his strength and his loyalty to their own advantage. As such, he was the perfect follower. And Sludge sought to be the best follower he could possibly be, if only to justify his existence. He was never happier than when he could use his abilities in the service of someone who knew how to use them, when he felt as if he was part of a team and not just some moronic fifth wheel. He was happiest when he could obey and serve and, most of all, belong.
There were times, however, when he found it difficult to obey. Like this morning, when Grimlock had ordered him to leave the medical bay when he must have known how much Sludge had wanted to stay. Sludge had, in fact, surprised himself when he had initially protested the order, something that, as far as he could remember, he had never done before. He pondered for a moment why he had done so.
Certainly, there was nothing that he could have done for Swoop in the medical bay. He was in the best possible care - Ratchet and Wheeljack were his creators, after all, the creators of all of the Dinobots. If anybody could fix Swoop, it would be the two of them. Sludge could certainly contribute nothing to that effort.
But he felt as if he needed to be there, anyway, as if he needed to be there for Swoop. Swoop, after all, was always there for Sludge when he needed him. He always came to his defense. On the battlefield, when Sludge found himself overwhelmed, it was often Swoop who noticed first and didn't hesitate to help him. In the Romper Room, when Sludge found himself besieged by Slag's often ceaseless taunts, it was Swoop who usually came to his rescue. He would deftly counterattack Slag with a few choice insults of his own, which would serve to shift Slag's attention away from Sludge and onto Swoop, who could handle such things much better than Sludge could. Swoop always defended Sludge when he was in trouble, when he couldn't come to his own defense; Sludge felt compelled to do the same for Swoop.
Except that Grimlock wouldn't let him! He'd ordered Sludge back to the Romper Room and there Sludge had remained ever since, following Grimlock's order to the letter. He'd tried to distract himself, tried to get his mind off of his worry for his best friend. He'd paced around the Romper Room dozens of times, becoming intimately familiar with every scratch on the floor and every minute dent in the walls. He'd sat down at the computer, attempting to lose himself in an absorbingly violent computer game. It didn't work. He'd even thought about shutting down for a recharge cycle, but found that the idea was somehow abhorrent. He couldn't help thinking about the possibility of Swoop waking up while he slept, that he'd miss the moment when he recovered. Or worse, Sludge thought about Swoop dying while he slept - except that thought was too terrible to contemplate.
But nothing that Sludge did could seem to distract him. Nothing diverted his thoughts from the worry that was eating away at his insides, and which was being made worse by isolation. He was pacing again. Sludge hated pacing. He decided that he'd had enough of pacing. He decided that he'd had enough of sitting in the Romper Room, waiting for news. And for once, he decided that he'd had enough of obeying.
Sludge sighed a resolute sigh, and stomped to the Romper Room's exit. He was going to the medical bay. He discovered that he no longer cared if he was supposed to be there or not.
* * * * * * *
A scene that was almost as disturbing as Optimus Prime's rambling thoughts was being played out on Teletran One's huge vidscreen when he made his way back to the Control Room, hours after leaving the medical bay. He found himself staring at the screen in horror, frozen in place a step or two inside the doors of the Control Room. He didn't really want to watch the drama that was playing out upon Teletran One's screen, but he found that he simply couldn't tear his gaze away from the screen, no matter how hard he tried.
On the screen, two garishly painted cars, their engines screaming like banshees, hovered side-by-side, mere tenths of a meter away from each other. And then one of them swerved slightly, bumped ever so lightly into the other, and then suddenly careened away, spinning out of control toward an ominous gray concrete barrier. Sickeningly, the scene switched to slow motion as the back end of the car slammed into the barrier, crunching the car like a tin can. And then the car skipped along the barrier as if it was a pebble skipping across the surface of a pond, impacting with it another half a dozen times. Pieces of the car flew everywhere for long, drawn-out seconds before what was left of the car finally, mercifully, came to rest. But then, as if to punctuate such a horrific crash, the entire back half of the car exploded into roiling flames and a billowing cloud of black smoke.
The scene made Optimus Prime faintly...nauseated. But he was apparently alone in that reaction.
"Boooooooom!" Jazz's distinctive voice crowed with what sounded suspiciously and disturbingly like delight.
At almost the same instant, Ironhide drawled, "Oooh, that's gotta hurt!"
Another voice - Prowl's, shockingly - commented, "You know, if the back end of the car had initially hit the barrier at a 42.6 degree angle instead of a 67.9 degree angle, then the whole car would have burst into flame immediately after the initial impact instead of after the seventh."
