Nexus. Arcee's room in the safehouse. Meeting Kia

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((From here))


Arcee sighs and creaks to her feet, then limps over to her desk and sets the little Bumblebee doll next to the little Ratchet. "Well, that didn't work. Let's hope Ratchet has a better plan, because I don't like how your engine sounds, kid."

As expected there's no reply from the little silver being under her berth, and she sighs and leaves the room to go wait in the common room and see if there's anything worth watching on TV.

Comments

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

Ratchet arrives outside the safe house not too long after. He's never been there before, so it takes him a minute to decide whether or not it would be a good idea to simply let himself in or not. Finally, he settles with approaching the main entrance and knocking on the door...

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"Just slagging walk in," comes the irritable growl from inside, accompanied by the babble of a TV playing some documentary.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

Ratchet opens the door and enters, managing a smirk. "You really know how to keep the safe house from sounding safe, spitfire."

Shutting the door behind him, he takes a moment to glance around. "Just wasn't sure if I should barge on in or not."

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She gives him a sheepish look as she shuts off the television and gets up. "Sorry. Most people just walk in, and I'm worried about the kid. Her engine seems to have developed a hitch while I was gone."

The room's large, dotted with couches of various sizes, and with a counter along one side that bears all the signs of an energon dispensing station. Along the other side and the back are a set of ceilingless rooms, one of which bears a scribbled out blot of sharpie marker.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"I'll take a listen to it and run a scan. That'd be the easiest way to start a diagnosis in this case, I think." He eyes the scribbles with a raised optic ridge a moment before shaking his head. "Well, shall we see if we can get her out to even run a scan in the first place?"

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"She's been under there since around yesterday noon. And as far as I've been able to tell she's from our reality." Arcee pushes herself to her feet with a slight wince. "She's still wearing a factory inspection tag, and her paint wasn't fully cured when I found her by the sign."

The youngster's signs are slow, and her tank shows no trace of ever having held fuel. It seems she's been running off the energy of whatever Allspark charge gave her birth.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"Slaggit," Ratchet growls under his breath, so to speak, as he takes in that information and finishes his scan. He glances back at Arcee. "Have you got any energon here? Preferably lower grade? She's literally running on empty. If we don't get her some fuel, she'll burn up her own spark!"

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The pink and white femme blinks, then turns and darts out of the room, returning in a few moments with a mug in her hand. "This is the biggest container they've got out there."

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"It'll do for the moment. Just as long as she's got something to process that isn't her own spark energies."

Opening Kia's chest plate, Ratchet finds her fuel lines and an available port leading into them. He extends both tool arms from his back setup, along with a small pump that can be used to push a small amount of energon into the fuel lines and down into his patient's tank. The medic works quickly, feeding the energon into the pump and letting the fuel get where it needs to go. All the while, he keeps an optic on the youngster's vitals. "Her systems are starved. With any luck, though, she might actually come to here in a just a bit. I just hope she doesn't panic."

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"Thus far she hasn't seemed the panicking type," says Arcee, absently rubbing her chest as she watches and listens to the little silver femme for a few moments. "There goes her engine."

With the renewed purr Kia's big optics open, and then widen fearfully as she catches sight of Ratchet.

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Those big optics take this all in, then suddenly widen. Several funny little blurts and beeps come from Kia's vocalizer, and then a little doll voice, flat and uncertain, goes, "Rat-chet. Rat-chet?"

Her fingers tap his windshield, and she looks up. Is that it?

Arcee, though still frowning over Ratchet's words, can't help but cover a smile as the little femme's first word winds up being the red medic's name. She has no idea that Kia sounds a little like she did when she first got wiped.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

Ratchet nods in approval and smiles at the young femme, one hand covering hers as it rests on his windshield. His expression turns a mite more serious as he glances at Arcee again, however. "Well, at least it seems like her vocalizer is functional. Things are just going to be a little rocky until she picks up more words and their meanings to effectively communicate. How long that will take, I'm not sure. I'm tempted to try a linked upload of information, but it might be too much for her to process all at once."

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"You know what's best," says Arcee as Kia's mouth curves tentatively upward at the corners. "Like I've been saying, I'm still just as ignorant of young bots and all that fancier medical stuff as I was back on Cybertron."

She tilts her head. "Might make life a lot easier for the people around her if she could understand, though."

Kia watches, listening to the sounds with interest now that she senses that there's a reason for them. "Rat-chet?"

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

Ratchet considers what options are open. Even the Nexus can seem like a hostile place to those who not only cannot speak for themselves, but cannot understand what's being said to them. Deciding a link might be worth a shot, he starts setting up an upload internally and gathers Kia into his arms so he can sit down on the floor with her in his lap. If either of them get negative feedback from some sort of error, better if they're closer to the ground in case of a fall.

One hand touches the back of Kia's neck, searching for a port; there should be one there and if not up under the rim of her helm, he can always check her interior again. "Alright, kiddo, let's go ahead and give an upload a shot. We'll keep it simple and easy. Then maybe all these sounds comin' outta my vocalizer will make more sense to you, huh?"

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Kia startles and cringes slightly as she's picked up and moved, but then leans against him trustingly enough, her optics once more widening as her audio receivers catch the sound of his spark. His search for the port causes her to squirm a little, but the port is indeed there. "Uhhhhh."

Arcee watches quietly, absently remembering the half full mug of energon that she'd left on the corner of the desk that morning and picking it up as she drops into the desk chair.

