Archive of Our Own

As much as First Aid understood about human behavior and health, it was still a shock to return from what felt like a relatively short tour of duty off-planet, only to encounter an active, articulate, and thoroughly busy eight-year-old boy where a toddler had just been.

First Aid knew that six years away would bring many changes. He could catalog them in detail just from visual scans. But he wasn't prepared for the tight feeling in his spark when faced with this reality: that seven point seven percent of the average American human male's lifespan had passed in what felt like a spark-flicker.

First Aid had been coded to be able to better cope with the ephemeral nature of organic life than many of his elders. That still did not make it easy. And considering just how short a human’s span was, the normal phenomenon of childhood amnesia seemed especially cruel -- though just to whom it was cruel might be up for debate.

Daniel, who'd been two when the Protectobots had left, had no conscious memories of First Aid, who had carried him in an attached incubator for his first several months of life after his extremely premature birth. Nor any memories of how the medic had regularly cared for him thereafter. First Aid thought he had prepared himself for that-- right up until the moment when Daniel quickly said 'hi' to Autobot City's latest 'newcomers' and then scampered off to find something more interesting. What could a pacifist medic and the rest of a search and rescue team have to offer when there were Dinobots around? Or the other newly arrived team that referred to themselves as the Wreckers?

"He hasn't forgotten you," Recline said softly, suddenly just behind him, field surrounding and meshing with his in perfect ease.

"Actually... I'm certain he has," First Aid said, trying to sound matter-of-fact as his brothers smiled indulgently at them and went on their way to their own reunions. "Most humans, by the time they are seven or eight, have only the sketchiest memories between ages two and five, and nothing before then."

"Trust me, he hasn't forgotten you. He just hasn't had a chance to remember yet." Recline's arms slipped around First Aid's shoulders, his yielding frame automatically shaping itself to the contours of First Aid's backplates. He rested soft hands over broad chestplates, feeling the constant, subtle hum of incubating parts and fabrication within. Even when First Aid rested, he was never truly at rest.

"Primus, I've missed you," First Aid said softly, sinking back into the comforting embrace of Recline’s soft mesh armor.

"I've cleared my schedule for the next forty-eight hours, and I'm fully charged. I also know for a fact you and your brothers are off duty until the debriefing on Monday. You want to see my new quarters? Metroplex keeps surprising me with added features."

"Should I be jealous?" First Aid teased, turning and nuzzling in.

"Hardly. It’s not in your nature, dearspark. Nor in mine," Recline said, leaning to rest his silver forehelm atop the red one. "I am looking forward to the two of you getting acquainted... or reacquainted, I suppose. You and Metroplex are going to adore one another. But not today. Today you're mine."

"When did you develop a possessive subroutine?" First Aid teased again, taking Recline's hand and pulling him toward the more quiet northwest entrance. If they went through the main thoroughfare, it would be an hour before they made it to those promised quarters.

"Ever since I spent every second of the last six years missing you," Recline said, freeing his field from the normal filters and shields and letting the depth of that yearning wash straight through to First Aid's spark.

"Oh dear," First Aid stumbled slightly under the sudden onslaught of emotion, and his own response to it. "We'd better hurry."

First Aid clicked softly to himself as he rearranged the medbay supplies to his satisfaction, making a list of what needed to be fabricated and replenished. It was obvious Ratchet had taken everything he could carry, and First Aid had packed many of the other crates to be transported by Omega Supreme. Ratchet had clearly been anticipating a high number of significant repairs, and the very thought of those repairs, and what might lead to them, made First Aid's spark flare unhappily.

First Aid's creators had departed the previous day with Optimus and a crack team from the original Ark crew, all headed for Cybertron's moon bases and other locations in that system. Once there they would join Ironhide, Jazz, and Prowl. Perhaps they would join Elita and her team as well, though her location was never discussed.

Everyone's field was abuzz with tension and excitement about what the mission meant. Speculation was rampant that Optimus intended to retake Cybertron, though what the timeline was, no one knew. First Aid could not help but fret and worry, so he channeled the energy into inventory and organization of the domain that was, for now, his own to tend. He hoped not to need most of the items he arranged in Metroplex's shifting, mobile compartments, though he doubted that would be the case. Whether on Earth or Cybertron, the lull in the war was only that. A lull.

