Chapter 4: Poke poke

The trip back started rather pleasantly compared to the trip across. Starscream was feeling alright, slightly tired from lack of Energon, but otherwise spent the trip out of the med bay. He headed up to watch Optimus and Hoist steering the ship, and settled himself on a small ledge to casually watch what was going on, striking a remarkable resemblance to a cat. As Optimus Prime was there, Jetfire was unable to annoy Starscream, so he moved off to annoy Hotshot instead.

"Poke poke!" Jetfire said as he poked Hotshot.
"Poke poke!" Hotshot repeated, poking Jetfire back. Jetfire stared at him. Hotshot was... poking him back? Starscream never poked him back. Why was Hotshot grinning? Well this was no fun! Jetfire stalked off to find someone else to poke.
"What was that all about?" Scavenger asked as he came to check on Sideswipe and Hotshot.
"No idea," Sideswipe replied with a shrug. "Poke!" he added, poking Hotshot. And so began the poking game.

"Hey Scavenger..." Blurr came to an abrupt halt as he caught sight of Hotshot and Sideswipe taking turns poking each other, verbalising the action each time. "... What are they doing?"
"They're poking each other," Scavenger explained.
"Well I can see that, but... why?" Blurr asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine," the green Autobot mercenary replied.

The poking game quickly became popular with the Minicons, who scurried about the Cybertronian cruiser poking each other and any unfortunate Autobot that stood still long enough to get poked. Starscream had almost fallen asleep when he caught sight of something small and red enter the room. He looked up to see Swindle standing in front of him, a small pack of Minicons behind him.
"Beep!" Swindle declared as he poked Starscream's arm. The Minicons beeped with laughter as they ran off, the three Autobots in the room staring after them.
"No matter where I am, they still find me!" Starscream exclaimed, putting his hands over his head and glancing around with feigned paranoia. Optimus and Hoist stared at him.

The door slid open to admit Jetfire, the one who had inadvertently commenced the cruiser-wide poking game. He loitered around the back, waiting until both Hoist and Optimus were considerably engrossed in taking care of the cruiser. Then he leapt on top of Starscream. Hoist cringed as Starscream emitted a piercing shriek.
"Jetfire!" Optimus exclaimed in reprimand. The shuttle grinned as he sat atop a squirming, writhing jet. Just as he did so, the door opened.

Red Alert was pleased. Nobody seemed to require medical attention, so that left him free to finally relax. After taking a brief walk around the cruiser, he decided to pop in and see how Optimus and Hoist were doing, and presumably Starscream as well as he had yet to spot the red jet. The door slid open to reveal a rather odd scene. It appeared that Jetfire had just launched himself on top of Starscream, and was now sitting on the disgruntled jet. Optimus Prime had just started to move forwards to mediate, but stopped to look up at Red Alert as he entered.
"Get off him, Jetfire," the medic commanded, crossing his arms as he moved over to them, a stern expression on his face.
"Uh, Jetfire? I think you should do what he says, Starscream isn't looking so hot," Hoist said, pointing to the sullen jet.

"Jetfire, if you make him..." Red Alert began. Jetfire suddenly found himself hoisted into the air by Optimus only moments before Starscream, his tank thoroughly churned from having Jetfire rough him up, hurled the contents of his tank quite violently onto Red Alert in front of him. There was a moment of pause in which Jetfire had the decency to look as guilty as possible. Red Alert flicked the pink Energon from his arms onto the already stained floor, and then took a very deep breath.
"Jetfire," the medic began, voice dangerously calm, "you will help me bring Starscream to the cruiser's med bay where you will clean him up, and then you will return here with two cloths to clean up this mess. Then you will wash all of the cloths until they are cleaner than when I first got them. And then you will wash each and every tool until it shines so much that it hurts to look at them!" With that, the medic put his arm around Starscream and started to lift him. The shuttle gulped, and then hurried over to help carry Starscream before Red Alert became angry.

After sitting Starscream on a metal table with a waste container, Red Alert moved off to clean up the pink Energon. Jetfire took some cloths and a container of warm water and started to clean Starscream up, determined to be on his best behaviour for the rest of the trip as he did feel very guilty, both for Starscream and for Red Alert. When the shuttle had Starscream's red and white armour shining, he made sure the jet was settled before taking the last few clean cloths and heading off to clean up the last of the mess. When he arrived there, Hoist volunteered to help him.

Back at the med bay, Red Alert had his own armour shining, and since Jetfire had been so nice to Starscream and behaved himself, the medic decided to give the shuttle a head start with the cleaning of the cloths by rinsing them after he checked on Starscream, who was either resting or sleeping lightly, he couldn't quite tell which. When Jetfire returned, he continued to be on his best behaviour, so Red Alert didn't make him clean all the tools after all. Besides, Hotshot had done a reasonable job on the trip over.

By the time they had landed, the cruiser's med bay was blissfully peaceful with Red Alert relaxing on one of the tables. Jetfire and Starscream had headed off to play with the kids, and nobody else had entered the med bay since then. The Autobot medic was one of the first off the cruiser, glad to be back in the Autobot headquarters, and in his own med bay. He briefly inspected each tool that he had brought on the trip as he placed it back where it rightfully belonged in his med bay, and piled up the nice, clean cloths. He cleaned then stacked the waste containers, and then stretched, feeling rather refreshed now that the vacation was over. Things could get back to normal.

Red Alert turned around as the med bay door slid open, and could not stop his jaw dropping ever so slightly as Hotshot, Sideswipe, Blurr and a batch of Minicons tumbled fell into his med bay, sporting slight dents from excessive poking, as well as a grumbling Scavenger, who was complaining about sand in his circuitry. Yes, everything was going back to normal. With a deep sigh, Red Alert grabbed his tools and instructed everyone to hop onto a metal table. It was going to be one of those days. But then again, when wasn't it one of those days? Red Alert asked himself. Chaos and mess always seemed to find their way into Red Alert's Med Bay.

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Thanks once again to my reviewers, I hope you all enjoy this final chapter of Red Alert's Med Bay 2. I'll update if I bring out a third, but I don't have a plan for one and right now I'm very busy with Uni so no guarantees. I'm also hoping to write and finish some different fics (mainly Starscream-centric of course) worthy of uploading.