TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

You know, it's not clear how much Ratchet knew about Whirl's inner thought processes, especially since Whirl was barely even confiding in Rung. But Whirl does tell Cyclonus that he doesn't want his hands fixed because it helps keep him angry. Which maybe works as a coping mechanism to help keep you going, but it's not the healthiest coping mechanism. And in his weird roundabout way, Whirl does a lot to prioritize other people's needs over his own. If Ratchet's dying wish was for Whirl to have his hands... would Whirl have turned them down? That could be a really interesting AU first aid/whirl WHERE MAKING THIS HAPEN

 

But but okay this is so much more interesting than writing my stupid report for my stupid job, and IMAGINE THE UPHEAVAL ON THE SHIP OKAY OKAY. SO.

Ratchet's dead. Rewind's dead. There are a couple other casualties. Maybe a few more than we even happen in canon drift still trying to drag himself back to the fight after losing his legs, and he and ratchet going down together. So Whirl gets Ratchet's hands. And First Aid is told that he's 'ready.'

Now... wow, okay, that's gonna make a significant impact in their lives. Given the way Whirl talks about his empurata keeping him angry and keeping him going, it seems like a huge part of Who He Is. And now he.... isn't anymore. A face is nice, but you don't really interact much with your own face, y'know? In terms of interacting with the world around you, a massive, massive part of what you do comes back to hands. Plus there's the whole artisan background way back in his past. In later mtmte, we see him starting to return to it. But it seems like it's been an awful long time and he's trying to pick up those old skills again. I get the impression that it's been since he lost his business, which means it's been more than four million years.

So... how much of that is that war was keeping him busy, and how much of that is avoiding old pain? Claw hands. Those make a good excuse for why you aren't fiddling with watches even though you love love love fiddling with watches. And now... bam, that excuse is gone. What are you going to do with yourself? Since he is able to make clocks, even with claws, later on, not having hands would be an excuse rather than a true 100% limiting factor. So maybe the wait is more psychological and he needs to be ready to do it first. Okay. But... in the meantime, what is he going to do with himself? I don't know if I'm articulating this well, but he is not a low-energy person, getting kicked out of the wreckers yanked the rug from under his feet, and getting hands again is all the more reason to feel guilty over 'I should be Doing Things'

Smash cut to First Aid. What a roller coaster ride our boy has had. Springer went to him, out of all the autobot medics out there, and trusted him with the top top top secret knowledge of what Agent 113 was doing. But... then First Aid tried to follow through on that responsibility and got flagged for being unstable and obsessed with autobrands, but he was good and kept the secret information secret, even though it meant negative outcomes for him on a personal and professional level. And it didn't seem like Delphi was a great place to be stationed. Kinda sucks to be living next door to the DJD on a frozen shithole, without any real autobot facilities to back you up, just a couple doctors and a pile of patients. Then bAM, here's the legendary-awesome chief medical officer recognizing your skill, being there to see the successful test run of the new medical procedure you invented, flipping the bird to your shitty boss, and whisking you and your nice coworker away on an intergalactic road trip with the cool kids and some of the highest-profile autobots left alive. Annnnnnd then he died in a bloody fight one of the last things he said that you're ready to be the boss now. Holy shit.

So wow! That's gotta be disorienting as hell for both of them, on an emotional and practical level. So sure, maybe Whirl doesn't have any real duties that he's neglecting, but this knocks him right out from where he's been treading water and into a riptide. And this dumps so much responsibility right on First Aid's shoulders. Maybe Ambulon can help a little. He is a doctor, and maybe he's not the CMO sort, but he is an administrator and is familiar with First Aid, and he's not in the direct line of emotional fire the way First Aid was, and he can keep things running until First Aid finds his footing, right?

