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"You did what?!"

Sideswipe didn't even flinch at the volume of Ratchet's voice, but then again, he was very used to it by now. Instead, he smiled innocently back at the Autobot CMO. "It's just like I told you, Ratch."

Ratchet glowered fiercely at the red Lamborghini. "Let me get this straight," he gritted out. "You decided that it would be funny to leave a squirrel - a Primus-forsaken squirrel - in Red Alert's recharge berth because you thought it would short his circuits?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Did you even stop for a nanoklik to even consider the possibility that the squirrel could chew through his circuits and fuel lines if left alone?"

Sideswipe's innocent expression faltered just a bit, but not for very long. "It was a good idea at the time..."

"A good idea? A good idea?! Do you even know what sort of damage you could have done?! If it had managed to find a way to his spark chamber, there'd be nothing I could do to repair him!"

"...I just wanted to short his circuits..."

"Shorting his circuits was the least troublesome of all the other possible outcomes. Short circuits, I can fix; a chewed-through spark chamber is something I can't fix!" Ratchet's glare suddenly went cold, stopping Sideswipe midway through opening his mouth to defend himself. "Not. Another. Word. Get out of my med-bay right now, and you go explain this to Prowl."

The med-bay doors slid open and closed as Sideswipe scuttled out, and it was only then that First Aid chose to leave the relative safety of the supply cabinet and face his still-volatile boss and mentor.

As soon as he appeared, Ratchet unleashed a furious storm of curses and oaths: a mixture of the worst in English and Cybertronian that could easily burn the audios off anyone. First Aid turned away to face the shelves, using the need to focus on restocking them as an excuse to have his back turned towards Ratchet. "Sideswipe again, huh boss?"

The stream of invectives that answered his question was so venomous it could have melted the exoskeleton off a Decepticon. When First Aid finally put his audios back online, he heard Ratchet saying: "- what's worse: Decepticons trying to turn us all into hot piles of slag, or that scrap yard-assembled microchip and his Pit-spawned twin brother trying to destroy each other with their brawling or the rest of us with their pranks!"

First Aid laughed uneasily as he arranged cans of coolant on the shelf. "Well, at least the Twins are on our side, right?"

"That's the whole fragging point!" Ratchet exploded. "Since they're on our side, they're not supposed to play any of their pranks on us! But do they stop? Do they?!"

"Um...no?"

"Precisely! I don't know why Prime keeps them around! They're more trouble than they're worth!"

First Aid sighed, and turned around to face Ratchet. "Because they're the best warriors we've got, and the best we'll ever get." He smiled slightly. "You gotta admit it, boss: they've got courage and bravado. It's just that they seem to have way too much of it for their own good."

Ratchet stilled then, and First Aid braced himself for whatever it was that the CMO was going to hurl in his direction, both in terms of objects and in terms of words.

But instead, Ratchet grunted, and his shoulders slumped as if he had been deflated. "Good point," he muttered, and seemed to sound incredibly weary. "Primus, it's been a long day...and it hasn't even started yet."

First Aid chuckled. "Maybe you'd like to catch up on your lost recharge, boss? I can handle things here." When Ratchet gave him a questioning look, he added: "I'll make sure to call you if something comes up that I can't handle."

"Fine." Ratchet trudged towards the door, pressing a button to make it open. Before stepping out, however, he glanced over his shoulder, and smiled wanly at First Aid. "Thanks."

"No problem boss."

As soon as the door closed behind Ratchet, First Aid uttered a sigh of relief. Disaster had been averted, and Ratchet's temper defused - at least for now. He hoped the recharge, however short, would do his boss some good. Giving him that time to rest was the least he could do for him, really.

He looked up when the door opened again, and smiled when Inferno stepped in.

"All clear?" Inferno asked, looking around for any sign of Ratchet.

"All clear," First Aid confirmed, and knowing why Inferno had come, added: "Red's in recharge right now. Turned out to be nothing more than his usual shorted circuits."

Inferno laughed, but First Aid could clearly hear the relief in his voice. "That's great. Good to know."

"Yeah." Silence settled between the two of them: a companionable sort of silence that needed no words to fill the space.

