Ratchet stared at the scraplet for a while, more than he should have, really. The little thing deserved to die, and it did, by his servo. He looked between his scarred servos and the crippled scraplet, its big, dead optics glazed.
What if…?
He inched forward, then stopped.
This wasn’t a good idea.
He was not about to use his ability to revive a scraplet.
Air puffed from his vents and he carried the scraplet to his room. Metal clanged and scraped the body as he unceremoniously threw it onto the berth. Cautiously, he slid himself on the berth, across the scraplet.
And he reached.
Cold greeted him.
It crawled into his seams and soaked his protoform in ice- his wires felt frosted and his circuits numb. It felt no different than last time. Plating chafed drawing them close as if trying to defend himself from the metaphysical sea of ice that washed over him.
Wave after wave of ice. He felt so numb.
Just like last time.
Shudder. Ice.
“Drift…? H-hey, this isn’t funny…”
Ice. Cold. Shudder.
“Move, Drift, please, move! I don’t want to play this game!”
Dead optics. Cold.
Drip, drip, drip.
Blue.
“Drift, please! Get up! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, I swear!”
Twitch, blink, shudder.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to, come back to me…”
It's all your fault.
Warmth.
Ratchet gasped and warmth, sweet warmth, brought feeling back into his numb circuits. Sensation rippled from his spark, life buzzed through his frame. The body of the scraplet sparked and crackled in blinding blue light. Life renewed.
Its optics shot open in life-giving blue.
Its thin frame twitched and struggled until it was on its spindly stabilizers. Bug-like optics darted around, Ratchet could sense its small spark violently whirring and spinning. It scampered around the berth before its optics met the medic. Ratchet clenched his jaw and stalled his vents. A servo reached into subspace, ready to hammer the scraplet with a wrench and rage.
It slowly blinked.
And it shot forward.
Ratchet yelped and swung the wrench, but the scraplet dodged and lodged itself in his abdominal plating. The medic tried not to scream, slapping a servo over his intake and muting his vocoder, his other servo frantically whacked at the small pest. Then the hits slowed as he realized that he wasn’t feeling any biting, but rather a… buzzing?
No- Purring.
Could scraplets purr?!
Apparently.
The ambulance silently thanked Primus that his sirens hadn’t gone off, it had slipped his processor to deactivate that too.
He refocused on the purring scraplet nuzzling his abdominal plates.
It was… surprisingly cute, and ratherish comforted the mech.
This is evidence Primus is dead…
Ratchet awkwardly stood as the scraplet seemed to make itself home, clinging to his plating. To his relief, the pest finally moved away from the sensitive plates and up to his pauldron. He warily let the bug ride his shoulder as it purred. There was something deeply troubling about this.
“Ratchet? I couldn’t find you in the med bay, I was worried,” the serene baritone inquired. The medic scrambled to get the scraplet off of him- debating whether manhandling the pest would result in chewed-up servos or not (it decidedly didn’t, shockingly). He plopped the scraplet into a drawer filled with datapads and prayed to Primus the thing wouldn’t make the pads its chew toy.
Ratchet had to manually open the door, another failing of human technology (no, he was not lazy- shut up, Arcee). The steel-bolted doors slid open to reveal Optimus, standing with overt concern.
“Hello, Optimus,” Ratchet spoke with discernible irascibleness. Optimus’s brow furrowed. “Ratchet. Are you well?”
“As well as I can be, friend,” the medic discretely closed the doors behind him. The Prime remained unconvinced. Ratchet denied a request from his systems to release tension- via ex-ventilation.
“I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but it’s rare to find you in your room.” Ratchet scoffed. “You find it rare that I’m in my room?”
Optimus took a deadpan expression. Ratchet’s urge to take out a wrench doubled. Specifically to take the said wrench and clout it against his appealing faceplate. Respectfully.
“Ratchet, I don’t want to have to explain-” “You don’t have to! I know!” “Then-” “Shut your Primely intake, with all due respect!” “I’m fairly certain that phrase is meant to mitigate what follows it.”
What proceeded from that exchange was a test of Ratchet’s restraint and Optimus’s negotiation skills. They had spent a fair amount of time in banter and much more in frustration. Ratchet thought that he heard a faint rattling within his room- he hoped the scraplet hadn’t eaten anything.
“We will discuss this later,” Optimus conceded, to Ratchet’s great satisfaction.
“Please. Now go rest, you almost died yesterday, Bumblebee can handle threat scanning while I’m off the terminal. I’ll be in my room if you need me,” the medic let his voice soften. Optimus has angered him many times, and he won’t stop, but Ratchet did care for him. He cared for him a lot- one doesn’t dislike someone after being their friend for more than four million years. If anything, what frustrated Ratchet more was Optimus’s lack of care toward himself. His self-importance, his pride, he hasn’t let someone truly see him vulnerable since the loss of Elita One.