BZZT WRONG. Because the Overlord fight leads directly into the Luna I arc, and Tailgate is a ticking time bomb with a serious deadline. First Aid is the one who tells him about his cybercrosis. Pharma's still out for revenge, but Ratchet's gone. Well... what's second best? How about the guys who helped Ratchet fuck him over, and how about the guy waltzing around wearing his hands? So, Pharma yoinks First Aid, Ambulon, and Whirl. Ambulon gets Ambulon'd. Maybe First Aid reengineers him like Ratchet did, maybe he's trying to save his life even though there's no hope, maybe the emotional hits he's taking are officially Too Much, and Whirl's the one to take out the legislators and get them out of that situation. If we don't want to disrupt the plot too badly, maybe First Aid and Whirl rendezvous with Cyclonus and Whirl and him can do the fighty thing and free the Circle of Light. First Aid can find the control room and do his thing with Pharma. The emotions in this scenario might even be a little more nasty than they were in canon, because the supports of Ratchet and Ambulon were both just shot out from under him. Ratchet passed all that responsibility on to him, and what's the first thing that happens? The people fighting Overlord die and he can't do anything. Tailgate is about to die and he can't do anything. Ambulon was killed in front of him and he couldn't do anything. How much can one mech even take?

So Whirl is.... Whirl. But he watches folks, and he has this thing with absorbing negative consequences himself instead of letting them happen to other people. And he's got these hands, even though he didn't want them, and he can't get rid of them because he has them since someone is dead (Ratchet the medic fought Overlord when it should have been Whirl the wrecker fighting Overlord, and then nobody important would have died). And he was right there for Pharma's little game with First Aid. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine him hanging around the medbay. He's good at being an annoying, cheerful distraction. And First Aid's left all alone with all this responsibility, so much guilt, and no support. Maybe Whirl doesn't have the training other medics have, but I bet the wreckers were at least familiar with basic field patches and just-don't-bleed-out stopgap measures, and there's probably lots of little, easy things First Aid can show him to help ease his own workload as Whirl follows him around.

There's Dark Cybertron going down (which could have a really interesting scene with First Aid instead of Ratchet there to put Megatron back together, and maybe Whirl too have they even faced off since that time in the jail cell, oh mannnnnnn). And then there's a six month lull in canon, just PACKED full of opportunities to Get To Know Each Other. And then... combiner wars. Mirage is hallucinating like fuck, and they need to get him to earth urgently. Irl, this is an excuse to get First Aid with the other protectobots even though they have no personal bond in this canon, but shhhh sh sh, Mirage needs a doctor, and this will be fast, and Velocity and Whirl can manage any emergencies that come up for a week or two. But then First Aid doesn't come back, and it's not like Whirl cares or anything, but. fretfretfretfretfret. And eventually he goes blasting off to retrieve First Aid from [circumstances] a la the dratchet in Empire of Stone, though with presumably different angst holding First Aid up. And by then, canon plot threads are really, really getting pulled out of alignment (I dunno, maybe cyclonus makes a space skype call to be like WHIRL I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT ROMANCE). But Whirl and First Aid making a dramatic reentry into the plot at that one spot and saving Ten would be pretty fucking badass.

I dunno man, I feel like there's a seriously fascinating fic hidden in there if I could just find clear stop/start points probably with lots of emotional sex because I'm me And I wasn't kidding with that first post, I'm shipping the hell out of Whirl and First Aid in this situation. I've gotta try to think this over, see if I can find a way to make a clean entry and exit with a coherent plot, because this is so fascinating. Whirl off balance is my favorite. And I haven't gotten to write First Aid for-real off-balance, just in a playful sexy way, and I want to tap into those uglier emotions. This could be so interesting if I could just figure out how to write it

 

I can't like this post as many times as it deserves

"With a chest big enough to accommodate ten Matrixes (if you stacked them on top of each other)--"

 

Oh but also okay okay

So, Whirl is a pretty tall guy. He is Sizeable.

Now.... imagine if Tailgate was dying and wanted to leave his hands to Whirl

 

I know, right????

And stopping at that spot, it hurts me. Physically, it makes my heart hurt :C

The thing that upsets me most is that even knowing that it would stop in the middle somewhere, even being ready for it, when the author started teasing that scene I figured that there had to be space left for that to wrap up at least. But nnnnnope. The writing has enough detours and delays that not only did that scene get finished, but it stopped in literally the most painful possible spot. I need more so bad I could scream.

 

I know a lot of people are split on this issue