Ratchet stood grim-faced as Optimus sat on the medberth, silent as the medic welded another new gash. The medic seemed on autopilot since Cliffjumper's burial and funeral. He had been quiet since then, everyone was mourning. And he knew that meant their Prime would be shutting them out. The very thought irritated him beyond belief. Team Prime knew that Optimus kept himself at a distance, but Ratchet refused that distance to extend.

      The welder shut off, and he was done. Metal creaked as the Prime attempted to lift off the berth. Ratchet held firm on his forearm, silently asking the mech to stay for once. The Prime slowly met his gaze, resigned.

      “We can’t keep doing this, Optimus,” Ratchet groused.

      “I know.”

      “What are you going to do about it? Leave it to rust like all of your other problems?”

      “You know why I can’t-”

      “Bullshit!” Ratchet snapped, clenching his free servo. Optimus gave a dry smile.

      “I was not aware you used human slang. Did you pick it up from Miko?” The Prime seemed amused.

      “Fowler, actually,” Ratchet sighed. At least he had a bit of humor, no matter how inappropriate.

      “The war will end one day, old friend,” Optimus stood. Ratchet’s grip tightened, and he pulled down; a loud thud sounded as Optimus hit the berth. Air puffed from the Prime’s cheek vents, but he stayed put- regarding Ratchet with a stoic gaze.

      “It will not end soon enough… There are so few of us left. It's just 10% of our original population. We lost Cliffjumper yesterday!” Optimus’s gaze hardened, his jaw clenched. Ratchet knew his signs; he was stopping himself from flinching. Serves him right.

      “How much longer? How many more? Who is next? Will it be Bulkhead tomorrow? Arcee? Bumblebee ?” Static laced the grieved voice.

      “Ratchet…”

      “We Cannot Keep Going,” His voice broke a little and reduced to a grave whisper, "Optimus… We put our faith in you to end this war, to lead us into a future with equality and peace! If you can get over your pride and talk to Megatron; then you will shoot him .”

      “Megatron cannot be reasoned with. You know this.”

      “Please, you have the conviction of a Beryllium Energon Goodie!” Ratchet seethed. “I’m starting to believe you want the war to keep going! Every chance you had to kill Megatron and end this Primus-damned war, it was ignored! 'Don’t kill the vulnerable,' you say. Well, Megatron is anything but! And what of those has he already killed who were helpless to stop him? Cliffjumper? The sparklings and mecha who couldn’t leave Cybertron when it went dark?

      “You’re practically spitting on their sparks, Prime.”

      The words struck deep, and Ratchet felt Optimus’s plating near-tremble, trying to keep his plating as close to himself as possible.

      “Ratchet, please…” his voice got quiet.

      The medic’s servo slowly unclasped, and he let it slide down to the Prime’s servo.

      “I’m not a mech that begs, Optimus, don’t make me beg for peace- put an end to this madness, our Prime.”

      “… Okay, old friend.”

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Ratchet didn’t recharge that night, he couldn’t recharge. He couldn’t bear to listen to gunfire and explosions; hear the ringing cries and screams- he couldn’t take the loud static. And worst of all, he couldn’t let himself imagine grayed plating; helms dripping bright blue, crushed chassis, the sputtering, pitiful whirr of a spark desperately trying to stay alive- only to be crushed under the pede of one who was meant to be kin.

      So, he stood and worked. It was the only way he could ignore the memories. If he could focus on numbers, calculations, and formulas, he could move past the haunting dark in the back of his mind.

      Ping.

      A red warning blinked on his HUD.

      The ambulance dismissed the warning and continued to work, rechecking and changing numbers. Check percentages and probability. Red. Red. Red. Ratchet banged his servo on the terminal. The sound echoed.

      Echoed.

      He has spent many sleepless nights alone- Where the noise echoed endlessly, and deep purples and blues of midnight bathed his frame in cold color. The world felt emptier now.

      The world felt emptier without Cliffjumper.

      Ping.

      Ratchet ex-vented and stared at the screen. Had he even worked? Was what he did even meaningful? No, of course not. What he did wasn’t even the bare minimum. What he did couldn’t have saved Cliffjumper. He could never save him.

      Some medic he was.

      If only…

      If only it had been him.

      Then he could bring Cliffjumper back, regardless of death.

      He’s done it before.

      He’s seen a spark renew; its lights flare and flicker but persist. And he did it himself.

      Kill and rebirth a mech.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Energon dripped down his servos and swallowed his digits. It ate at his joints, nibbled the protoform beneath, and chewed his circuitry. The pungent smell of drugs emanated from the energon. Numbing agent spilled over his forearm and down his legs; he refused to meet the dead, dead optics of his-

      Drip.

      Drip.

      A mouth ajar, wide optics with remnants of overdose.

      He was so tired, he should have rested. He thought he could handle another patient. He saw his servos shake, he wasn’t fully paying attention to which vial he chose. He was so tired.

      He should have known better.

      He did know better.

      Some medic he was.

      “Drift, I’m sorry…”

      He had met this mech before, curled up in the alleyway beside the clinic.

      “Are you okay…?” He had knelt. Empty optics looked up, clouded with the blissful haze of drugs. He had frowned.

      “C’mon, let’s get you inside.”

      Drift… oh, Drift…

      “I’m sorry!”

      Some medic he was.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Soundwave picked apart and decoded every scroll of data streaking across his UI and watched as it translated to the ship monitor. A long digit tapped idly as he continued tirelessly.

      Tap, tap, tap.

      Tap, tap, tap.

      He lifted his helm as a new burst of information crowded his visor. The current data pack consisted of profiles of several mechs, ranging from complaint reports, criminal records, and medical histories- the entire lives of mechs eternalized in data.

      Tap, tap, tap.

      Tap…

      Tap

      Soundwave paused as a familiar designation scrolled past. Encrypted code greeted him once he selected the file. Whoever wrote it wanted to hide it. Text flowed through the translation software in the background, and he began decrypting the code himself. Glyph by glyph, the text revealed itself.

      The header blinked as the last glyphs translated.

      Satisfied, Soundwave exited the file and forwarded it to the Priority list.

      The TIC was looking forward to the contents of a Class-R Report on the famed Miracle Medic.

      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.

      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.

      On rare occasions, the sky turned a deep magenta when the sun went up.

      Ratchet liked those days, they were the only other times he was outside of the base- and not just on the roof. He’d make the effort to pack himself some energon snacks and a berth mat- in order to sit for long periods without getting uncomfortable. And he’d drive. Far away.

      This was one of those days.

      It happens maybe once or twice every month. The children would be asleep and the Team would be in recharge- usually, it was his time for security look-overs and file sorting, but Ratchet could do it another day. And while he hated not doing anything- hated every breem he couldn’t do something useful- he could admit that breaks once in a while did help.

      He was actually starting to listen to Optimus’s advice. Scrap.

      The only adjustment made to the packing list was a certain metal-chewing pest. It’d eat my room and scare the others if I left it, so I might as well bring it if it won’t attack me, he had reasoned. So, the scraplet was coming with him on his bi-monthly excursion. Oh, joy.

      The pest hadn’t taken kindly to being shoved in the metal-weaved basket (the idea had been a joint effort between Miko and Raf after finding out about his excursions) and carried around- It’s fortunate that Ratchet didn’t care. Yes, the scraplet still scared the slag out of him, but it hadn’t attempted to attack him since its revival. And the medic was fine with that, for the most part.

      Jasper’s climate wasn’t completely unpleasant, it was colder than Iacon and warmer than Vos- Ratchet counted that as a win. There was also a pleasant wind. Ratchet has experienced wind plenty of times- Cybertron has a warm atmosphere all-around, but there were still differences in how heat hit it. Like in Vos, Kaon, Iacon, Kalis, and Altihex- which all were close to the Rust Sea and received wind often. Especially in Vos, where the majority of the city was in the sky, wind was essential.

      Ratchet loved the wind. He didn’t use the word “love” a lot, and he didn’t use it lightly. But he loved windy days when the sun was rising and the sky turned into lovely shades of pink, yellow, purple, and blue. Not a lot of mecha knew this about him- he only discovered it when he witnessed his first sunrise in Jasper.

      At first, the climate was bothersome, he hated how hot it was and the fact he could hear everyone’s cooling fans during midday. He hated how the sun felt on his plating- he wasn’t immune to overheating, no matter how advanced his cooling system was.