Oh, Optimus… if you could get it through your thick helm how much we care about you, how much I care about you.
But Optimus was a Prime as thick as any other, as stubborn too. He was such a self-sacrificing little shit, to borrow from human expression. As if you’re one to talk.
He scowled at his thoughts.
“Are you truly all right, Ratchet…?”
The sweet voice snapped the medic from his musings.
“Yes, I’m fine. Now shoo! Go rest, get some energon in your system, Primus knows you need it!” Hypocrite. Shut up.
Optimus chuckled, the sound was rare and pleasant. The noise reverberated to Ratchet’s very spark, and he found himself melting at such a sound. A sigh escaped his back vents. The Prime truly did not know the value of his happiness.
“Thank you, Ratchet, you should rest too. Try and recharge in your berth next time, old friend,” Optimus sounded uncharacteristically cheeky. It was delightful, to Ratchet, to hear some of Optimus’s Orion shine.
You don’t deserve to see it. Elita does . But you couldn’t save her, could you? If she were here, Optimus would be happier.
If she were here, he wouldn’t have been stuck with you .
He knew.
He knows.
<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>
Ratchet’s berth was like any other military-grade berth. Sturdy, hard, and easy to transport- practical. Unfortunately, it did not help him sleep. At all. So, like every other night, he worked. He sorted data chips and reorganized the small library of datapads he managed to salvage. He logged into his Medibay terminal and sorted the files.
He was sorting the medical files of the team.
He selected Bumblebee's.
And was greeted with a full shot of his neck cabling torn out. Energon pouring out of the wound, cables sparking. A hole where his voice box used to be and claw markings within the cavity, against his intake pipes. Megatron had almost decapitated Bumblebee. He almost forgot how bad it looked- how bad it was.
One of the many horrors that befell Tyger Pax.
One of the many he couldn’t prevent.
BOOM!
And the sky was red again.
He was jumping over the disemboweled parts of mecha from both sides, the ground bright with blue, blue, blue. Primus, it was inappropriately neon. But he ignored color, ignored the noise ( so loud, Primus- please, make it stop), and focused on keeping mecha alive. He’d be in one part of the battlefield, then in the next. Blaster fire would narrowly hit him or skim his plating- he could barely feel it or distinguish it from the energon coating him. A building started falling- probably the work of Seekers- and he transformed to his vehicle mode. Debris fell around him, and metal screeched. He felt shrapnel lodge in his doors- he couldn’t make himself care.
Optics scanned around for the Autobots; or, at least, any mech alive. White and gold plating caught his eye, and he made a hard turn to the right. He transformed mid-stop, and the screech of metal rang through the air. He couldn’t hear his gasp once he fully laid eyes on the mech.
Half of their body was missing.
Their yellow optics flickered. On-off, on-off. Energon dripped from their lip down to their chin. His optics led him down to their twisted arm, bent backward and plating torn off. So much energon…
He couldn’t stop looking. Why couldn’t he stop looking?
The mech’s guts, strewn across the ground for anyone to see, bloody and bare. They lead him to the other half of the mech. Their legs looked crushed around their knee joints. The attacker had probably pinned the upper half of the mech and pulled the bottom half off.
“Please…”
He almost hadn’t heard the mech speak. It was so staticky it was indiscernible from the rest of the noise. However, Ratchet found himself sickeningly aware of the present.
The medic looked down at the mech against his will.
“Kill me… doctor, kill me…”
Optic fluid poured down their faceplate and mixed with their energon.
Ratchet couldn’t find it in himself to speak.
“Please… I don’t want to live anymore… kill me, I’m begging you…!”
Everything was too loud.
Everything was too quiet.
What a predicament.
He was sure someone was laughing at him- somewhere.
To his horror, his servo folded into a surgical knife. No, what… What are you doing? A servo flipped the mech over. The scalpel placed itself directly over their torn spark chamber. The spark fluctuated and burned, barely. It looked sad, resigned. The mech smiled.
“That’s it…” Stop it, no. What are you doing?
The spark was wrapped by the servo. It almost covered it. But it left a small part, perfect to slit. The servo started to warm and burn. The knife pressed itself against the tender bright of the spark. They're only 12 vorns old… no, no, please, don’t do this.
“Make it quick…”
The cut was quick. A large gash down the center of the spark. It would explode in less than a breem. The servo didn’t let go. The knife folded back into a servo.
What have you done…?
“Wireloose…”
Why did you do that…?