Metroplex would be able to fabricate much of what was currently missing in his own incubators; the cityformer responded with his usual gracious aplomb as First Aid worked through his inventory lists and transmitted requests for replacements. But some of the raw supplies would need to requested from the humans, and the more complex spare parts would have to be fabricated within First Aid's own frame.

First Aid absently took another bite of the thick metallic braid Carly referred to as 'medic jerky' in preparation, dentae shearing through the wires and flaked silica additives. On their own, medic sticks didn't supply sufficient minerals to fully fuel a wartime medic, but Metroplex had already adjusted the dispenser in First Aid's quarters, adulterating the fuel with iron, silver, lithium, and other useful metals that dissolved well in energon.

First Aid never could have predicted how inherently right it would feel to live within a sparked being, to work within a sentient medical bay. On the return trip, he and his brothers had all speculated whether it would seem strange or, in Blades's words, 'bolt-bat creepy'. Instead, it just felt... good and normal... somewhere deep in his spark. Of course, Cybertron was a gigantic sparked being, if the legends were true. So maybe they were meant to feel right living within another mech.

First Aid wondered, too, if the fact that Metroplex had kept his and his brothers’ sparks -- along with a dozen others -- safely in stasis for an unknown length of time had influenced his own perceptions. First Aid, of course, had no memory files of the time prior to onlining with the frame and coding Wheeljack, Hoist, and Ratchet had created for him. From the logs and records, First Aid understood that the Ark’s crew had discovered Metroplex drifting just beyond the solar system shortly after coming out of stasis themselves, and had quickly discovered that the vast Cityformer wasn’t alone. None of the Autobots were sure whether the sparks Metroplex had kept alive within his own massive core were new ones, smuggled off Cybertron early in the war for safekeeping, or were those of Metroplex's remaining residents, kept alive the only way the cityformer was finally able. Metroplex himself couldn’t remember vast stretches of time, something Recline was working regularly with him to remedy.

First Aid vented, briefly offlining his visor. Inventorying and sorting always seemed to put him in an introspective mood. Better than fretting about his creators and friends, he supposed.

::First Aid,:: Metroplex's comm gently intruded on his thoughts.

"Yes, Metroplex?" First Aid responded aloud. Recline thought that it pleased Metroplex when his residents found small ways to acknowledge that they were within a living being, and First Aid agreed, though it was extremely difficult to read the cityformer's deliberately muted field. Metroplex was so very careful to be unobtrusive.

::Hot Rod is on his way with Daniel. The child has injured his arm, and his creators are away. His vital signs are within acceptable parameters, but the injury may be very painful, judging by Daniel's response. Ratchet usually requested the human physician attend to such matters, but Dr. Hunnicutt is at a conference. Shall I call in her backup?::

"No, I'll take care of Daniel," First Aid said firmly, mentally rehearsing the scathing report he would personally make to whoever's idea it had been to let that reckless frontliner watch over an eight-year-old human child. Hot Rod had only recently arrived, along with the rest of Ultra Magnus's team, from a long campaign fighting to retake several key Autobot bases and strongholds in the colonial systems closest to Cybertron. It was one of those same colonies First Aid and his brothers had been assigned to help evacuate after the Decepticons had purposefully destabilized the planet's core as a parting gift. Word was that many on Magnus's team were not particularly pleased at having been recalled to a defensive rather than offensive mission, viewing their commander's new assignment as city-commander an insult rather than a commendation. Blades and Springer had come to blows over a comment that had been made over the relative worth of the humans and the world the Protectobots called 'home'.

First Aid paused for a moment. He was becoming unreasonably upset, anger at Hot Rod flooding his emotive streams even though he was not aware of how the accident had happened. It was just not like him to be this angry and unsettled, especially before he had any real data on the situation. And he certainly understood it took mecha -- at least those who hadn't been coded and designed as he and his brothers had -- time to adjust to being on Earth, and the nature of their organic allies. Even Blades sometimes struggled with it... though Primus help anyone who insulted the humans or Earth within his audioshot.

