Chapter One

Warning: This fic will contain adult themes, drug and alcohol usage, heavy violence, large amount of profanity, psychological themes, and sexual themes. Read at own risk.

Notes: This takes place in NiGhT-sTaLkEr13’s Universe, post-war

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Bloodshed sat quietly at Nebula’s bedside, his optics glancing over at the monitors. Her spark rate seemed normal, as well as whatever else the machines were monitoring. He didn’t know; he wasn’t a doctor. He just knew that, for now, she would be okay.

His optics fell to her body again. He inwardly winced at the restrains they had on her wrists and a part of him wanted to take them off. It seemed wrong to see her restrained like some mental patient, but he knew it was for her own good. When the doctors had tried to help her before, she spat at them and even tried to strange one of them.

Fortunately, Bloodshed had been there to restrain her when the mech nurses couldn’t, because he knew she wouldn’t do anything against him. The doctors had given her a sedative, hence why she was dead asleep now, or otherwise they never would have been able to look over the damage that had been done to her body.

Bloodshed gritted his dentals together as he remembered what he had come across. The femme had taken a hard blow to the helm, probably thanks to a club or a bat or something. The side of her face was swollen, as if she had been smacked around. Her back was covered in dents and bruises, cuts on her chest and arms from looked like a hard struggle. They had bandaged and cleaned her up at the hospital, but that image was forever burned in his mind.

He didn’t know how or why it happened. He only knew that, that evening, he had gone down to the construction site because he had forgotten something in the locker room. When he pulled up into the parking lot, he saw a group of about four mechs over by actual worksite.

He had gotten out of his car and made his way over to them. But when he was about three yards away, one of the mechs spotted him. Immediately, they scattered, like rats scampering away at the sight of a light. He only caught a good look at the mech who spotted him, a short black and brown mech who looked like he had gotten a royal beating to the face.

But when they retreated into the night and out of his line of vision, he could see someone still lying on the floor, looking completely dead. He ran over to the fall bot, only to stop cold as his body froze up, his stomach dropping in horror.

She was breathing, she was very much awake, but she looked very much dead. Covered in dirt, blood, spit, and transfluid, Nebula lied there on the ground, a cloth having been shoved in her mouth with her hands tied behind her back. Off to the side, Bloodshed could see her armor and her police uniform in the mud.

He did the only thing he could do. He called the police and an ambulance to get her transported to Kaon Hospital. It was undoubtedly one of the worst things he ever had to see. Nebula being lifted off the ground, not say a word and only staring at everything and everyone. It was like her soul had left her body. Like she was just an empty shell.

Only when she got to the hospital did she act completely psychotic, screaming at every mech and femme that went near her. She didn’t want to be there, she said that everything was fine and she didn’t need any pity, any help from anyone. When they had her sedated, the police had started questioning him about what happened and everything. He couldn’t remember exactly what the asked – really, the only thing had been a blur – and now he was sitting by her hospital bed, waiting for her to wake up from her forced stassis.

Almost hesitantly, he reached up and stroked over her helm gently. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t. She would rather die than allow this to happen to her. She said that all the time. And yet… It happened.  It made him sick to his stomach, especially when he could have stopped those bastards from getting away. Why didn’t he? He should have. He could have…

“Bl-Bloodshed?”

The red mech looked up and over his shoulder, seeing Novabomb at the door. He motioned for him to come in, not wanting to leave his friend’s side. The younger mech rushed in, closing the door behind him. His optics never left the sleeping femme on the berth as he walked over to the other, a part of him wanting to break down and cry as he looked at Nebula’s state.

Bloodshed had called him from the hospital when he was at home and snuggling with Mirage. To think that maybe less than half an hour ago, he was all fine and giddy with his mate, but that one phone call had destroyed basically everything.

He didn’t want to believe his friend at first, but Bloodshed never lied. Especially not about something like this. He would never make this up. Once he hung up, he had flown over here as fast as he could. Not that he would tell anyone he flew here, considering he didn’t have a license for it. He was just lucky he didn’t get caught. But that wasn’t the point.

Bloodshed looked over at his friend as he pulled up a chair next to him. His face was pale, he was panting hard, his body was shaking, he was sweaty, and Bloodshed could hear his spark was pounding hard in his chest.

“Nova, you okay?”

He nodded. “Y-Yeah… I’m fine.” But his voice was high and shaky, obviously traumatized by the news. He was too, but he just didn’t show it. Not because he didn’t want to. He just didn’t know how to act.