“I’m coming to see you; big sister is coming back-”
Their optics die. They go limp and gray. Their spark sputters and dies, it flares, and it burns him. It’s so cold.
He considered reviving them, and his spark reached out.
It still felt warm.
He still felt cold.
He’s surrounded by fire.
It’s so cold.
If I revive them… they won’t be happy…
They wished for their death, after all.
Who am I to bring them back into this world? Who’d want to keep living on a war-torn planet? They would be better off dead.
Better to leave them.
It’d be something he’d done right.
To remedy everything he’s done wrong. But he knows he could never be redeemed.
He staggered away and transformed. The rev of his engines reminds him that he’s alive. Blossoming pain across his undercarriage reminds him he’s alive.
He’s alive.
He feels something.
He…
It’s warm, it’s nice.
Kind of…
It feels small, like a ball of warmth.
Doesn’t want to be.
He’s awake.
It only registers that his cuddle partner was the scraplet when he felt teeth around a digit. The scraplet was perched on his servo and had its intake around his digit, its teeth resting “harmlessly” around it. And it was purring, of course.
What the slag.
It registered second that he was crying, as humans put it. Crying was not something Cybertronians did often. Leaking optical fluid was not beneficial to the body, so it wasn’t done, even under emotionally taxing conditions. And in recent years- or what would be recent years- newly Forged Cybertronians would have the function absent from their body plan. Like Bumblebee, for example- he couldn’t secrete that much optical fluid, especially not under emotional stress.
A shame Ratchet was old and traumatized.
He felt the scraplet move and tensed. But it only slipped its maw off his digit and stared up at him. The medic suppressed a groan. With the freed servo; he wiped away the fluid before it stained his faceplate.
The scraplet continued to stare.
Ratchet stared back.
“Bothersome little pest…”
He muttered, putting his servo down. The scraplet seemed to take that as an invitation to hop on and crawl up his shoulder again. It nuzzled its stupidly big head against his helm and purred.
The act was strangely calming.
“Maybe you aren’t so bad…” He assumed the scraplet liked that, judging by how the purring got louder.
He found himself putting his head down, systems one by one readying for stasis.
He recharged to the sound of scraplet purring and warmth on his right cheek.
<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>
Soundwave had spent approximately eight and a half cycles replaying, pausing, and going frame-by-frame through the recording.
It was infirmary security footage of two mechs. The angle only caught the back of one mech- while the other was in full view. And while their body was facing the other direction, there was no mistaking it. He was Ratchet.
Soundwave identified the second as Deadlock- or Drift, at the time of the recording. However, the presence of Drift wasn’t what interested the spy. It was the contents of the footage.
The resurrection of Drift.
Soundwave would have thought any other mech insane ( besides Shockwave, maybe ) had they proposed the same, inevitable conclusion he had. That Ratchet somehow brought someone back from the Well.
The clip was 00.18.32 breems long. At 00.12.56 something substantial happens.
First, Ratchet had injected a substance into Drift’s arm. It was evident that Ratchet had been fatigued while doing this.
Second, Drift started to egest energon from his intake and neck seams. This happened 00.13.47 breems in.
Third, due to Ratchet’s state, Drift freed himself and substantially injured himself, struggling to move. Ratchet attempted to mitigate this by tackling the runaway patient.
Fourth, Drift kept struggling, Ratchet tried to sedate him, but it worsened him.
Fifth, Drift’s optics are now fully cycled and wide; you can see the signs of overdose.
Sixth, his plating starts to gray, and his optics offline.
At 00.18.22, Ratchet revived Drift. The camera had been overcome with a bright white flash. When the feed resumed, color was miraculously returned to Drift’s plating, and his optics online with none of the previous signs of overdose. The bleeding was stopped, and it seemed he was completely healed of any recent injury- as his scars and weld marks remained.
Soundwave could hardly believe any of this was real- not just Ratchet’s hidden ability, but that nothing was done about it. He had found this footage as a report from an employee at the Dead End clinic. He couldn’t find the reply for the report with any amount of digging- and he did a lot - so he had assumed the text had been immediately filed away, encrypted, and hidden once received.
The spy couldn’t come up with a definite answer as to why Ratchet hadn’t been taken in as soon as he was discovered- however, it hardly mattered now.
He switched his view to Megatron, splayed on the medical berth, hooked on life support. It was undignified; there was no honor. It wouldn’t be right if Megatron were to die on that berth. But- rather, what if he were to be reborn?
He looked between the recording. A miracle. And Megatron.
I will see you rise again, as you always have, old friend.
He would bring Megatron home.
Ratchet would help; he’d make sure of it, no matter what it took.
No matter what he broke.
Megatron will come back.