Was Ratchet's absence causing him to activate a bit more of his creator's temper? Running through one of Recline's quickest fractal relaxation patterns, First Aid returned to his attention to where it belonged.

"Metroplex, can you tell me anything about the nature of the injury?" First Aid asked, even as the cityformer shifted the compartment of human supplies forward, and transformed a suitable platform for Daniel atop a medical berth.

::The support strut just above his elbow joint appears to be broken, and there is a great deal of dark swelling in tissue around that area. He was climbing on a restricted area that I have not yet populated with my nanites, much less any protometal tendrils, so I did not notice, and Hot Rod did not catch him,:: Metroplex explained. First Aid could not read his field well enough to know whether it was himself, Hot Rod, or both that the cityformer was upset with.

"Thank you, Metroplex," First Aid said, patting one of the walls he knew contained sensors. He then began subspacing the supplies he would need from the cabinet, leaving it open for easy access if he required something additional. Broken bones were simple enough to fix, and a human child's ability to mend bone was impressive, though it took time. He loaded the appropriate sedatives, painkillers, and anti-infective and -inflammatory agents into his smallest line injectors, and set one of his wire-spoolers to an alloy safe for humans in case the bone needed additional support to keep it in place.

First Aid heard both the roar of Hot Rod's engine, and, amazingly, the muffled sounds of Daniel howling before Metroplex had even slid open the large entrance to the medical ward. Those noises increased exponentially as Hot Rod burnt not-rubber, screeching through the door in perfect imitation of his designation. First Aid bristled as the frontliner transformed and shifted the wailing child to his chest with far less care than seemed appropriate. If Daniel had taken any more damage on that wild ride...

The screams made First Aid's spark constrict and throb. While Daniel's vocal folds had matured, First Aid could still hear the infant in those wails, a sound that seemed to be indelibly inscribed on the crystalline matrix within his spark chamber.

Perhaps it was the sound of those cries, or the awkward angle and dark bruising at the joint on the tiny arm, or the sheer power of the irrational anger he felt toward Hot Rod that kick-started First Aid's triage protocols, firmly shunting emotive streams to his sub-processors. The automatic protocols did not keep a medic from feeling, but prevented those feelings from interfering with medical functions. Emotions became distant and dim, as though First Aid’s spark was partially disconnected from his processors. It felt as though his emotional processing streams were being run by someone else who was simply feeding him factual reports on their data.

It was a built-in failsafe that had certain risks and problems associated with it, but one absolutely necessary for fully framed medics who might have to work on bondmates, lovers, and friends. Those protocols were the reason why other mecha really began to worry when Ratchet quit cursing and chiding. It meant things were deadly serious.

First Aid was dimly aware, in his subprocessing stream, that he was shocked that the protocols had engaged in this situation. A very normal human injury was not what they were designed for.

Clearly, the change First Aid's field shocked Hot Rod, too, who froze as the medic gently removed the sobbing child from him. The change was simply supposed to make First Aid seem fully shielded... but frontliners who'd seen as much action as Ultra Magnus and his crew had would know what a suddenly flat field in a medic meant.

::Oh Primus... oh frag, is it really that bad?:: Hot Rod commed, his own field surging with worry, fear and shame. ::Oh slagslagslag how will I ever explain this to Magnus? Why the frag did he order me to get to know the squishies? I broke him my first time... oh slag! They're gonna dismantle me!::

Daniel wailed even louder, as though he could physically feel Hot Rod's worry and distress.

"You're going to be fine," First Aid stated with the cool calm of his battlefield self. He placed Daniel on the small berth, taking extreme care to support and not jostle the limply dangling arm. The berth automatically shaped itself to support the child and immobilize his arm. First Aid carefully grasped Daniel’s wrist between manipulators that extended from two of his digits, as though taking a pulse. A burst of highly compressed air injected a painkiller into the Daniel's median antibrachial vein.

The child continued to sob and thrash.