They were both trying to make sense of this. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Nebula was stronger than a lot of mechs out there and she had easily taken on more than four mechs before back in the war. It wasn’t like she had her guard down when she was alone. They didn’t understand and they didn’t want to believe that this had happened to her.

“Did you see who it was?” Novabomb asked in a soft voice.

Bloodshed shook his head. “Only saw one of the mechs, but… It wasn’t that great of a look.”

“Oh…” He went quiet after that, gently running his fingers down Nebula’s scarred arm. This shouldn’t have happened. Why did it happen? “Is she going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The doctors haven’t finished the tests yet.”

“I don’t mean physically.” But Novabomb didn’t add anything else to his sentence, Bloodshed easily picking up what the other was implying.

He looked over at Nebula for a few moments. He wanted to stay optimistic (despite normally being pessimistic), but it was damn near impossible. He wasn’t blind to the facts, to the reality of this situation. Nebula had been through this before. She grew to hate mechs because of it. But that had just been once and it had been only one mech. He didn’t know what happened to her with those four fucks. But from the scars on her body, he knew it wasn’t like the first time. It had been worse. Much, much worse.

“No.”

Novabomb was silent then, simply choosing to stroke over her arm again. He looked up at her face. She looked peaceful, despite the bandages wrapped around her head. She just lied there against the hospital bed, wearing the white hospital gown with the sheets over her body and under her arms. He winced a bit when he saw that she was strapped down to the berth. It reminded him too much of his time at the asylum. He reached over to loosen the bounds, but Bloodshed stopped hm.

“Nova, don’t.”

“Why?” he hissed. “She’s not hurting anyone. She’s not some mental patient!”

“I know, but it’s what the doctors want.”

“Fuck the doctors!” he snarled, standing up. “What do they know?! They haven’t even come in yet to tell us if she’s gonna be okay or not! Doctors don’t know shit!”

“Novabomb,” Bloodshed growled, reaching up and forcing the mech to sit down. “Just shut up. You just got here – you haven’t been waiting as long as I have. And these doctors aren’t your doctors. You didn’t see her like I did. You didn’t see what she tried to do. So shut up and calm down. You wanna fall into an episode while she’s trying to recover?” He gestured to the femme lying in the berth.

Novabomb breathed hard. He was angry, confused, and afraid. He didn’t know how to make sense of this or whether or not Nebula was going to be okay. It didn’t help that he was in a hospital with cops on the first floor. It made him jumpy, nervous. Primus, he just wanted to know why it had to happen to her.

“I’m sorry…” he murmured softly, calming down. “I… I just…”

“I know.” Bloodshed rubbed his back. “But this isn’t about you. Or me. Nebula’s the one who went through hell, not us. Just remember that we need to help her. Okay?”

Novabomb nodded. He knew that. It was just… hard. He didn’t want to see anyone he cared about hurt. He had already lost his parents. He couldn’t lose anymore loved ones. It would kill him. He knew it was the same for Bloodshed. It surprised him to see that he was so calm about the matter. It was weird; he thought the other would be just as pissed.

“Okay…” he murmured softly. “It’s just… I’m so…” He couldn’t get the words out. There was so much he wanted to say, but there were so few words that could describe what he felt.

But Bloodshed understood completely. He had felt the same way too when everything had all happened. But his emotions had been numbed by what he had seen and he just didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was hard to not think about it though, considering he was sitting at Nebula’s bedside.

Primus was cruel to her. He allowed her to be born to that hateful family, allowed a pervert to lust after her as a child, allowed him to rape her, allowed her beloved Sunbeam to die, allowed Megatron to have his way with her whenever he wanted, and now he had allowed her to be gang raped. He wanted to hate Him, wanted to think He wasn’t real for what he put her through. But he couldn’t do it, no matter how much he wanted to.

You told Thornstriker?” Novabomb asked softly.

Now Novabomb was just trying to make conversation. And for once, Bloodshed didn’t mind it. Right now, he couldn’t stand the silence.

He nodded. “Did you tell Mirage?”

“Yeah… He asked and I wasn’t going to lie to him…”

“He decided not to come?”

“He didn’t think it was right and that Nebula would like it if he was there too.”

Bloodshed nodded once. “Thornstriker said the same thing.”

Their conversation was meaningless, but again, he didn’t want to sit in silence, only listening to the breathing of his friend and the monitor bleeping every other second. Conversation would do his swirling mind some justice. He knew it would calm down Novabomb too. They just needed to pass the time, to keep waiting for a doctor to come in and give them some news, any news.

But above all, they waited for their friend to wake up, to let her know that they were there for her. And even though both of them knew she would probably reject them when she woke up, it was fine. They would be there for her. Always.