      “ The circumstances may not be ideal, but it is what we have. We must deal with it. ”

      Stupid Prime and his stupid voice. He had remembered thinking, vaguely.

      And then sunrise came.

      Ratchet was at that same cliff face from so long ago.

      The sharpness of it had long weathered since that gold-tinged memory. What he was thankful for, however, was the untouched horizon- no human settlement in sight. Although, he saw the occasional airplane ( sometimes, if he was particularly paranoid, he thought they were Seekers. He shared this fact with Optimus, once, before he didn’t come with him to the cliff anymore ).

      The basket rattled with the agitated scraplet. Reminded of its existence, the medic released the pest. As soon as it came in contact with the sandy ground, it scuttled in circles- it reminded Ratchet of those hyperactive dogs Miko loved. Soon, it circled back to him and affectionately nuzzled his pede. He shocked himself when he leaned over and gingerly let it crawl into his waiting servo; it blinked up at him as he set it on his shoulder.

      Ratchet sat and gradually unpacked the energon cubes and berthmat. He rolled out the mat, dust danced around, and floated into the crevices of his plating- he found that he wasn’t bothered by it anymore. He could clean it later. The scraplet clung to his shoulder and buzzed eagerly at the metal-weave mat. Ratchet flicked the pest in its stupid eye, it retaliated by loosely fitting its big jaws around his digit.

      Ratchet would not admit to his vents stalling when he felt those teeth graze around the sensitive metal of his servo- specially designed to be thin and dexterous. But the scraplet hasn’t taken any chance to eat the metal off his frame- or anything. He extracted his digit from the pest’s maw after concluding it really wasn’t going to bite it off. Even if the little thing never bites him, he still wouldn’t trust it- he’s seen a mech consumed, seen holes straight to their processor or spark chamber and eaten from the inside out.

      The scraplet started purring again, folding its thin legs beneath its large head. Still clinging to his pauldron.

      He huffed with his cheek vents and relaxed on the berth mat.

      The first thin line of gold broke the surface of the horizon. Glowing particles of insignificant sediment lazed in the auric light. They bathed in the halcyon scene as Ratchet drank the cold energon.

      “Optimus, do you really believe we’ll ever see our home again…?” The old spark spoke into the waiting morning.

      “We must. We must believe we will, it’s all we can do,” the Prime stared into the horizon.

      “Better things wait on the horizon, it is I that says so.”

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      “Optimus, when you told me that, was that the last time the Matrix didn’t tell you to believe, but you, yourself, did?”

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Soundwave inspected the optical feed from Laserbeak. They had recorded the Autobot medic going out, for what reason was uncertain. The most notable thing about the footage was that the Autobot had a scraplet with him- that wasn’t trying to eat him alive.

      >//-- Pretty weird, isn’t it? I nearly hightailed it out of there when I saw it>>

      Laserbeak spoke through his comm- as they usually did when far enough that their bond was strained and faint. It was more efficient that way.

      Soundwave disagreed.

      >//-- It appalls me that you are thought to be the most mentally stable on this ship>>

      Brat. Soundwave felt the muted amusement through their bond. Brat was reinforced. More amusement- he could practically hear them cackle in their head.

      >//-- You would die without me.>>

      Laserbeak sensed his annoyance.

      >//-- Now please tell me that you have a better plan than "kidnap the medic and force him to revive Megatron.">>

      Soundwave did not, in fact, have a better plan.

      The TIC felt a wash of kindness and understanding. His shoulders sagged- when were they so tense?

      Soundwave felt the underlying concern from Laserbeak- he could tell that the minicon didn’t want him to feel it. The tape deck understood why- he already had this talk with Laserbeak about his “unhealthy” relationship with Megatron. He appreciated the minicon for correctly avoiding the conversation. For now.

      His spark tugged, Laserbeak was getting closer.

      A rare smile broke across his faceplate- it was small but overwhelmingly fond. Once he felt Laserbeak was close enough, he used their bond to communicate.

      Soundwave: has energon goodies made by Vehicon 3V3-IAC and 54M-PRX. Soundwave: thought Laserbeak deserved a treat and break.

      Seriously? Thank you, boss! Really! It’s been forever since I’ve had energon goodies… What kind?

      Goodies: Beryllium-Aluminum, it’s good for strength and still tastes sweet.

      Thank Eve and Sam for me!

      Soundwave hummed at the use of human names to address 3V3-IAC and 54M-PRX. 

      Laserbeak got along with the Vehicons and Eradicons surprisingly well- well enough that they entrusted her with their self-chosen names. The spy didn’t have much to say about the Decepticon grunts, they were useful and they made Laserbeak happy. That was enough reason for him to care to keep them alive- along with the fact that the cause would be dead without them supporting it.

      So, Soundwave allowed the use of the human names among the troops- it didn’t concern him anyhow. He had better things to focus on. Like a certain Autobot outlier.

      Truly, Soundwave did not understand why Ratchet hadn’t become a Decepticon. He had every reason to join during the Uprisings- Where Megatron (or Megatronus) made his series of speeches and rallies to gather the cause- if he was an outlier. A rather powerful one too.

      Sure, he had managed to stay hidden, and thus, avoid all of the prejudice and scorn- But certainly, he knew it existed? Surely, he wouldn’t have turned a blind eye to his own kind, as they were captured and executed as the headline of the day?

      Soundwave knew enough about Ratchet to know that the medic had a soft spot for the mecha misfortune followed. He had a habit of picking up strays as much as the Prime- a common trait between the three.

      (Soundwave ached at the thought of the dark, black holes in his spark- in his frame- that will never be filled again.)

      A wave of tender reassurance and understanding permeated the bond. Soundwave figured that Laserbeak must have felt that pang of grief- the unassailable misery and sparkache just from the thought of them. Was it possible that the Autobot medic could revive his dear cassetticons?

      No, he couldn’t allow himself to hope.

      Hope was an endless and fruitless path; it has only brought the grief-ridden mech to darker places than now. It was simpler to be black-and-white, to pretend his dearest Megatron- his Amica- was the same revolutionary from the beginning. Soundwave longed to see the light shine upon his glorious visage- he craved the gladiator’s smile, his touch, his voice.

      And Soundwave remembered a time Megatron craved his voice, too.

      A flicker, a wink, a single klick he could see his wonderful Amica. ( He selfishly wished they were more- he yearned to fill the space in his spark. Primus, he doesn’t believe in him, but oh, does he pray ). Laserbeak tugged the bond in disapproval- they teeked the hopeless desire and the endless sorrow.

      You say not to hope, yet you still chase a mirage in a long-forgotten desert. I leave you alone when I must, but you must be aware that I can’t always give you that. It’s my job to hold you accountable.

      There’s no one else who can.

      The silence in their bond stretched.

      Soundwave: understands Laserbeak’s concern. Soundwave: will amend this, but not today. Or not ever. Laserbeak understood what he meant. Disapproval and disappointment tugged the bond- it felt stronger, they were probably near The Nemesis by now.

      Laserbeak: land and stay in the hangar. Soundwave: will meet you there.

      Understood, boss.

      Soundwave never usually left his post at the main terminal, but he felt he had earned a simple walk- he needed to stretch and let his joints oil at some point.

      He flexed his digits and then started walking to the main hangar. The TIC brought a datapad with him, detailing the plans for the medic- he might as well work on it with Laserbeak as they walked together.

      The spy entertained the idea of a flight with Laserbeak over the ocean The Nemesis was currently flying over. He quickly dismissed the thought. Megatron would not tolerate unproductivity from his Third. Perhaps, he could disguise it as a volunteer patrol? No, he’d know he was lying right away, he could always tell. Somehow.

      But would he tell? It has been a while, and it’s not like he pays attention to you anymore. Does he even remember the kind of energon goodies you like? Your favorite high grade?-

      Shut up, you. Of course, he’d remember. He’s been my Amica for years, that wouldn’t just go away because of the war.

      Couldn’t it?

      This was why he had to work- he couldn’t be like Starscream and have these traitorous thoughts. He couldn’t allow himself to think like this- to allow himself the time to.

      Work was more productive for the cause and Megatron.

      Laserbeak felt their spark fall when they felt submission and reverence consume the bond. They wondered why such emotions were there when they only surface when Soundwave interacted with Megatron.