After a while though, Inferno asked: "How do you stand it?"

First Aid looked up, puzzled by the question. "Stand what?"

"You know..." Inferno gestured to the med-bay. "Ratchet. How do you take all that swearing and his temper?"

"Oh, that." First Aid fell silent for a while, thinking about how to answer Inferno. He knew Inferno asked only because he was worried for him, in his own way, and not because he disliked Ratchet or anything of the sort. But he could understand why he was concerned: the CMO's temper was as legendary as his skills as a medic, and practically everyone in the Ark had been on the receiving end of that temper – except for Optimus Prime, but then again, Prime was the Autobot Commander, and no one yelled at him. Ratchet had been known to give him backtalk, though, when he didn’t particularly agree with whatever plan Prime might have had in mind.

"'Aid?"

First Aid looked up, and smiled apologetically. "Sorry." He leaned against one of the counters. "To answer your question... I guess it's because I can understand why Ratchet's like that."

When Inferno gave him an inquiring look, he continued: "It's not easy being a medic, especially to a bunch of mechs like us. We might hand the 'Cons their afts more often than not, they also inevitably hand us ours sometimes. That means one day, one of us is going to get brought into this med-bay, and Ratchet won't be able to fix the damage. And the last thing the boss wants is for that to happen. Sadly, we don't make it any easier for him, since we get into all sorts of trouble even when we're not dealing with the 'Cons."

First Aid smiled slightly. "You remember the time when Sideswipe stepped on that 'Con landmine a few months back?"

"Yeah, I remember," Inferno replied, nodding. "Primus, he was in so many pieces that we all thought he wouldn't make it."

"But Ratchet put him back together," First Aid reminded him. "Didn't refuel or recharge for nearly forty-eight hours, but he put Sideswipe back together. And you know what he was doing while he was working?"

"What?"

"Praying. He was begging Primus to help Sideswipe make it through. Promised that he'd go easy on him, as long as he made it. Of course, we know Ratchet never really did that, but you know how it goes."

First Aid looked at his hands, remembering how he had assisted Ratchet during those horrible, processor-scrambling hours. "The boss doesn't like showing it, but I know, deep in his spark, he worries for all of us. He'd rather be deactivated than lose one of us on his watch. Sure, he yells and carries on and throws things around, but it's just because he wants to remind us - in his own way - that we're important to him."

A small smile quirked his lips. "In the end, he values our afts more than he values his. And losing one of us, any one of us, would devastate him completely."

Inferno was quiet, and First Aid knew that he was taking in everything that he had said about Ratchet. He figured - quite rightly, now that he saw how Inferno was taking this - that very few Autobots besides those who had been around Ratchet for a long time (meaning Wheeljack and the other upper-echelon officers) knew about that side of him. It took working alongside him to know that, under Ratchet's surly, cranky exterior, was the spark of a medic who valued the lives of his patients more than his own, and would do absolutely anything to make sure that they continued to function.

Inferno chuckled then, and he remarked: "Certainly explains why Ratchet threw The Fit of All Fits after he pronounced Sideswipe well enough to leave the med-bay after the landmine incident."

First Aid snorted. "Jazz said that one made history, apparently. He'd never seen the boss pitch a fit quite so long or quite so vitriolic."

"Blaster's got it all on record," Inferno said slyly.

"Audio or video?"

"Both."

First Aid whistled. "The boss would have his spark on a spit if he knew."

Inferno shrugged. "As long as nobody talks - including you, 'Aid - then Ratchet will be blissfully unaware of its existence." He moved towards the door, but stopped midway, and turned to First Aid, smiling. "Glad to know you're happy here. Your brothers tend to wonder if you're doing okay here. I do too."

First Aid smiled back, both at Inferno's concern and at his brothers'. "I'm great here, trust me." He nodded at the door. "You go and get out of here before the boss comes back. I'll call you when Red's back online."

"Great. Thanks 'Aid." The door opened and closed, and First Aid was left alone once again. This time, he went about his work, doing inventory with a smile on his face and a tune in his processors, which he whistled while waiting for Red Alert to come back online.