"Awwww, that woulda been so cool!" Sideswipe's voice bemoaned, while on the screen a rescue crew arrived at the scene of the crash. A small swarm of humans erupted from the rescue vehicles and set about putting out the fire and tearing the human driver out of the mangled wreckage of his car. "Too bad the dumb human screwed it up."
"That 'dumb human' is gonna be charbroiled if those guys don't get him outta there soon," Ironhide observed with a chuckle.
"Cool!" Sideswipe crowed.
"You are sick, Sideswipe!" Jazz pronounced, but his tone didn't sound at all disapproving. "Sick, sick, sick!"
Sideswipe snorted.
"Oh right, Jazz," he scoffed. "You just try telling me that you weren't thinking the exact same thing."
"I didn't say," Jazz pointedly informed Sideswipe, "that I wasn't sick. I just said that you were."
"Smooooooth comeback, Jazz," Prowl murmured admiringly.
"Why, thank you, Prowl," Jazz answered.
Watching and listening unbeknownst to the four other Autobots, Optimus Prime sighed exasperatedly to himself, suddenly realizing what was going on. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was June. That meant that it was a NASCAR race day. Jazz had somewhere, somehow discovered NASCAR and had subsequently infected Ironhide with an intense passion for it. Now, apparently, the infection was spreading.
Too bad this is one infection that Ratchet can't cure... Optimus Prime thought ruefully to himself.
He stared at the back of the U-shaped bench seat that had been shoved in front of Teletran One's screen, imagining the four bodies that were no doubt sprawled languidly across it as they hungrily drank in the despicable blood sport on the screen in front of them.
Optimus Prime cleared his throat loudly enough to get the race-engrossed foursome's attention and then calmly asked, "Why do you insist on watching that garbage?"
Instantly, four heads poked themselves up above the back of the seat, regarding the Autobot leader with varying expressions on their faces. Ironhide and Jazz just grinned at him impudently, the former chuckling. Prowl and Sideswipe at least had the grace to look like two human children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. But Jazz spoke up first.
"For the same reason humans watch horror movies, Prime," he proclaimed calmly. "That's why."
When Prime didn't immediately answer, Ironhide clarified, "'Cuz we like to see little bits and pieces flyin' everywhere."
Optimus Prime shook his head ruefully while the rescue operation continued on the vidscreen.
"'Little bits and pieces' of cars or of humans?" he asked sardonically.
"Both!" Ironhide answered cheerfully. "Preferably at the same time."
"Yeah!" Sideswipe agreed.
Prowl, wisely, kept his mouth shut.
"You're all sick," Optimus Prime decided, and, to Ironhide's trained audios, he sounded tired and a bit...upset about something. Ironhide frowned over at the Autobot leader, narrowing his optics searchingly.
"What's up, Prime?" Ironhide asked solicitously, all joking suddenly put aside.
The others, too, quickly grew serious, picking up on the look that passed between Ironhide and Optimus Prime. Prowl even had the good sense to turn off the race, studiously ignoring the scowl that Jazz shot in his direction when he did so. Optimus Prime, meanwhile, sighed and then headed over to the seat to join the others. With a groan, he settled his big body down on one side of the "U" and crossed his arms over his chest while the others looked on in concern.
"What's wrong, Prime?" Ironhide asked again when Optimus Prime said nothing for a full minute.
"What makes you think that there's anything wrong, Ironhide?" Prime asked tiredly.
"You look like you just lost your last friend," Jazz declared. "And since Ironhide's here and I'm here and Prowl's here and even sick-o Sideswipe's here, we know that's not true. So what gives?"
"Swoop?" Prowl guessed before Optimus Prime could answer, making a logical deduction.
"Partly," Prime answered with a nod.
"But not totally...?" Jazz prompted.
Optimus Prime heaved a troubled sigh.
"Have you ever gone through life thinking that you know a person," he asked thoughtfully, "only to suddenly realize that you really don't know them at all?"
Ironhide snorted.
"Oh, yeah!" he exclaimed. He leaned back in his seat, stretched out his legs in front of him, and folded his arms across his chest. "Happened to me when a certain person I know changed his name and decided that he was Primus' gift to Cybertron."
Jazz started to chuckle but then, upon seeing the look with which Prime speared Ironhide, he stifled it. Even Ironhide looked chastened, which was a rarity.