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"If it's the time I'm thinking of, I can remember you complaining about it. Only they got you a lot worse than the kid just did." She sets the basin where he can get it and then kneels next to him and looks across at Kia, who is doing her intent frown as she stares into space. "What's she doing?"

Kia has managed to start a diagnostic, and now she's watching it work as she waits for the reply to Ratchet's question to come from the results.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"If it's the time another mech almost drank themselves to death and their own system purged out of desperation, that'd be it. And yeah, that was a whole Pit of a lot worse than this." At Arcee's question, the medibot glances at Kia. "I'm not sure, but she might be trying to figure out what it was I just asked her. Until she's familiar with all that information, her reaction time will likely be slow. Probably best if she doesn't leave the safe house for quite a while."

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The pink and white femme frowns and reaches up to squeeze his shoulder as she remembers how that incident had affected him.

Then she glances at Kia again as she reaches over and wrings out the sponge before starting to mop off the mess for Ratchet since he hadn't started yet himself. "How long a while?"

There's a little beep from Kia, and she frowns. "Hun-gry?"

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"Depends on her, really. Speed of her progress in learning, communicating, all that good stuff. It really does seem like she's trying, though."

As Kia manages another word, Ratchet places one hand over Arcee's. "Eh, I'll finish my own clean up. Seems Kia's figured out what that empty feeling in her tank is, given she just purged what was there." A pause. "How do things work here, anyway? She's too inexperienced to look after herself, even within a safe area. Someone's going to have to well...botsit her."

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"I was afraid of that." Arcee's expression goes grumpy as she gets up to get the mug off her desk and hand it to Kia. "People come and go. Generally the different groups keep to themselves, though there's a femme here that's been LOL'd into a feline shell who'll befriend anyone who rubs her ears and speaks to her kindly. She and her brother already have a young bot to take care of... and push come to shove, I found this one, so I guess I'm responsible for her."

Kia looks in the mug and blinks, then sticks her finger in it.

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"I heard Bumblebee's encounter. This big black Decepticon talked to the glitch too, and wanted to offline him. But I think Mornbein hijacked him, because he came back about an hour later kind of jacked up." She frowns and lifts her head at his words about the booster, trying to see it. "Slagging shoddy workmanship...."

"Hungry." Kia sounds half asleep.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"'Mornbein'? Not a name I've heard before, don't think. And I can't blame anyone with an ounce of common sense for wanting to offline a prototype who isn't Eleven. Seems like the lot of them are self-important, brainwashed valveholes who enjoy the pain of others." Finishing the scanner installation, he shuts her chest plate. "I wouldn't say the booster workmanship is shoddy, per se, but it's not exactly high end, either. The one I'll have ready for you soon is definitely a cut above, though."

Ratchet glances at Kia for a moment. "Sounds like she could use a bit more energon and then some recharge time to properly process it. This just makes me realize I'd be a lousy 'parent'."

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"She works with a young Decepticon named Towby. As far as I can see they're both kids with far too much power and not enough sanity, but they seem to be working on our side." Arcee looks disgruntledly confused at this, but then quirks a rueful grin as she remembers Ratchet's words about how she runs. "Think it'll be able to keep up with me?"

Her optics follow his, the disgruntled look returning as she snorts and sits up. "You think I'm going to be any better? You have more experience with youngsters than I do. And if you think you're not going to take at least a little hand in her training and all you have another guess coming."

Behind the scolding banter her optics and just a bit of her attitude informs Ratchet that the spitfire's actually a bit afraid of the responsibility and looking to him for reassurance as she did when she was first relearning how to be.

She doesn't give him time to reply right away, though, instead hopping up briskly and going to refill the energon mugs.

Kia blinks after her, then looks at Ratchet before picking up the sponge again and squeezing water all over herself and the floor.

[critical-medic.livejournal.com]

"I did design the new booster with you in mind specifically, so it should be able to keep pace with you just fine," he replies. He's not real sure what to say about the Mornbein business, but this is the Nexus. And while anything is possible, he's not about to go digging into everything that comes along. Some things are, after all, better left alone.

Ratchet frowns at Arcee's words about having a hand in Kia's training, a mite aggravated at being volunteered for something. Part of him is still so very frustrated that his own team lost Eleven and even for as much as they cared for her, trying to find where she was kidnapped of to took a backseat to protecting Detroit and the All Spark. But duty is duty, especially when the fate of the majority over the fate of the one is at stake. He's at least vaguely aware of Arcee's own uncertainty and fear of responsibility, but the fact that she doesn't really give him a chance to counter the idea right away doesn't improve his mood much, as if things are simply settled because she said so.

He watches Kia make something of a mess, wondering why it is she feels the need to do that. Curiosity? Boredom? Both? Idly he wonders if maybe she might fare better if she were simply given something to do.

"I can't promise anything," he finally says, "but from the looks of it, your little friend here might do better if she were provided with more constructive activities. What, I'm not sure... But something to make her processors work. Makes me wonder just what human kids do when they're more at this stage. Sari might know..."

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Arcee sighs when she comes back and sees what Kia's done, then quickly wipes the youngbot off before lifting her by one arm and leading her to the desk chair, where she installs her with the mug of energon.

Turning back, she gives Ratchet a look of apology. "I know you can't. You have more important things to do. Don't mind an old battleax's cowardly babblings." One foot scuffs in the puddle on the floor, and she stoops to clean up the water and spilled energon. "I suppose I could see if I can't find anything on the 'net about keeping youngsters busy...."

The sound of the little Bumblebee doll chattering his happy phrase makes her pause and turn her head to see Kia smiling at the toy with delight as she gently pokes its stomach to make it talk.