"This is terrible," Verdant moaned.
Her ship was an absolute mess. Ultra Magnus had dumped it into the building hosting his ship and Verdant had been tasked with repairing it. Of course, she knew how to fix the ship, but it had never been this damaged.
The alternative to fixing her ship would be to go back into the main base and help Ratchet, but the medic had taken care of every aspect of his team's technological needs before she came along. She felt like she was impeding on his work.
Ultra Magnus didn't care what she was doing, as long as it was productive. He was far too busy bossing the other insubordinates around. They were clearly rusty on the concept of a chain of command—if not altogether ignoring it.
So that left her with fixing the ship.
The thrusters were busted, the entire floor was shredded, shrapnel was everywhere, the side was caved in, the control panel was squashed... Verdant could have spent the next hour listing all the parts that needed repairs or replacement. She sat in her collapsed seat and groaned.
She was not looking forward to this. Especially not with the horribly primitive tools that Agent Fowler probably pulled out the bottom of a random garbage can. He might as well have handed her a turbofox and asked her to use it as a hammer.
"Ugh," Verdant glanced at her salvaged surveillance equipment and whined.
It would never be the same again.
"You sound miserable and pathetic," Wheeljack spoke up from behind her.
"The frag!" Verdant lept up and glared at him. "The frag!?"
He smirked. "Does Ultra Magnus know you've got a terrible potty mouth?"
She grabbed a random chunk of scrap and threw it at him. "What are you doing in here!?"
"Well, I could tell you a pretty lie or an ugly truth. Which do you prefer?"
"I'd prefer you to take your aft and throw it out the door!"
Wheeljack looked behind him. "You call that a door?"
"Does Ultra Magnus know you're here?" she demanded.
"Dang, I hope so," Wheeljack crouched and picked up a stabilizer. "How is this even inside your ship?"
Verdant rolled her optics. "Does the concept of being blow up and ramming a ravine give you any idea?"
"A little," Wheeljack tossed it behind him. "Well, we have a lot of work ahead of us, so hand me that screwdriver."
"What's a screwdriver?"
"The weird twisty thing," he pointed behind her. "The one with the flat end."
Verdant picked up an anchor. "This?"
"Yeah," he snatched it away and immediately dropped it out a hole in the wall. "You're stupid. How did you survive this long?"
"Get out!" Verdant hissed. "I don't need your help."
"You do, actually," Wheeljack went over to the pile of tools and grabbed a large mallet before pulling a plunger from his subspace. "I'm going to start pounding the shape back into the front of your ship. Go ahead and keep complaining about how difficult your life is. I don't need you."
Verdant scoffed. "You have a lot of nerve to be–"
"Blah, blah, blah," Wheeljack jumped out of the ship and ignored her.
Verdant growled and ejected her tentacles before turning back toward the mess of her ship. Oh, she was going to show that stuck-up fragger who the fraggin' boss was in this slagheap of a vessel.
She grabbed a pile of sheet metal with one servo and started repairing the holes. At the same time, she could hear Wheeljack hitting her ship with the mallet and occasionally the weird suctioning sounds from the plunger.
Focusing back on her work, Verdant spent her time repairing tears and gashes around the exterior. At exactly three hours and twenty-six minutes after they'd started working, Wheeljack's banging sounds disappeared, along with him. Honestly it was a little sad. She'd grown accustomed to working alongside him, silently, barely acknowledging each other's presence. It was poor teamwork, maybe, but Wheeljack helped a lot and she did appreciate what he had done.
Calmly, Verdant was able to finish up exterior damages and then moved onto the next most pressing matter, aside from her thrusters, because she definitely didn't have the right tools for that. Verdant stepped into her ship and opened the hatch to the engine block.
Wheeljack glanced up at her before shrugging and returning to his work.
"I thought you left," Verdant said.
"Did you miss me?"
She shrugged and sat down. "Thanks for your help."
He wiped the lubricant on his servos on his thigh. "Ultra Magnus ordered me to help you."
"Still," Verdant leaned against the entryway and yawned, "we both know you only do what you're told when you want to."
"It was the lesser of two evils."