      Soundwave... What's happened to you...?

      Ratchet visited the cliff a second time. And then a third. And then a fourth. It was the fifth time when he was finally questioned about his outings. It was, maybe strangely, Bulkhead who pulled the medic aside first. They had finished a full-frame maintenance check when the ex-Wrecker had tugged the ambulance’s arm.

      “Hey, uh, doc?”

      Ratchet raised a brow before turning around to address the bulky mech.

      “Yes, Bulkhead?”

      The green mech rubbed the back of his neck plating, “I’m not meanin’ to pry, or anything, but… I’ve seen you’ve been going out every morning. I’m just curious, I guess.” He shrugged.

      Ratchet blinked, mildly surprised that Bulkhead figured it out first. It may have been a coincidence, it was common for any team member to wake up extra early from night terrors. It was an unfortunate truth of war. You see your friends and family die and think you could have done something about it.

      It was no secret that they all suffered heavily from it.

      Ratchet ex-vented from his back to attempt to hide his discomfort.

      “You’re not prying, Bulkhead. I like watching the sunrise, it’s calming.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, although Ratchet still felt a shiver of guilt. He did like the sun rises. He liked the reminders of a time Optimus still loved him-

      Nope. He was not going there today.

      Bulkhead’s optics reset and he blinked.

      “Really?”

      “Is that so hard to believe?” Ratchet grumbled, purposefully adding gravel to his voice. It usually made mecha quicker with their words if they knew he was annoyed. The large mech immediately waved his servos around apologetically.

      “Well- yes!- I mean- No? Nevermind. I just never thought of you as that kind of mech!”

      “Not many do. I only recently started going. I’m… able to make time.” Making time, meaning; doing as much of his work as possible in the afternoon and night cycle, going into recharge after driving out, feeding the scraplet scraps (heh), and setting up the berth mat. It always ended with recharge (sometimes unwillingly). And sometimes, he’d imagine he was back to a day and time when Orion still held his frame between his arms and caressed his plating like he was his most precious treasure. He dreamed of a day where maybe, just maybe, Optimus would hold him close. Hold him and never let go, and whisper how he…

      Such things were dangerous to fantasize about, and best left untouched.

      Optimus would never be that mech again.

      It’s all that stupid Matrix’s fault. He’s been different since he’d gotten it.

      Ratchet skillfully ignored the treacherous thoughts. Another, quiet, part of him wondered if those thoughts were right.

      Ratchet felt a servo clutch his pauldron and was snapped back to reality. He was getting in the habit of daydreaming. It was starting to impede more on his work, he wondered if he should recheck his processor code.

      “Ratchet? Are- are you okay?” Bulkhead’s EMF hesitantly reached out with concern and anxiety.

      The medic’s optics minutely widened then he recomposed himself. Using EMF fields became increasingly unpopular and many installed EMF Inhibitors, mostly mecha working in Special Operations. Nearly everyone had an EMF Inhibitor Mod now, including everyone on Team Prime. But Ratchet kept his open, it was a simple matter of his job. It was easier for both the patient and the doctor if the doctor knew what the patient was feeling and could placate them in turn.

      Ratchet was far from unfamiliar with his team’s field. He’s repaired and welded them more times than he could count.

      He couldn’t recall the last time he’s felt his team’s fields outside of a professional environment or the battlefield.

      The last mecha who shared their field with him… was Optimus, almost three million years ago .

      His spark ached and his field encompassed Bulkhead’s with warmth and reassurance. He was well-versed in disguising his field.

      Bulkhead sagged in relief and curtly nodded.

      “It-it’s been a while since I’ve done that… you looked so stressed and I’m bad at the emotional talk thing. Optimus has always been better about that-” Ratchet snorted in amusement. Optimus was good at motivational speeches, not emotional conversations. “So, I just thought I’d give my field a try…”

      Ratchet pushed encouragement and understanding into his field.

      “I greatly appreciate the gesture, it was very thoughtful. If you’d like, could I teach you more about how to control your field? It’ll be useful, and I’m certain you’d welcome the opportunity.” “Seriously, Doc? Really, you don’t have to, but… thanks. I didn’t actually think you’d want to teach me.” The green mech ducked his head bashfully. It wasn’t often that Bulkhead could admit to inexperience, the confident mech that he was. But Ratchet didn’t hold it against him. By now, he was sure their last generation, Bumblebee, didn’t even know what a field was.

      There was no use in EMF in war– There was no use in losing soldiers because they were sympathetic to the enemy. No matter how much fear they would feel, they never could.

      Ratchet fought hard against installing the Inhibitor Mods into sparklings , but he was out-voted.

      Bulkhead gave him a warm smile and patted his shoulder.

      “You can catch me for lessons after I take Miko to her concert! It’s gonna be a bomb!”

      “Ep, ep, ep! Is it outdoors?”

      “Yes.”

      “Fine. Stay far away from the crowd, I’ve seen how… feral humans get during their concerts. I’m not cleaning out anything from your seams in the morning cycle.”

      “Sure thing, Doc.”

      Ratchet sighed as Bulkhead left the medibay. He started putting up his medical supplies and reorganizing. Then he heard a tell-tale scampering above him, from the vents. He groaned in irritation and half got on the berth to knock on the ceiling.

      “Get down here, pest,” he grumbled, then stepped down when the vent rattled and opened to let out the scraplet. It fell flat on its face on the berth. Ratchet wasn’t sorry for laughing. Its legs peddled in the air, trying and failing to roll back up. Taking pity on it, Ratchet picked it up and set it on his shoulder. He let it rest there while he cleaned up the rest of the medibay.

      “We’re gonna be going back to the cliff next morning, pest. You have a goodie preference?” The ambulance set the scraplet down next to the goodie baskets (he had to keep them away from Bumblebee and Bulkhead, who kept finishing them as they were made). The scraplet happily scuttled around, inspecting the baskets, each filled with a different goodie. It bumped itself against the chrome-dipped rust sticks.

      Ratchet reached in and grabbed a servo full of the goodies to dump into an empty cube. The scraplet churred happily and clung to the medic’s servo, its jaw unhinged, about to chomp on a stick. “Tch. Oh no you don’t, little pest,” he chided, flicking the scraplet. He didn’t dwell on the strange affection he felt as he grabbed the scraplet by its large head and set it on his shoulder.

      The pest immediately forgot its treats as it nuzzled Ratchet’s neck cables. His vents still hitched whenever it got that close, however, he found it was much easier to relax afterward. The worst the scraplet has done thus far was chew a corner of a datapad he forgot he had. He still flicked the pest several times for that, but it had yet used his optics as a chew toy. So, that was a plus.

      Ratchet did a once lookover of what he packed. His engine hummed in approval when he found nothing missing. The ambulance gathered his things and neatly put them in the corner, ready to go in the morning. Now that his little picnic kit was packed, he could focus on getting Optimus his maintenance check. Ugh.

      Optimus, even before being a Prime, was a horrible patient. Ratchet would often have to wrestle the mech into the medibay before starting any procedure. It was insanely annoying and Ratchet hated it when it became a little endearing.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      “Ratchet, I assure you, I’m fine-” Orion raised his servos placatingly, “- I swear! I only have one more shift to go through!” Ratchet bonked the archivist over the helm with a wrench, earning a whined “ouch”. The Courier Class quickly shook off the pain like a wet turbofox would water.

      “Ratchet, please, just one shift and I’ll come straight back!”

      “Be here now, and you’ll get through your last shift without collapsing.” Ratchet was unsympathetic to Orion’s plight and shoved the archivist onto the med-berth. Orion responded by standing up again, wincing, only to get pushed again and thudding onto the unforgiving slab.

      “Sit down willingly or I’m getting out the mag-cuffs,” the medic spoke gruffly. “But-” Ratchet held a digit over Orion’s intake, silencing him. Unable to argue, Orion begrudgingly sat down, vents hissing in pain. His struts creaked with effort.

      “Thank you… now, how did this happen, hm?” Ratchet vaguely gestured to Orion’s faceplate and knee struts. His faceplate was dented and discolored– A sign that not a lot of energon was getting there. His knee was worse off; half of it being torn, the proto-frame reduced to ribbons and the armor demolished halfway up his thigh. Ratchet could see all of his pipes and circuits, all the way down to his frame. Orion had enough sense to clean the oil and energon from the wound, however, it did not extend to healthcare.