First Aid simultaneously commed Hot Rod, hoping to calm and reassure him, though he was dimly aware that he was still furious with the mech. ::He has a broken strut. I need to set it at the correct angle and his own self-healing systems will take care of the rest if it is kept relatively immobilized and protected. He'll be fine.::

It was obvious, however, that Hot Rod wasn't buying it, still hovering and on the edge of true panic.

First Aid scanned the fracture, cataloging it while he waited for the painkiller to take the edge off and help Daniel to calm down -- a supracondylar humerus fracture, and a rather nasty one. It was a notoriously difficult bone to set properly; a human doctor would need to perform surgery. Fortunately, First Aid could 'see' the bone with his scanners to set it correctly and insert the needed wires without opening the arm.

"Oh Primus, kid, I'm so sorry," Hot Rod practically sobbed, his field throwing his distress over a wide radius. It seemed to rile Daniel further. The child was trying to pull his broken arm from the brace that held it, screaming with the pain that caused.

First Aid was going to have to send Hot Rod away and inject Daniel with a general anesthetic if he continued to struggle, something that was always risky for a human. Within the cool, methodical execution of his medical coding, he was dimly aware that he was part of the reason both were panicking. Yet, overriding his triage protocols was no easy matter, and not recommended given that they were a failsafe associated with his ability to successfully execute his function.

Could he trust that his unruly emotions would not interfere with a minor strut repair, even on someone as tiny and delicate as Daniel? What if he experienced a surge of emotions that made things even worse?

First Aid recalled that his emotion-muting protocols had activated several times during the first weeks after Daniel's far-too-early birth, during the instances when the tiny, premature newborn's life had nearly flickered out. Back then, Daniel's lungs were barely developed enough to let him whimper, much less howl as he was now.

First Aid took great pride in those lungs -- or at least he did when his emotions were operating normally.

Briefly scanning his subprocessing streams, First Aid decided to take the risk of disengaging his triage protocols. Daniel clearly was highly sensitive to fields. Perhaps it was First Aid's own flat field that was impacting Daniel, even more than Hot Rod's distressed one. Was it possible that the child somehow retained memories of those moments when he'd been close to death, and First Aid's field had suddenly gone absent? It was a consideration First Aid would need to examine later.

He had to work around several firewalls that blocked his access to the failsafe, and then disengage his triage protocols entirely, at least for the moment. They were programmed to keep him in triage mode until he registered as off duty, and disengaging them was normally followed by a painful emotional backlash as his emotive streams rerouted to his primary processors.

He braced himself, and then activated the override.

The change in First Aid's field and processors was immediate, and fortunately, the backlash after such a short period was just a brief moment of vertigo. Fully registering Hot Rod’s worry, First Aid loosened his field even more, so the frontliner would know beyond a doubt that while First Aid was upset to see Daniel in such pain, he was not truly worried.

::Don't, ever, EVER do that to me again,:: Hot Rod raged over comms, even as his own field relaxed minutely, though still flaring with renewed worry each time Daniel hiccuped a sob. First Aid transmitted a genuinely apologetic glyph, but otherwise kept his attention on his patient.

Daniel began to relax as well, far more quickly than Hot Rod, and far too fast for the painkiller to have fully taken effect. The boy's sobs slowed, and he sank into the berth. It was uncanny, how field-sensitive Danny was. First Aid had not encountered anything similar among the humans who regularly came into contact with the unique energies emitted by Cybertronian sparks.

Daniel certainly had been responsive to First Aid's in early infancy, though as he grew, that sensitivity had seemed to fade. First Aid filed that thought away for later examination, even as he unshielded his own field more.

::Please try to relax,:: First Aid calmly urged the frontliner. ::Your field may be upsetting him.:: He ignored Hot Rod's belligerent query of how an organic with no sensors to speak of could feel any mech’s field.

Daniel's watery, bloodshot eyes were glued on First Aid. "Wh...where's Ratchet? Where's Dr. Hunnicutt?" he asked.

"Ratchet left yesterday, sweetspark, for Cybertron. Remember? With your dad and Bumblebee. And Dr. Hunnicutt is away today. I'm First Aid. I'm going to put your bones back in the right place, so your body can repair them. But first I'm going to make sure you can't feel any pain your arm, okay?"