"What's wrong, Prime?" Prowl asked, cutting to the heart of the matter, as usual. "Who are we talking about here?"
"Grimlock," Prime answered dismally.
"Grimlock?" Ironhide echoed, surprised. "What could be so profound about Grimlock? He's just a-"
"He's just a what?" Prime asked almost bitterly, interrupting Ironhide. "What is he, Ironhide? You were about to say that he's a big moron, or something like that, weren't you?"
"Yeah! So?"
"So how do you know that, Ironhide?"
"Whaddaya mean how do I know that? Everyone knows that, Prime."
"Ah, yes! Of course! Everyone knows that! Everyone knows that Grimlock and the other Dinobots are irretrievably stupid, don't they?"
"Of course," Ironhide agreed with a nonchalant shrug, but he got the distinct feeling that he'd given the wrong answer when Prime aimed another glare in his direction.
Bzzt! Wrong answer, Ironhide, but thanks for playing! he thought sourly.
And Ironhide was certain he'd given the wrong answer when he heard Prime's uncharacteristically sarcastic retort.
"You know, that's quite an amazing presumption for you to make, Ironhide, considering that you never so much as talk to Grimlock or the other Dinobots unless you have to," Optimus Prime shot at his second-in-command. And then he looked across at Prowl, who was frowning in thought, staring at the floor. "Wouldn't you agree, Prowl, that that was an astounding leap of logic for Ironhide here to make?"
Prowl looked up sharply then, with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on his face. He glanced helplessly between Optimus Prime and Ironhide for a moment. And then he opened his mouth to say something, realized that he didn't know what to say, and then closed it again.
"What about when they were first created? When they tore this place apart?" Jazz said, speaking up in Ironhide's defense when Prowl didn't say anything. "I wouldn't consider that a hallmark of genius."
"That was ten years ago, Jazz," Optimus Prime asserted quietly. "Are you going to try to convince me that no one ever changes, that no one can ever learn over the years?"
Jazz frowned, his expression troubled, but he didn't answer.
"What about when Grimlock tried to kill you, Prime?" Sideswipe offered tentatively. "And how 'bout the way they talk?"
"Again, Grimlock tried to kill me years ago, Sideswipe," Prime said, shaking his head. "And that was under mitigating circumstances. And the way the Dinobots talk is not their fault and it's not necessarily a sign that they're stupid."
Prowl finally found his voice, not liking the forlorn undertone of Optimus Prime's voice.
"What's this all about, Prime?" he wanted to know. "What brought all of this on?"
"Yeah!" Ironhide seconded. "Did Wheeljack brainwash you while you were down in the repair bay or something?" he added sarcastically.
Optimus Prime aimed yet another withering look in Ironhide's direction.
"You're really pushing it, Ironhide," was all that he said, was all that he needed to say.
"Well, I'm sorry!" Ironhide responded immediately, although he didn't sound at all repentant. "Yesterday, you were quite happy to keep Grimlock and Company safely secured and out of your sight, even though Wheeljack was always bitching and moaning about it. Today, you're practically jumping down my throat just for calling Grimlock stupid. I think it's fair to ask you what changed your mind so suddenly."
Optimus Prime nodded tiredly.
"You're right, Ironhide," he conceded contritely. "And I'm sorry that I snapped at you."
"Accepted," Ironhide said quietly, mollified for the moment.
"So..." Jazz said tentatively, after an uneasy moment of silence. "What gives, Prime? Why this sudden turn-around?"
Optimus Prime sighed heavily.
"I had a very interesting...conversation...with Grimlock down in the medical bay earlier. He said some things to me that...well, they made me think. In fact, I've been able to think of little else since..."
"A conversation?" Sideswipe questioned doubtfully. "With Grimlock?"
"Well...it was more like a very loud lecture from Grimlock, actually," Prime said ruefully.
"A lecture? From Grimlock?" Prowl said disbelievingly. "From our Grimlock?"
"No, Prowl. From Grimlock's evil twin," Optimus Prime replied with a weary sigh. "Of course from our Grimlock! It was as amazing to me as it is to you. Because, you know, I never talk to him unless I have to, as well... And what really bothers me is that he was basically right about everything that he said..." His voice trailed off while the others waited for Prime to continue, which he did after a long, contemplative moment. "Did you know that Grimlock's down in the medical bay right now, protecting Swoop?"
"Protecting him from what?" Jazz wanted to know, frowning in confusion.