      It wasn’t the worst Ratchet had seen throughout his functioning, but it was his most concerning. After all, how does a pacifist archivist such as Orion get this hurt? The most likely scenario…

      “It’s complicated, Ratchet, but I promise it’ll be okay…”

      “Orion… if this is from that gladiator -”

      “- It’s not! I already told you he wouldn’t hurt me!” Orion gasped, throwing his head forward with a sharp cry. His faceplate paled, vents hissing and spitting.

      Ratchet seethed a curse and hefted Orion properly onto the berth. Energon bled from the archivist’s knee and dribbled from his pale derma. Pain throbbed in his field, Ratchet remained calm and placating. The medic toggled the berth controls, making it rise up to meet him.

      Ratchet spoke as he carted his supplies to him.

      “Orion, I need you to open a medical port so I may guide you during the operation. Can you do that for me?” Orion’s gears made a distressed whine. His vents rattled as he attempted to sit up.

      “Shh, shh, shh,” Ratchet eased his patient back down, “tell me where your medical port is, Orion.” The Courier Class gasped, “Ab-abdominal,” was all he managed before curling his head in with a pitiful wail.

      Ratchet didn’t spare a nod as he moved Orion where he wanted him and observed his abdominal plating.

      It was made of interlocked gray plates, framed by red side plates and large breastplates. The silver steel was dull, when was the last time he polished? Ratchet shoved the thought aside and ran his digits along the plating for the indent of a medical port. The plating wasn’t smooth like he would have first thought. He supposed that just because Orion was sheltered didn’t mean he was safe -- especially from himself. It was clear that the mech hadn’t buffed himself either.

      Ratchet made a mental note to “gift” Orion some self-care supplies, maybe that self-obsessed beauty guru circulating the Datanet would be a good place to start. He shook his head. He was getting off track.

      His digits finally felt seams for a button. He pressed and the mechanism clicked and opened to reveal the port inside. The medic let his connector fold open from his wrist, and he plugged in.

      Immediately, he loaded the damage reports from Orion’s HUD and UI.

      “Orion, you slagheap of a mech… Your inability to take care of yourself appalls me.”

      The mech in question merely offered a guilty smile.

      Ratchet huffed and moved down to Orion’s crippled knee strut. He could still see the alarms blaring in both his and Orion’s HUDs and appropriately dealt with each. The medic fed energon directly into Orion’s fuel lines in his wrist and continued work on his leg.

      The archivist faded in and out of consciousness several times throughout the operation, fortunately not because of how much pain he was in. Ratchet, using the access gained by the medical plug-in, was able to manipulate Orion’s SensorNet. And with that access, he disabled his pain receptors in the relevant areas.

      It was risky to do, but Ratchet was confident that he had all of the information he needed.

      You see, the risky part of manipulating anymech’s SensorNet was the risk of unreliable information. If their System no longer receives information from the SensorNet, it wouldn’t be able to update the mech’s status.

      For example, now that Orion’s SensorNet no longer detects the pain from his knee strut, his system is now unable to receive information and make a report on it. Like if Ratchet were to mess up and knick a fuel line while he worked, he wouldn’t be able to see a Warning on Orion’s HUD because Orion’s System isn’t getting that information.

      Thankfully, Ratchet was an incredible doctor and wouldn’t make that mistake.

      Not again.

      Working on Orion went quickly, the majority of his injury could be treated right in his medibay. He did need to use extra armor plates to repair the gaping crack through Orion’s thigh, but it was handled fine.

      Ratchet put his tools back and soon addressed Orion, who was experimentally flexing his repaired leg.

      “I recommend you take it easy. The metal is still tender, I strongly suggest you don’t stress it. I’d hate to see you in my medibay in this context so soon,” the medic grumbled. Orion gave a non-committal hum. Then he lifted his helm to gaze emptily at the wall.

      Ratchet stared with concern.

      “Orion… you never answered my question.”

      “...”

      “What happened?” Ratchet leaned forward, taking Orion’s servo into his own in a rare act of intimacy.

      “I’d rather not…”

      “Orion,” the medic spoke sternly. He squeezed Orion’s servo like a plea.

      The archivist’s optics turned downcast.

      “There was a protest on my way home, just a few streets away from my complex. They were protesting in front of a Correction Center, it was for Outlier Rights.” Ratchet shuddered. He knew where this was going.

      “The protest was jamming up the road, I had to switch to my Root mode to make it through, but… The protest was getting violent, fast. Enforcers kept forcing the crowd back, and they started getting out blasters. When I finally made my way to the front, it-” Orion’s vents stalled,”- It was so bad, there were mecha getting brutally beaten, nearly to their sparks. Primus, Ratchet, what I saw … I’m aware there has definitely been worse, way worse, but I’ve never seen,” he gasped and his servo came to cover his intake.

      “The Enforcers… couldn’t tell me from the crowd. It was so loud, they couldn’t hear me trying to explain and…”

      Orion didn’t continue.

      Ratchet had comforted him for the rest of the night cycle and had escorted him to his habsuite. But there was an anger in Ratchet, some misplaced rage settled deep in his spark. A shameful burning that the medic wished didn’t exist. Because it meant he cared.

      He had convinced himself a long time ago, after the Incident, that he would never get involved with Outliers. At some point, he was able to forget what he was, what he always would be. A mistake, a horrid monster born from the blood of Unicron himself. How could he forget his origins? How dare he convince himself he was kin to the proper mecha of Primus.

      And how dare he believe it, believe that he could live like a normal mech.

      Ratchet loathed himself and loathed the energon in his veins.

      And somewhere, in his wretched spark, he loathed that Orion reminded him. But that only served to remind him just what he was. Who in their right mind would blame a victim? A monster, surely. A monster like Ratchet.

      The “medic” didn’t recharge that night cycle. He repented by treating everyone who entered his clinic. He’d keep repenting for the rest of his functioning, even if he knew he’d never be forgiven. For he was an Outlier, the greatest sin one could have.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Soundwave may be a mech of strong emotions, but he did not hate easily. The emotion came and went throughout the decades of his functioning, and sometimes it stuck. One time it stuck was due to a certain Prime-to-be.

      Not many knew of his deep-seated ire toward Orion Pax. Who would ever think that anyone could ever hate the innocent archivist? Well, Soundwave could care less what lesser mecha thought of the pesky Prime.

      It disgusted him that he’d hear mecha theorize that Orion and he were friends, even Amica. The outrage! Soundwave would never even consider being Amica with the hopeless sap.

      Orion was a helplessly optimistic brat who thought he could stumble upon anybody and expect to be welcomed with open arms and clasped servos. He knew nothing about the strife and suffering of the Pits, the struggle of being in the lower class. They did not need his pity. They did not deserve to be looked down upon like common starving pets abandoned by their owners. They did not need charity from some middle-cast, self-pitying, whelp.

      And what infuriated him more was that it worked. The self-important brat was able to waltz into their lives unimpeded and even welcomed. And all it took was a few stuttered words and wide optics. It made Soundwave look like a joke.

      All of his work to get accepted, for others to look past his status and abilities, to fight for his rights; his very fight for survival and to be respected by Lord Megatron. All uprooted for him…?

      Now, he knew that Orion could never replace him and he never did. His position remained sound during the duration of the archivist’s stay. But that meant nothing when the bumbling idiot somehow wooed Lord Megatron into following his every whim.

      It was so pathetic, Soundwave could leak optical fluid.

      The great Megatron, the unbeatable gladiator of Kaon, reduced to some… simpering, lost turbofox?

      The prospect made Soundwave’s spark flare.

      What right did that archivist have, coming into his life like that…? And worse, it may have been for the better. Orion was helpful, without him, Lord Megatron would have never risen to full power. The pawn did his job remarkably well, and Soundwave respected him for that. In fact, Soundwave didn’t hate Orion from the start, it was a relief, at first. He was just happy to see his Lord smile again.

      However, when Orion received Primacy from the Senate…

      That was when Soundwave truly started hating him.

      How dare this insolent brat betray Lord Megatron. After all that he did for him, after everything that happened. And he sided with the mecha who propagated their suffering.

      Soundwave knew logically that there was much more to the story than that but in the face of the moment…? It didn’t hold a candle to his unbridled rage.