"Okay, s'long as it doesn't hurt," Daniel said drowsily, as though First Aid had injected a sedative along with the painkiller. "I remember you. You just got here a few weeks ago. My mom said that you knew me when I was a baby. She said you're Recline's boyfriend. I like Recline. He's cozy."

"That's right," First Aid said warmly to the boy, filing away Hot Rod's subvocalized comment about useless, armorless pleasurebots to address later. It was an attitude that was, unfortunately, all too common among Autobots who had not been under Prime's direct command.

First Aid injected a local anesthetic just below Daniel's elbow, and then extended a neurofilament effortlessly through the soft dermal layers to the tissue within. The filament, once it narrowed and branched out among Daniel's nerve cells, would enable First Aid to block the firing of Daniel's pain receptors in that area. The boy didn't even appear to notice as First Aid softly chatted with him. "I knew you very well as a baby, and Recline and I are sparkmates --- you know what that means?"

"Means you aren't bonded or cohort or anything like that... but you might want to be some day," Daniel said, the conversation clearly distracting and further relaxing him.

"That's right," First Aid said, isolating the correct frequency to block the pain receptors. "Okay Daniel, can you feel anything in this arm?"

Daniel thought for a moment. "It doesn't hurt at all anymore. Is it fixed?"

"Not yet, Danny, but I'm glad it's feeling better. I'm going to put the bone in the right place now, and I'll use tiny wires like this one to hold the bone together while it repairs itself. It won't hurt at all, but you may feel some pressure while I work." First Aid unsubspaced a length of the extremely thin wire and showed it to the child. First Aid had already infused the wiring in his spooler with nanite scavengers, which would harmlessly recycle the alloys once they were no longer needed, to be expelled through Daniel's normal waste elimination systems.

"You're going to put those wires... in his strut?" Hot Rod asked in a tone that was halfway between panic and awe.

::If you upset him about it, I'll have to ask you to leave, Hot Rod,:: First Aid commed, his tone gentle but firm, almost certain the frontliner would take the opportunity to get as far as possible away from the situation he'd helped to cause.

Hot Rod shot him a venomous look, but then did something that surprised the medic entirely. "Those are so cool, Danny. You're gonna have metal in your struts, just like me."

"Cool!" Daniel said, beaming, hero worship vivid in his expression. Something about it made First Aid feel a twinge of concern, but, like everything else not immediately connected with the injury, he'd deal with it later. His extenders narrowed to their smallest setting and painlessly made their way through layers of skin and tissue to the bones within.

"Yeah," Hot Rod continued, "I have wires that look just like those. But my struts have to be welded back together before they can self-repair."

First Aid let his thanks to Hot Rod wash through his field. Maybe Hot Rod was more mature than the medic gave him credit for, for all that the frontliner was a good deal older than himself.

"Can you weld my struts?" Daniel asked, looking up at First Aid.

"No, Daniel. I don't need to. Just like Hot Rod said, you have some awesome cells called osteoblasts that will regrow the bone at the break. Okay, I'm going to put the bones in the right place now. You may feel something like a gentle squeeze, but nothing will hurt."

First Aid used his manipulators to gently shift the broken portions of bone back to proper alignment. Daniels tensed at the pressure, and First Aid found himself sending waves of peaceful assurance through his field, just as he would with a mech.

Danny's mouth made a little O, and he looked around, and then underneath himself, confused.

"This doesn't look like Recline," he said, his good arm reaching to touch the platform on which he sat. His other arm was held immobile in a grip both implacable and gentle.

"It's not, Danny," First Aid said, his manipulators injecting and then threading the fine wires through the bone to hold the two parts together. "Just a medical berth. Do you want Recline to come? I could comm him."

Daniel looked even more confused. "I thought... but this berth just did the same thing Recline does."

First Aid paused his repair for a moment, turning a different set of scanners on the child, and then deliberately sent another wash of assurance through his field.

