What if 👀 in Transformers One, the race didn't go as well as it did? Consider: things go horribly wrong, and D-16 gets hurt bad. Unconscious, mangled, heavily bleeding, waking up in the hospital weeks later bad.
There's a loud calamity and screaming and the horrible screech of metal on metal, and suddenly Dee isn't at his side anymore. Orion skids to a halt and whirls around: his optics pop wide with horror, spark plummeting into his belly as he sees bright pink energon splattered in all directions. There's a pile of bodies, five of them at least, and the announcer booms a joke about "annual wipeouts"
Orion’s voice feels stuck in his throat, air hitching over panic as anxiety, then fear punches him right in the chest. "DEE!"
Medics are already rushing to the scene, peeling people apart: a couple of the cogged racers transform, looking dazed and generously splattered, but the energon isn't theirs. They're given the all clear to go ahead, and immediately shoot back down the track, desperate to make up lost time. The others... are not so lucky. One mech's lower leg strut is bent at a 45° degree angle, and he won't be able to finish the circuit, made clear by his distressed wailing about that fact. The second is missing a doorwing and unable to stand up from missing such a massive calibrated sensory organ, looking incredibly disoriented and vomiting off to the side.
Dee, on the other hand...
When they finally excavate him from the bottom of the accident, Orion feels like Onyx Prime has wrapped his fingers around his spark. He screams, something that feels like his best friend's name, and charges toward him. There's a massive crack on the left side of his helm, internal circuitry broken and bashed and gushing what surely must be gallons of energon. One of his arms is gone, missing at the elbow where he'd taken the brunt of the impact. He's well shredded from skidding across the ground with the weight of several others on top of him: his left side is severely corroded, paint stripped and some parts of his armor are gone, revealing soft squishy white protoform. Protoform that's been shredded open as well, and is also bleeding in a large patch bigger and wider than Orion’s whole servo.
His face is the worst of all, though: his optics are wide open, unlit, mouth open and expression pinched in an obvious yowl of pain. He'd lost consciousness screaming, and it's permanently etched in his expression.
Orion runs over, already in tears, but one of the medical team's bots leaps in front of him. "That's close enough, cogless!" He snaps, glaring down at him with arms spread, ready to catch him if he tries to dart. "No unsanitized hands on the patients!"
"Buh- but my Dee- he's hurt- my- my Dee's hurt-! He needs me, he needs help-" Orion's blubbering incoherently, optics manically darting around and servos clasped.
The medic’s expression sours further. "You shouldn't even be here. C'mon, off the track, off the track before you end up in a stretcher too." He grabs Orion's bicep snd practically manhandles him away from the scene, dragging him several paces away and not letting him so much as look at the grisly scene. No matter how Orion pleads or begs or tries to rush around him, the EMT remains strict about not letting him near D-16.
His day only gets worse when the Enforcers arrive, to take statements of the accident (was it intentional, do you feel as if someone targetted you, etc etc, the typical stuff for high class sporting events), and Orion gets interrogated too. In his grief and confusion he hysterically declares that, "This's all my fault...! It's all my fault! I- I tricked him, I made him do this, it's all cuz'a me!"
There's immediately a tone shift in the officers: that's an admission. Scheming to force another mech into a situation that resulted in possibly-lethal injury... Orion's going to spend a few nights in jail 🤭 he's so ruffled and upset and so scared for Dee he also probably gets in trouble for resisting arrest, refusing to cooperate until they tell him that Dee's ok.
They don't, of course, and it's easy for them to wrestle him into stasis cuffs. They're so much bigger than him, and he's too distressed to tap into his normal squirrely nature. They both leave in someone else's alt mode: Dee in the back of an aerial ambulance being flown to the hospital, and Orion trapped in an Enforcer's secure cab.
For the first long chunk of his hospital stay, D-16 lays unconscious in the ICU under strict quarantine. He's lost a lot of energon and protoform injuries are serious: if it gets infected he'd likely go septic. With his poor state, his survival rate for sepsis is a grisly 8.5%. As a result, they're being very cautious to only let a small team of doctors/nurses see him. Absolutely no visitors whatsoever, not until his wounds have closed, his spark is stable, and he regains consciousness... if he ever does at all. It's not guaranteed at this point.
He's practically drowning in the giant berth meant for a cogged mech 🥺 makes him look tiny and even more frail. The staff feels terrible for him, and do their very best to keep him comfortable. It seems like a blessing that he's asleep through all of this, spared the conscious agony of such life threatening injuries. His processor was exposed. Exposed to the open air, that's how badly he was mangled. Poor thing. He's hooked up to several needles constantly pumping him full of medicine and supplemental nanites, along with a sparkpulse monitor, and a tube threaded down his throat so he can be fed.
On the other side of things, Orion's completely miserable in his cell at the Enforcers HQ. There's been no news given to him about Dee, no matter how he pleads and begs and bargains. He doesn't know if his best friend is even alive. The guilt gnaws at him like a physical thing, a beast born of the horrible weight upon his conscience, meticulously devouring him piece by piece. This is all his fault. D-16 could be dead right now and it would be all his fault.
He hasn't eaten, and has been completely unable to sleep: he paces circles around his cell and lays for hours on the little concrete berth slab, but it's impossible to stop thinking about D-16 for even a moment. His face is seared into Orion's memories, optics wide open and dark, expression screaming in agony. It's all his fault, it's all his fault, and his optics are incredibly sore and dry from exhausting his tear stores.
When he finally gets to go back to the mines, he's marched along by a very cross, stern looking overseer. Orion sees the harrowed, distrustful faces of the other miners: no one looks particularly happy to see him. Nervous, maybe. Sick, definitely. Surprised, sure. He sobs helplessly, covering his face with his servos in shame.
"Please-" his voice cracks pathetically, and he sounds so small. So incredibly helpless. "Please, anybody. What happened to Dee?" The overseer shoves him in the back, keeping him moving. Arcee glances away, unable to meet his eyes. Red Alert's bottom lip is trembling, and he looks ready to cry. Orion pleads and rambles the whole time, begging someone, anyone to tell him what happened to D-16.
No one has an answer for him, and he's delegated to one of the lowest sublevels as punishment. Not only did he break the rules and potentially get someone killed, but he maybe-permanently crippled one of the precious mining units that really, really can't afford to be down even a single person. The punishment is hard labor, in solitary, down below in the incredibly hot, dangerous underdepths.
He cries himself to sleep every single night. He'd give anything to go back in time and stop himself, to shake himself or slap himself or tie himself down, anything, whatever it would take to stop this from happening. D-16 is precious to him in ways that can't be put into words... or at least, not in his words. He's sure Dee would know how to wax poetic about the most beloved person in his life. He did so love to write poetry, after all. He loved to write in general. There were so many things that Dee loved, despite how little they had, and now... now, his dearest friend may very well never be able to do any of the things he loves again. The thought pierces right through his spark, and he curls up in his hot, lonely corner, weeping with such force his shoulders shake, and wishes for the umpteenth time he had Vector Prime's ability to leap through time.
...
Methinks, eventually, B-127 finds him. Or perhaps Orion finds him, but either way >:) Orion and Bee wind up on the surface questing for the Matrix, and Orion has one hope driving him forward: if he can find it, he'll ask Sentinel Prime to use its power to please, please heal D-16 if he's still alive 🤭