      And now, as he worked on the Nemesis, he wished he could remain angry. He still was, but… it was a dull throb, so weak compared to the Pit ages when the Decepticon Movement was a mere sparkling.

      Laserbeak had told him before, during those times, that he had just been jealous. Jealous that Lord Megatron recognized Orion as his equal sooner than Soundwave. Even now, he didn’t believe his Lord saw his TIC as an equal, outside of their hierarchy. Not that he was entirely opposed; Lord Megatron had better things to do than getting chummy with his subordinates. They were in the middle of a war, and Soundwave had a job to do.

      The dull clicking sound of a digit tapping metal rang hollowly in the space. It was achingly lonely. A numb cold that had long settled itself in his frame made itself more known. Lonely. Soundwave hated the word and all it meant. He hated the chill he associated with it, he hated the memories of vorns stuck in his head like a passenger in his own frame. It brought him back to cycles without rest just to scrape the barest of energon for him and his cassettes.

      His cassettes.

      His spark throbbed.

      The clicking stopped and he stared blankly at the scrawls of data.

      He missed and longed for them. He missed how they bickered, how loud they were, he had to tell them to shut up so much. And Primus how they annoyed him. Loud, loud, loud, they were loud in the best way possible. On warm days when Hadeen was high in the sky and humid Kaon was unbearable on metal bodies, they’d try and snag a cold snack from passersby. Oh, they pestered, bothered, and nagged Soundwave for his own good or not. Ravage would lick himself when he felt too hot, sometimes he’d come back from “patrols” with cold energon goodies. He’d never explain where they came from, but they all knew that he terrorized some poor bot that day.

      Rumble and Frenzy played to their spark’s content in cold alleyways, loved to see who could climb the highest in the junk-filled channels. The number of times Soundwave had to hold them down and force them to dock, he couldn’t count. Laserbeak was a menace on their own. They were more responsible than the others, but oh, how they schemed.

      In some cycles, they’d come back with dirt on some big name, and suddenly, they could afford energon for an extra two mega-cycles. Soundwave was truly thankful for them, all of them.

      Especially when he could just… be.

      His most cherished memories with his cassettes weren’t their most successful missions or when he first got them, but when they were together and… relaxed. Soundwave would come home to their designated dump and slump down after working as some other bot’s personal computer. He was a Disposable, a mech with no face, no identity, akin to an object more than a conscience bot. He was made for the purpose to serve and then thrown to another.

      But as soon as he was home, with his cassettes, with his family. He could forget for a while.

      Rumble and Frenzy would immediately greet him as soon as they could sense he was near. They’d tackle each other and argue who’d talk first while Laserbeak would perch on his shoulder and warm his field. Laserbeak would fill him in on whatever chaos the cassettes got up to when he was gone. And he’d feel the familiar warmth of Ravage, curled up next to him as he sat.

      This, this was right. All of them, together.

      Until the coldness. Until one by one, a string snapped. And it was one hole after the next.

      It was Frenzy first.

      He felt the burning first. “Frenzy!?” Rumble called over the noise of the battlefield. Soundwave pinged Laserbeak for an overhead view. They couldn’t confirm a visual. He pinged Ravage next. Negative.

      Burns, burns, burns. It burned.

      He felt his neck being crushed. Rumble wailed in pain.

      “FRENZY!”

      No, no, no, no, no, no.

      “FRENZY, RESPOND!”

      No-

      Static.

      Soundwave stressed every glyph with urgency and concern.

      SNAP.

      The world went silent and it was just Soundwave and that snap.

      Primus, no. Primus, no.

      “FRENZY!!!”

      His vocalizer felt sore. It took some kliks before he realized it wasn’t because of his bond. Optical fluid poured from his ruined optics down his deformed face.

      It used to burn.

      Now it’s cold.

      “Soundwave!”

      He felt a hard, heavy servo push him and back into his mind. Red optics, wide with concern framed by a powerful, intimidating helm of gunmetal gray. The clawed servo grounded him with its steady weight and grasp. Warm, and overbearing in the best way.

      Megatron.

      “What happened?”

      That dark timbre shook Soundwave back to himself.

      “Frenzy: has been offlined,” Soundwave rasped in his real voice, there was a hint of shock in the larger mech’s optics.

      “What of your others?”

      “F-Fine.”

      “Good, then keep moving. You are on a battlefield, it is not a place to grieve. Give your kin proper grieving once you ascertain no further death. Do you understand me, Soundwave?” Megatron felt strangely tender and intimate at that moment. Close, warm, good .

      Soundwave nodded.

      “Soundwave: Understands. Will continue fighting.”

      Megatron smiled.

      “Good.”

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Good.

      The word echoed through Soundwave’s processor. Lord Megatron did not praise even his closest accomplices easily. Soundwave never minded it, he was there to support his Lord and he did not need praise to function.

      What meant more to him was the fact Lord Megatron was there. He was there for Soundwave during each of his Symbiotes’ deaths.

      “We’ll make it through this.”

      “You are strong and you will get stronger from this.”

      “They fought valiantly and will continue to do so, even if not physically with you.”

      “I am with you, Soundwave, as you are with me.”

      Soundwave switched to another window, the Nemesis’s medibay. And observed Lord Megatron. Several fuel lines hooked up to him, pumping energon and fluids to maintain the Lord’s survival.

      It was disgraceful and undignified. Unfitting of Lord Megatron’s greatness. But it was strangely… mechanizing*. Soundwave could see the same vulnerable idealistic gladiator, straight from the mines of Tarn. The one he fell so infatuated with. The one who saw him when no mech did.

      Megatronus of Tarn.

      I will bring you back.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Soundwave searched and scoured every Autobot database he had access to until he found what he was looking for.

      Medic files usually had the comm.code for the medic listed on the file, before the war.

      0-5/9.8-772

      Perfect.

<<ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ෴ﮩ_______ >>

      Ratchet awoke to a piercing feeling in his helm. The sharp ache of something in his processor. The medic checked his warning systems.

Dark shadows sank into the crevices of the ruinous buildings of a dark Cybertron. Long rays of sunshine glared on the broken metal plates of the ground. He heard the churring cranks of insecticon activity in the distance. It was a disheartening image. The once great, grand splendor of an advanced but doomed race, their home degraded to empty shells of what used to be. Pity.

Shockwave walked among ghosts.

His optics trailed to the dreary visage of a turbofox. It limped into the shadow of a building and its beady, sunken optics slowly moved across its field of vision. Logically, it would be seeking shelter, food, and somewhere to be safe while injured.

Some buried, or abeyant, part of Shockwave would have thought those optics searched for hope. But there was none to be found in this wasteland.

He walked toward the turbofox as quietly as his frame could manage. The little thing looked up and snarled, curling in on itself, its audial fins pinned back defensively. He watched it for a moment, his red optic glared down on its shaking form, illuminating it with crimson light. And slowly, the fox ceased its growls. It let its head droop and rest upon the cold surface of its dead planet. One that was once its flourishing home.

With a whine, it resigned to its death to the biting hands of war and time.

Shockwave knelt in front of the dying fox and plucked from his subspace, was a first aid kit. With a gentle hand he didn’t know he still possessed, he tugged the mechanimal close and started working. The fox was shivering, he could feel it was cold. There was no more warmth coming from Cybertron, the only heat they could rely on was their star. Many mechanisms died when the sun set and their homes were consumed with a snowless winter.

Shockwave shifted the fox to lay its upper half on his cannon and started heating it. The nozzle of his cannon was already naturally warm, but it had grown cooler with its environment and lack of use. The scientist would also get warmer by manually directing energon to the gun.

To the scientist’s relief, the turbofox was the perfect patient, still and compliant. Of course, it was still a moving, feeling mechanism and would flinch, growl, and whine. But otherwise, the treatment went without a hitch. Shockwave was not a medic and did not require to be so aware of his subjects’ state. He did not have to care if his projects were “stressed”, “scared”, or “manic.” However, he found some reprieve in thinking his current patient was just… a particularly delicate project— a fragile chemical mix or circuit where one wrong move would implode his remaining servo.

Yes, that visual helped a lot.

Slowly, Shockwave’s chronometer climbed up as he worked.

Shockwave started calling the fox “Turbo.” “The Fox” and “The Turbofox” felt too tedious and cluttered his processor. The Cyclops prided himself as a mech of efficiency. And so, the turbofox was dubbed Turbo.