Verdant shot him a half-hearted glare. "Just accept the praise and give your ego a boost, would you?"
Wheeljack smirked. "Fine. I'll make sure to inform Ultra Magnus how much you enjoyed my company."
"I did, actually," Verdant told him, her gaze absently examining a crack in the hatch.
"Oh," Wheeljack blinked in surprise before shaking it away and grinning. "Well, yeah, I am wonderful company, aren't I?"
"You're insufferable," Verdant huffed.
"More than sufferable, according to you," he chuckled.
"Is that even a word?"
He shrugged. "Who knows? We're speaking English. You should've heard all the weird stuff coming out of Miko's mouth yesterday."
Verdant hummed. "Wanna go get a cube?"
"Is it a date?"
"The frag?" Verdant kicked his shoulder. "Nevermind, I'll go alone."
She climbed back into the main portion of the ship and Wheeljack scrambled after her, laughing. "Touchy. I bet Ultra Magnus would be so jealous you got a new boyfriend."
Verdant scoffed. "Ha! One, dating Ultra Magnus is illegal, and two, your flirting skills are terrible."
"What?" Wheeljack followed her out of the ship. "But Ratchet tells me I'm embarrassing!"
"Yeah," Verdant snorted. "Exactly."
Wheeljack grinned. "So you and Ultra Magnus aren't a thing?"
"No, he's my commander," Verdant rolled her optics humorously. "Besides, he's sworn off relationships. The mech has been through enough."
"But you know each other so well," Wheeljack pointed out.
"We've been working together since the start of the war, so obviously, we do, but it's purely platonic. You've got an overactive imagination."
Verdant entered the energon storage vault and grabbed her ration. "What about you? Surely you've got someone you left behind?"
Wheeljack blinked, not expecting her to reverse his teasing. "I mean, not really. It was just me and the wreckers, and then after the exodus, it was just me and the stars."
Verdant lowered her cube. "How long were you out there all alone?"
"Long time," Wheeljack replied quietly.
The two of them drank their cubes slowly, optics examining the floor with detached interest.
"That sounds horrible," Verdant muttered. "I always thought my luck was low with just me and Magnus, but I can't imagine spending so long alone."
"Well," Wheeljack tried to shake off the growing feeling of melancholy. "I found a few bots out there, we just didn't stay together. My buddy Seaspray and I made radio contact and communicated for a few days, until..."
Wheeljack tilted his helm. He really never thought about how depressing the exodus had been for him. Maybe he shouldn't have left the wreckers... or he should've gone with Bulkhead to meet up with Team Prime.
"The war was bad for all of us," Wheeljack said. "I've got my story, you've got yours."
Verdant shook her helm. "I'm an intelligence officer, and a lot more shielded than you are. My story pales in comparison."
"I guess that's a good thing," Wheeljack decided.
To this, she agreed. "Yeah, but sometimes I feel that bots like you go through so much struggle to win this war and it makes me feel guilty about how little I've had to deal with."
Wheeljack finished his cube. "Don't. Guilt won't get you anywhere."
Verdant nodded and set her cube in the recycling bin before holding out her servo to take Wheeljack's. The wrecker handed it over and the two of them made their way out of the room.
"I'm gonna to go throw darts into Ultra Magnus's shoulders and see if he even notices," Wheeljack to her with a grin. "You wanna come watch?"
"What makes you think I won't just tell Ultra Magnus?"
"Well," Wheeljack grinned, "that would certainly make the game more challenging."
"Dear Primus," Verdant turned away from him. "You need a medic, wrecker."
Wheeljack laughed. "I need a lot more than just a medic."
She laughed.
Verdant split ways and headed back to ship. Once she was a good distance away, she activated her comms and contacted Ultra Magnus.
"Sir, Wheeljack is planning on pranking you, I'd advise that you watch your shoulders."
"Again?" Ultra Magnus grumbled. "Thank you, Verdant."
"Anytime," she replied lightly.
Stepping back into the ship, Verdant looked around at the wreckage and let out a small sigh of resignation before getting to work. This mess didn't seem so unbearable anymore.