Optimus Prime snorted.
"From us!" he said succinctly.
"What?" Jazz responded.
"Grimlock's protecting Swoop from being hurt by an Autobot while he's incapacitated," Optimus Prime explained.
"That's crazy!" Sideswipe declared. "Who'd want to hurt him? Who'd want to hurt any of them?"
"Well, let's see, Sideswipe..." Optimus Prime said. "Let's think about that one for just a minute. What was that long-winded joke I heard you and Sunstreaker telling yesterday, something about the main difference between a Dinobot and a Decepticon? What was the punchline of it?"
"That you'd only get in trouble for shooting one of them," Sideswipe answered without hesitation. But then he belatedly realized what he'd just said and slapped a hand over his mouth, his optics wide above his hand. He would have blushed profusely if he were human. "Oh!" he exclaimed, his chastened voice muffled by his hand. "Oh, Primus! I didn't mean it that way!"
"Of course you didn't mean it that way!" Prime said sympathetically. "And probably everyone who heard you yesterday thought the joke was funny and knew that you didn't mean it that way. Everyone except for Swoop, that is, who was sitting not five meters away from you, talking with Ratchet. And you didn't even realize it. And you certainly hit home, judging by the look on his face! In fact, you were lucky Ratchet didn't have a weapon on him, judging by the look on his face. I wouldn't be making any visits to the medbay any time soon, if I were you."
Sideswipe gulped.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled.
Prime snorted.
"I'm not the one who should be hearing your apologies," he said. "In fact yesterday I thought it was funny, too. Scary, isn't it? Now imagine that going on for years - the jokes, the snide remarks, the innocent comments that could easily be taken the wrong way. Add in the fact that very few Autobots willingly associate with any of the Dinobots, that very few Autobots really know them at all, and that most generally tend to ignore them. What would you think, if you were Grimlock?"
"I've...never thought about it," Sideswipe admitted reluctantly.
"My point exactly," Optimus Prime said. "No one ever thinks about it. Least of all me."
"But you've been thinking about this a lot now, haven't you, Prime?" Jazz asked quietly.
Optimus Prime nodded.
"I left the medical bay a long time ago," he said. "I've been wandering around Headquarters, thinking about what Grimlock said, trying to come up with a way to explain myself and all of us, to...apologize to him." He paused, heaved a long sigh. "Everything that I came up with sounded very unconvincing."
"You can't blame yourself," Ironhide asserted. "All of us are equally guilty of the same thing."
"No," Optimus Prime answered, shaking his head sadly. "You're wrong, Ironhide. There's at least one Autobot who's always tried to make me see how unfairly the Dinobots have been treated over the years. But I've just never really listened to him. I never wanted to listen to him."
"Wheeljack," Prowl said with certainty.
Prime nodded.
"Yes," he said bleakly. "Wheeljack. And he's been right, all this time."
"So what're you gonna do about it, Prime?" Ironhide asked.
Prime slumped down in his seat, shoulders hunched.
"I'm going to do two things that I really hate to do."
"What's that?" Sideswipe asked, optics wide with awe.
Optimus Prime sighed.
"I'm going to admit that I was wrong. And then I'm going to apologize. To Wheeljack and to Grimlock and the other Dinobots."
All was silent for a moment after Optimus Prime's admission until Ironhide snorted, nodded for some reason, and then suddenly bounced to his feet. He headed for the door, stopping only when Optimus Prime asked him a bewildered question.
"Where are you going, Ironhide?"
Ironhide halted, turned around to face the Autobot leader with a somber expression on his face.
"Well, you just admitted to being wrong, Prime," he deadpanned. "So I'm going to go mark this day on a calendar somewhere as an historic occasion." And then as soon as he'd said it, he turned again and left the room, giving him the last word, as usual.
Despite himself, Optimus Prime laughed out loud. He couldn't help it. It was so typical of Ironhide to yank him out a foul, self-pitying mood with a single smart-ass remark. Jazz, sitting next to him, was chuckling as well.
"Man, he's got you pegged, doesn't he?" Jazz commented, amused.
Prime sighed.
"So it would seem, Jazz," he said ruefully, staring at the door through which Ironhide had made his dramatic exit. "So it would seem." And then, after a long, contemplative pause, he turned back to Jazz. "Care to join me while I humble myself?" he asked lightly.
Jazz chuckled.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Prime," he answered and, getting up from his seat, he followed Optimus Prime out of the Control Room.