Turbo, he found, was a rather sassy mechanimal. Many mecha would be shocked to find such a logic-driven mech thinking a mechanimal had sass. Shockwave would retort that it is logical for mechanimals to have personality traits. They are capable of thinking and emotions, therefore, have the capacity to form a “personality.”

And really, personality is just a messy tower of memories and experiences that tell us what to prioritize and how to react to different situations. And then those base reactions develop into more complex systems and subsystems that determine how we interact with the world around us.

Shockwave wasn’t the most well-researched when it came to psychology or the art of the processor. But he loved sciences of all kinds, and he doesn’t use emotive language and words lightly. However, trying to work with mecha and much less organics, was too messy and tedious for his taste. He preferred the controlled variables and reactions of chem and engineering. He felt it was the one thing that made Starscream a bearable individual.

The chronometer blinked red— time to go back to base.

Shockwave started packing up and then put the kit into subspace. He hefted Turbo over his shoulder and started the trek back.

Before Starscream got lost in obsession, he had a love for science that rivaled even Shockwave’s. They often worked together and shared interests in advancing the Decepticons. Though Starscream used to be an exoplanetary researcher, he was incredible with engineering. It was him that made Lord Megatron’s infamous plasma cannon. Shockwave knew that Starscream never asked for his help during its making. It was a feat even he was impressed with.

Shockwave had mourned the loss of an incredible mind once Starscream’s goals shifted to other, more dangerous ways of “advancing the Decepticon Cause” in the form of schemes.

In truth, the scientist wouldn’t protest at all if Starscream were to lead. He would be a good leader. But even in his state, unable to truly feel empathy or emotion, he knew Starscream would never become a great leader. Not until he learns to pull as Megatron does.

Megatron had charisma, attraction, and a gravity field stronger than Shockwave has experienced from any other mech, minus the Prime. Initially, when he first met the young gladiator, he thought he got a bug that made him stop everything and listen to the warlord-to-be's speeches.

And against all odds, Shockwave had joined in that cause, having something other than science to dedicate himself to. It was… a weird but good feeling, back then. But now, he didn’t even know why he still fought for Megatron. Perhaps… because it is what is working…

He felt grinding against his finials, which attempted to move away from the source. Turbo. Turbo was trying to gnaw on the Cyclops’ finials, like a toy. Shockwave concluded that the fox was bored and, or curious. Feeling no harm in letting it chew something, he procured a piece of scrap metal for Turbo to enjoy to its spark’s content.

Turbo immediately dropped the scrap and it landed on the scientist’s chest plates.

Ah, an oversight.

Shockwave picked up the metal and let Turbo bite on it again, transferring the fox into his servo. It was small enough to tuck itself into his large arms and lay there. He walked on as Turbo started making a low purring noise. The vibrations felt pleasant.

They walked amongst ghosts.

Until home was in sight.

Sparks are volatile and sensitive things. They were the ultimate culmination of being and what gave mecha their life, their soul, as humans would say it. The spark was a living being– an incomprehensible light that expressed its will using metal imbued with its properties. Living metal.

Sparks fuel their bodies so that their bodies can fuel them. Think of the mecha’s physical body as a tool– an extremely advanced tool that can be piloted by the brain module, the processor. And that processor’s decisions, actions, and emotions are fueled by the spark. The spark gives you a personality, and in (Former) Senator Shockwave’s words: 

“Personality is memories and experiences compounded and processed through our brain modules to tell us what to prioritize and how to react in new situations. Then these reactions evolve as we grow and undergo life’s encounters.”

(Ratchet always thought that was one of the Senator’s wisest words if it even came from him originally.)

And how a spark dies… first, the killing blow. And the spark begins to grow dimmer, smaller. Sometimes, it’s agonizing and the mecha would writhe and buck and scream as they felt their spark shrink. You’d feel the condensed energy of your spark heat your spark chamber as if you were melting from the inside out. Others die quietly, their brain module frying before it could send pain signals or react in any way.

A spark dies like a star.

It will try, desperately try and keep itself going. It’ll eat itself, claw its insides for the scraps of energy it needs. But eventually, it can consume no more and it’ll collapse into itself.

And it gets smaller…

And smaller…

And it will be gone. Suddenly. Too suddenly, the mecha is reduced to a husk. Then the energon will run dry in their veins and they’ll become gray.

Ratchet and every medic worth their trade knew this was how it ended.

A spark, growing smaller and smaller until it eventually sputtered out.

Ratchet believed this.

Until his first revival.

And his entire worldview changed.

No longer would a spark go out and be lost to whatever afterlife people believed in– No, they could come back. Ratchet had seen it with his own optics, had it burned into his memory core. Had witnessed a spark reignite, felt it, and pulled it from non-existence with his own, heavy spark.

Never would he imagine he’d perform such a miracle on the slagmaker, the perpetrator, the leader of the Decepticons.

Megatron.

Oh, the weight that name bore. The thousands upon millions of deaths that name represented. And the number of names Ratchet would know, who he’d see off, who he’d refused to kill– couldn’t kill, even if it would bring them back.

And for a moment, for a second, he entertained the thought of it. Of killing Megatron and being forced to bring him back. The thought of intentionally reaching beyond, to touch sparks with him. And he wondered what madness it would bring him. He wondered how Megatron’s spark would feel.

Grief and numbness, like Drift?

Regret and self-loathing, like himself?

Both?

Ratchet had regrettably very few specimens, and the scraplet, Pest, didn’t count. There wasn’t a single feeling in its spark, only blissful emptiness and a hint of hunger and want. Want for what? No clue.

But Ratchet didn’t want to add any designations, friend or otherwise, to those he has revived.

It’d only mean he had failed them in every way that mattered.

He couldn’t save them without killing them.

And while he’d love to extinguish the bastard’s spark, it wasn’t precisely Soundwave’s intention.

And of course, it was him who found out. The only competent Decepticon in high command, and the most loyal.

In exchange for Megatron’s life, his secret will remain a secret.

But… was he truly unable to leave the warlord as is after he killed him?

Surely, his team wouldn’t have the same disdain as so many did pre-war?

When Ratchet came to, energon dribbled into his intake, and the bitter taste of inner-energon burned on his lips. The same uncomfortable buzz was felt around his eye sockets. He lifted two digits and slid them under his orbit, wet and stung to the touch. He was crying energon.

The medic sighed. At least Soundwave had the decency to put "agreement" in quotation marks.

He let his eyes wander the empty expanse of the missile-silo-turned-base. His optics landed on the controls for the groundbridge, the coordinates entered in advance. The cursor blinking, bright blue text dimly lit his face. Energon dripped onto the controls.

He should probably fix that now.

There was a dull throb where his conjunctiva had broken, most likely out of the vivid recreation of his first revival– when he saw a True Spark. It didn’t happen every time he remembered the experience and visualized the phenomena, but sometimes it’d get intense enough that the conjunctiva broke from the sheer cosmic pressure of witnessing life itself.

And so, energon pooled around the laceration, much like it would a bruise. Then upon crying, energon would be swept by the optical fluids and create blood tears. While it was annoying, it wasn’t hard to treat. Often, the conjunctiva could heal itself fast enough with minor interference. The conjunctiva is present commonly among frame types that often encountered situations that required extra protection. Miners, racers, shuttles, construction vehicles, jets, submarines, etc. You see, the conjunctiva is a thin, transparent film that covers digital optics. Optics like Bumblebee’s, Arcee’s, Bulkhead’s, and his own are fashioned like a screen. Unlike optics like Optimus’s where the metal components are visible and bare. His optics, as it would seem, were carried over from his previous self (Ratchet never told him how much he loved those optics). A librarian that had no need for the protective film. And it may strike you odd that Ratchet would have conjunctiva since he worked as a medic– a profession known for its sterile environment and strict cleanliness. Well, he’d like to say that he was a field medic and had to run amuck the battlefield and fight like any other soldier (although mechs respected him more, there was a time they hadn't had the moral capacity to not injure a medic on the job).

Ratchet wiped the tears from his faceplate. The Energon-mixed optical fluid glistened on his digits, appearing glossy in the cerulean light of the screen text. He turned his servo over, observing the crevices and how the energon seeped into the deep recesses of the hinges and transformation seams.