Danny looked down at the berth again. "This has gotta be Recline," he said. "Just made me feel all warm and happy inside just like he does... 'cept this was even warmer."

First Aid smiled behind his surgical mask, his own spark feeling suddenly boyante and light, his earlier anger fading completely. "No, sweetspark," First Aid said softly. "You're just feeling my field." He paused, wanting to say more. But was it really his place to mention just how much time Daniel had spent with him -- and how closely attached -- during those first months of his life? It had always been hard on Carly to have such a difficult time comforting her own child. Perhaps... perhaps it was better that Daniel no longer consciously recalled the connection.

Daniel, Primus bless him, solved the conundrum for First Aid. "Mom told me the reason I liked Recline so much... besides him being all cozy and nice and stuff... was because he could make himself feel like you... 'cause you saved my life when I was born too early, and I was with you a lot."

"That's true, Danny You got very used to my field while you finished developing, " First Aid said carefully, scanning once more to make sure the bone was properly set and the wires firmly in place. He then carefully extended his manipulators to the three stray bone fragments that could cause Daniel problems, injecting them with a synthetic version of the protein molecule that would attract Daniel's own osteoclasts. Daniel's own cells would break the bone down for reabsorption into his bloodstream.

"I don't remember you," Daniel said, sounding thoughtful.

First Aid nodded, retracting his extenders and smoothing a liquid bandage over the pinprick incisions. "I know, Danny. I can tell you a lot of stories about when you were a baby, if you'd like me to."

The child pondered that for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Um... maybe later?" he said, glancing over to the side at Hot Rod.

The frontliner shifted uncomfortably. "So... yeah... sorry about today, kid... Danny. I have to go, erm, give a report to Ultra Magnus. I'm sorry you broke. Your arm, I mean. I should've caught you when you fell, and, well, yeah. I wasn't paying attention."

"It's okay," Daniel said quickly. "I knew I wasn't supposed to climb there. I was showing off... again. I'm not supposed to do that 'cause I end up getting hurt. Do you think I could hang out with you again? And you could tell me some more stories about those battles you won?"

First Aid saw Hot Rod look at Daniel's arm, and felt the quick scan that followed. The medic continued to silently wrap the tiny arm with a soft layer of breathable fabric to go beneath the cast, not sure what he hoped the frontliner would say.

"I'm not sure your creators will want me watching you again, Daniel. But if they're okay with it, I'd like that," Hot Rod paused, cocking his helm as he received to a comm. "But... it'll have to wait 'til I'm outta the brig for breaking you, which is where I have to report right now."

"The brig? That stinks. I'll come see you there, okay? I've visited Sideswipe there before -- he got in trouble for breaking me once, too -- part of a prank. So don't worry. I get better fast."

Hot Rod's field surged with guilt once more, but he just mumbled "yeah" and "see you later, Daniel," and got himself out of Medical as fast as he could.

"I'm going to wrap your arm with this, now," First Aid said, pulling Daniel's attention back from the door by holding up the thicker casting material, which would fit over the breathable fabric.

"That looks like the same stuff on Recline," Daniel said, reaching out with his good hand to touch the mesh.

"It's based on the same material," First Aid explained, unable to help himself from letting his field warmly envelope the boy as he wrapped his arm, watching the child's face light up in response. "It will change size and shape as needed as your swelling goes down. It will feel pretty firm and tight at first, and help support your arm as it heals. As the bone heals, the gel inside will become softer, so you can start to move your arm more."

"That's awesome! I've got armor now."

First Aid didn't have it in his spark to tell Daniel that the metalogel-filled mesh hardly counted as armor, even on Recline. "You sure do," First Aid instead agreed. "You want me to inject it with some chromatophores? Turn it a color other than silver?"

Daniel looked at his arm, then up at First Aid. "I like red," he said thoughtfully, but then added, "but if it's white, can people sign it?"

First Aid laughed happily. "Sure! I can even give you a special pen that will activate different chromatophores so people can write in different colors. Sound good?"

Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "Am I all fixed now?" he asked.

First Aid shook his head. "Your bones are in the right place, but it is going to take about five weeks before we can take the metalogel wrap off. I'd like you to stay here for the night, just so I can monitor you and help you if your arm starts aching."