He traveled to the makeshift wash racks and twisted on a small pipe hose. The energon washed away, swept into the water, staining it luminescent blue. Ratchet watched in fascination as he rubbed away the stains from his digits.

He didn’t feel any cleaner, though he knew there was no energon left. Even as he turned the faucet off and felt grit in his joints. There was nothing there.

A warmth curled around his pede and his vision swam. He stumbled and clutched the console as he rapidly blinked away the obtrusive memory. Ridiculous… He peered down to see the scraplet bumping its head into the side of his pede. He picked it up and it stared back with a questioning look. Head tilted at 45 degrees. It was rather cute, its chelicerae-like appendages pawing at his digits.

Ratchet stared at it a while longer. It opened its mouth and started harmlessly teething at his digits. With a sigh, he held the pest to his chest plates and let himself drift from his memories, just for a moment, forget the world and focus on the small thing in his arms.

“Pest… you are very good at comforting, for something that could kill me within hours…” he mumbled, Pest purred. Empty-headed little thing. Ratchet chuckled. His chronometer blinked red and a system pop-up notification appeared on his HUD.

Ah, time to go.

Ratchet leaned over to let Pest jump off. He finished washing away the energon from his faceplate and did his best to make the laceration of his conjunctiva less noticeable. Pest whirred curiously as Ratchet made his way to the ground bridge controls and pulled the lever. The ground bridge swirled to life, the interdimensional colors lit the dim base.

Ratchet didn’t go in right away. Knowing what he was about to do, it made sense. You’re wasting energon, get in already. Staring at your fate won’t make it go away. Useless.

The medic slowly walked forward, and the scraplet followed.

“Oh, no no no, you aren’t coming…” Ratchet blocked Pest with his pede. “I’m sorry… I’ll come back… probably…” he muttered as he took one last step. The ground bridge automatically closed behind him.

Pest was left alone, churring into the empty space.

      Soundwave’s tanks immediately empty onto his berthroom floors upon waking up. A dream, a fantasy. Of course. It was unrealistic to ever expect Megatron to be his lover, to imagine a peaceful world in any capacity. How foolish. How pathetic.

      He touched his visor, caked in a bit of white, processed energon. He turned on the shower in his private wash rack and let the solvent run over his overheated plating. The solvent dissolved the dirt and dust that accumulated underneath his plating and joints, the warm liquid soothing his pistons and tense mesh.

      He doesn’t do anything but rinse for a few minutes— he wouldn’t dare use up more resources than strictly necessary. Especially not because he had an upsetting recharge flux. The shower switched off and he wiped himself dry. It gave him some much-needed satisfaction as he wiped away any grime that couldn’t be broken down by the solvent, leaving his paint with a shiny finish.

      Soundwave never liked to admit it, but he did value his appearance. It just so happened many of his choices were practical for his job.

      He was tempted to grab the polish, or at least some wax.

      He decided against it.

      It made his plating itch, leaving so many items untouched and unused, but they weren’t currently vital to his health. It didn’t matter that it didn’t expend any vital resources. It didn’t matter how much Soundwave adored the feeling and look of a clean, matte finish. It was irrelevant to his job and station. He didn’t need to look good to code, to record, or to manage the comm lines. Though it still felt nice.

        “I didn’t think you’d be the vain sort of mech, Soundwave.” Megatron’s tone was teasing, but Soundwave could feel the underlying judgment. An unexpected shame pooled in his gut.

      “Soundwave: not vain; just likes the feel.” Soundwave carefully picked the words and hoped he didn’t sound too defensive. But Megatron chased the conversation.

      “You look fine without polish, Soundwave. You are not the Senate’s toy anymore, you can let go of that image of yourself,” Megatron advised.

      Another pang of guilt and shame resonated from his spark.

      “Soundwave: will keep that in mind. Thank you, Lord Megatron.”

      Soundwave forcefully locked himself out of his code. He’s been in his mind for too long. And he knew when he was being obsessive.

      He had protocols for this.

      He just needed to follow them.

      Step one: name five things you can see.

      Soundwave scanned his surroundings and internally listed the items. His berth, his desk, his monitors, his door, Laserbeak.

      Step two: feel the surfaces of each item.

      Soundwave’s tentacles unfurled from his back and reached out to each surface. The sensory nodes transmit data from each— precise temperature, texture, and color analyses. For Laserbeak, he simply holds them. They were currently docked and resting. The warmth from their connection calmed him.

      Step three: calculate exact coordinates of each item

      Automatically, numbers filled his HUD, and his mapping programs were disabled to allow him to do the math himself. Numbers were familiar and safe. Numbers took his processor away from an otherwise negative feedback loop. These protocols included a booster for emotional processing, allowing it to be a smoother process. It streamlined it and simplified the emotional responses so it would have less impact on the rest of his systems. It was an ethical way to dull or suppress emotions. Soundwave has always been thankful for its existence.

      Shockwave had offered before to remove or disable his emotional processing suite. Soundwave was uncomfortable with the idea and politely refused. Shockwave didn’t seem to understand, ending the conversation with, “Your refusal is accepted, but illogical.” He didn’t ask anymore, after that.

      Soundwave thought of himself as an avid user of pure logic, he interacted with machines to know there was no place for emotions in that field. Working in intelligence for so long only solidified his belief.

      But something seemed inherently wrong with completely getting rid of his emotions. Theoretically, it would solve all of his problems or create more. And the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Losing the majority of his emotional processing made Shockwave a loose cannon at best, and self-serving at worst. There was enough of himself left that Shockwave seemed to have a modicum of loyalty, however, Soundwave found him too morally gray for his tastes (Hah).

      A reminder dissipated his inner monologue. Yellow text blinked at the bottom left of his visor.

>>System Notification!//[REMINDER] for [03.20.00]c [SET TO: TERRAN Time, PDT]//:pick up [RATCHET]>>

      Ratchet didn’t know what to expect when he would feel and grasp Megatron’s spark. And truthfully, he was afraid. Not of the result of his actions— the revival of his greatest enemy— but of what he may find in his spark.

      And it seemed he was right to be afraid.

      Killing Megatron was almost anticlimactic in the worst way possible. It was as simple as pulling the plug.

      No more energon getting manually pumped. Megatron would die from losing too much energon. His systems will shut down one by one. His spark will be the last to go.

      Ratchet watched, almost forgetting to vent— he only noticed when he started feeling light-headed and hot. He almost didn’t notice when Megatron’s spark extinguished.

      There was almost no difference. The spark monitor flatlined, and that was it.

      Millions of years of war. Millions of years trying to put a stake through Megatron’s sorry spark. Ratchet thought that he’d feel something… more. Something, something… something beyond the aching emptiness.

      The war could end today. It should end today. Ratchet just killed Megatron.

      He could feel his spark drifting away.

      “Heal — Lord Megatron.”

      Ratchet jumped. It was the first he’d heard of Soundwave. Well, the closest one could be to hearing him, considering he never used his voice. Then the meaning behind Soundwave’s voice clips hit and he was reminded of his purpose here.

      “Heal — Lord Megatron.” Soundwave insisted. As extra encouragement, his tentacle appendages reached out, sparking with electricity.

      “I will, I will, just—“ he sighed, “I will do it.”

      With that final push, Ratchet started reaching. His spark automatically magnetized to the nearest departed one— Megatron. It pulled and pulled and pulled.

      Ratchet didn’t move closer to Megatron because it helped with bringing his spark back. He moved closer so he’d have something to safely collapse on.

      His knees buckled.

      He was gone before he hit the medberth.

      Ratchet gasped. He was breathing heavily, vents shaking and limbs unsteady. His spark felt changed. Heavier and simultaneously lighter. Like a small, lead ball. That was how it felt. Like somehow, when Ratchet’s spark intertwined with Megatron’s, Megatron took a piece of him with him. It was a disturbing thought, but he couldn’t care less in the mess of his processor. He couldn’t make sense of his own thoughts.

      The only thought he could produce was ‘Why is my face wet?’ Then everything went dark once more.