Daniel glanced around, as if to see if anyone else was there. "Could you... maybe... tell me some of those stories? About when I was a baby? And do that thing with your field some more?"

First Aid felt as though his spark suddenly had expanded to twice its normal radius. "Of course, Danny. I'd be delighted."

::Hey Recline, I'm not going to be able to make our date tonight.:: First Aid commed a couple hours later, one finger happily stroking the back of the child now sleeping on his chest where he lay on the medical berth. He still had so much inventory to do, but could not convince himself to shift the sleeping child elsewhere.

::Too much work?:: Recline asked, his glyphs peppered with the promise to stage an intervention if needed.

::Always, but that's not why. I've got a Daniel Witwicky sacked out on my chest, sleeping off a traumatic day.::

::Well... we never said *what* we were doing on this date,:: Recline considered thoughtfully, giving a pregnant pause before adding ::though, I was thinking of making you watch Sleepless in Seattle with me, followed by ridiculously schmoopy, giggly interfacing. But that can wait. Would you and Danny like a more comfortable berth to snuggle on?::

::I will admit I was hoping you might suggest that,:: First Aid said, his frame vibrating slightly with quiet laughter.

::I've got one short session -- just a meet and greet, not a full recharge. Be there in a little over an hour,:: Recline promised.

::Thanks, snuggles,:: First Aid said, every one of his components feeling like it was warmly glowing.

::Any time, m'dear. And Aid, I told you he'd remember you. Before you scold me, I didn't keep mimicking your field resonance just to make sure of that. He really was a bit of a mess after you and your brothers left... driving his mom and dad to the brink way more than even what you'd expect from a two year old Witwicky. It was the only thing that seemed to help settle him down. He just... got into the habit of coming to me for a quick snuggle when he was out of sorts.::

::I... thank you.:: First Aid cupped his hand over the child who slept soundly, so very close to the same spot where First Aid had kept him close as the tiniest infant. ::I'm worried for him, but maybe you can help me sort some of that out later. Not even sure I could explain why right now. I'm worried about how distant Carly is, how long it'll be 'till he sees his dad again. But I know that isn't the half of it. My triage protocols kicked in when I first saw him injured and heard him screaming -- just a normal childhood injury! I scared Hot Rod out of his exhaust manifolds... not that he didn't deserve a little scaring, letting Danny get hurt like that.::

::We'll sort it all out, dearspark,:: Recline responded, his glyphs laden with assurances and hopeful modifiers. ::It wouldn't surprise me at all if your spark tweaked your code a bit to add some creator-bonding algorithms back when you were practically incubating him. Don't you think Ratchet's triage coding would kick in if you were hurt?::

First Aid scanned the child sleeping on his chest, awe intermingling with concern. Well... that would certainly explain why he'd been so irrationally furious with Hot Rod. What did the humans call it? Being a mama bear?

Daniel stirred, trying to stretch his arm and finding that he couldn't. His arm was uncomfortable and achey. He felt the bed beneath him shift, helping him to turn and find a more comfortable position, cradling his arm on a warm, slightly elevated, contoured hump.

It was only when First Aid softly asked him if he needed something for his pain that Daniel realized his back was snuggled up against First Aid's chest, just the way he liked to have his back resting against the wall in his room. He could feel the comfortable vibrations of whatever was happening inside the medic.

His arm did hurt. "Yes, please," he said, using his free hand to rub his eyes and snuggling in closer to First Aid's warmth. The medic reached around and gently touched his wrist, just below the metal-wrap-cast thing, with the noodly thing that came out of his finger. Danny heard a 'pssht' sound, and felt a pleasant numbness spread up his arm.

"That better, sweetspark?" First Aid asked him. Daniel liked the way First Aid's hand stayed cupped around him, and really liked the way his body went all warm and happy again, like being snuggled on the inside.

"Mmm hmm," he said sleepily, yawning.

His last memory as he drifted back into dreaming was First Aid quietly humming a song that Danny could've sworn he'd heard somewhere before.