[-- ♫ --]

      Seeing revival happen in front of your optics felt like a spit in the face. How many mecha could have been saved, if I had this ability? If Ratchet had used it to its full potential? It made Soundwave furious. There was even a hint of disappointment. Why did Ratchet even become a doctor if the only thing he had to do to cure any ailment was to kill?—

      Ah. That’s what must be the problem. Killing. What an Autobot sentiment; unwilling to save lives because of their ‘morals’. The disappointment was back again. Out of all of the Autobots, except for Optimus Prime, Ratchet was the most likely to join the Decepticons. But, of course, the lapdog he is, he followed Optimus. Sound familiar?

      No. Soundwave had a good reason to follow Megatron. Megatron saved him, and he agreed with the Decepticon ideals, everything they fought for. Peace through tyranny. Retribution for us. You are being deceived. Everything he did was for the cause, for Lord Megatron. It is for a good reason. But what evidence is there that Ratchet doesn’t think the exact same thing?

      That was enough. Soundwave manually shuts down his thoughts. No need to work himself up.

      Thankfully, Ratchet provided ample distraction. A bright, blinding light flooded the room. It was hot and Soundwave hissed. It felt like his plating had been dipped in fire. The burning sensation only lasted a second, then it was… warmth. Like a hug he’d never received. Like my dream…

      The spark monitor started beeping again— a slow, steady, powerful beat. Megatron. Subsequently, Ratchet collapsed once more upon the warlord’s body. Soundwave’s appendages hoisted him up before he could hit his head against the edge of the berth. The armaments dragged the medic onto the other berth.

      A ragged breath drew his attention back to Lord Megatron. His own vents shuddered in anticipation. After the light subsided (Soundwave, in another part of his processor, had wondered if that’s what the AllSpark felt/looked like) Megatron looked… better. Better than better. It was like he was brand new. But his old scars were still present, including his facial ones.

      The ones he ached to caress, to kiss, to love—

      And Soundwave could hear the faint asthmatic vents Megatron had gained from his formative years spent underground; constantly breathing dust and disease. It ruined his respiratory system for the rest of his functioning— to restore it would require every part to be replaced. He could never afford it, and by now, he didn’t care.

      Soundwave wondered if his clogged system was what caused his wonderful rasp and debated if losing the iconic voice was worth it— Megatron no longer cared for his damaged ventilation, right? What are you talking about, Soundwave? Don’t be selfish. If you had the chance to repair Megatron’s voice, you would do it. Your opinion is not relevant .

      Then Megatron’s eyes cracked open, and Soundwave’s vents stalled.

      Your optics are gorgeous…

      “Soundwave— Welcome back— Master…”

      Despite using voices other than his own, it still felt genuine. It would feel more genuine if he used his real voice, but… this was good. He will make do with what he has. He always has.

      “Soundwave…” came the whispered answer. Gravel lied in the former gladiator’s voice. Untold years within mines and more biting the dirt in that arena. The Pits of Kaon. It was an immediate indicator of his origin— mecha didn’t get that sort of rasp naturally, well, most don’t. Anyone would be able to tell he was a miner, a laborer. Even when Lord Megatron had adopted a more Iaconian accent, they’d be able to tell. Soundwave would usually dislike having such an obvious telling. But Megatron always told them to be proud of where they came from—

      A faint disappointment. Narrowed optics and a hint of sharp teeth behind thin, scarred lips.

      “What is your origin, mech?” A deep, thick, Tarnian accent poorly hidden by Iaconian dialect spoken with a raspy rumble. Clogged vents. Large, sturdy frame. Bright, fluorescent paint, rubbed off aggressively with sandpaper or digits. A miner. Soundwave recalled himself. Clean, shiny, deep, and rich paints. He was royal blue. His savior was gun-metal gray— the color of dead mechs.

      “Soundwave… is of the Senate.” It hurt a little to say it. Like he was lying. He wasn’t. He couldn’t remember where he was from before the Senate. He flinched again when he saw how his savior’s red optics narrowed and hardened. Cold determination. Even colder hate .

      “Soundwave… I am Megatron. Megatron of Tarn.” Soundwave could tell. “Soundwave, would you like to be of Tarn too?”

      He could only say yes.

      Being of the Senate was bad, he learned.

      He learned that from his savior.

      — and Soundwave was from The Senate Tarn. And he was proud of where he came from.

      “Soundwave… what… has happened to me…?” Lord Megatron didn’t sound sick but enervated. Ideally, Soundwave would prefer his lord to be neither, but he took his wins.

      Soundwave compiled his most recent memory files and edited them into a comprehensible and brief narrative of what had happened. This felt familiar, safe. A nice, warm feeling settled in his spark. Everything is going to be alright because Lord Megatron is here…

      His memories played on his visor, and Megatron watched in rapt attention.

      Yes, this was familiar.

      Everything was going to be okay.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet awoke to dim lights and purple-gray ceilings. Panicked, he attempted to sit up, only to be held back by restraints of the tentacle kind.

      Soundwave.

      Frag.

      “Suggestion— Ratchet— Stay still!” A merge of Knock Out and Optimus’s voices created an eligible sentence. Ratchet begrudgingly obeyed. He turned his helm toward the source of the recordings.

      Soundwave stood near the door of the room, still and unreadable. Ratchet could mistake him as a statue if he didn’t know better.

      “I thought we agreed I’d be let go once I’ve revived Megatron for you.” He grumbled, taking in his surroundings and noting possible tools to assist escape.

      “We agreed to— no such thing!”

      “I thought it was implied.”

      “Implicit goodwill is an Autobot flaw, and the Decepticons should seek to eradicate it from their processors!”

      Ratchet’s brow furrowed. “I’m not surprised that Starscream said that. And I’d find the ridiculousness of such a statement hilarious if I wasn’t subjected to its consequences.”

      Soundwave responded with an image of a shrugging— what did Miko call it? An emoticon?— with the letters “L.O.L” typed beside it. Ratchet had no clue what an “L.O.L” was, but smugness was an expression that transcended language. His mouth was taut in a line. He felt like he was being laughed at.

      “Take those— images— away and answer me. Why are you keeping me here? I’m not going to talk.”

      Soundwave took off the image of the shrugging emoticon and “L.O.L,” thankfully.

      What he displayed next was his perspective on the aftermath of Megatron’s revival. The remnants of a bright light and he watched as his past self collapsed and Soundwave caught him with surprising care. Well, that saves me a concussion. Soundwave skipped forward to a conversation with Knock Out.

      “Congrats, the Autobot doesn’t have any serious injuries, if you don’t count his abysmal, ah, self-care. Do the Autobots even know what a ‘buffer’ is?!”

      The recording ended before Ratchet had to suffer the Decepticon Doctor’s rant. Thank Primus.

      “You haven’t told me if I can go, or was that implied ?” Ratchet spoke irritably. Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest decision to provoke Megatron’s most powerful and loyal follower, but he had the strange feeling Soundwave wouldn’t hurt him. Or not so strange— it wouldn’t make sense to hurt him now, Soundwave had plenty of opportunities to damage or otherwise hinder Ratchet, but he didn’t. Contrary, he actually helped ensure he had no injuries and let him rest after the… confusing experience with Megatron’s spark.

      Ratchet was reminded of the new weight in his chest. The feeling of undeniable, intrinsic change. That was what Megatron was. Change.

      He’s reminded of the days he’d listen to Orion ramble about the, at the time, revolutionary ideals of a certain Tarnian gladiator in the Pits of Kaon. Back then, Ratchet couldn’t truly comprehend the magnitude of Megatron’s words or speeches. To him, it was another lost cause, a false hope. There was no way he could believe in hope again… Not with what he’d seen, what he’d done…

      And then the confrontation with the Senate happened that truly kickstarted the war. He followed Orion Pax, and he followed Optimus Prime. He didn’t think he had any other choice.

      Of course, he had tried to stay Neutral as long as possible. He had even considered joining the Decepticons at some point. But he saw the carnage, the damage they had done. There was no way he could support that much death…

      Would he have been able to save their planet, had he caused its death? If he had been a Decepticon instead?

      He nearly retched. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about how easy it was to imagine himself as a Decepticon.

      Looking out the window walls of the Nemesis’s bay. Seeing as the planet lost its light, its Spark. And then a hand placed on his shoulder, in comfort and apology.

      “You know what you have to do, doctor.”

      “I know.”

      “I have full trust in you…”

      No. No, no, no, he couldn’t be that. Couldn’t.

      Soundwave ‘spoke’ and Ratchet quickly shoved his thoughts down into an imaginary drain within his processor.

      “Ratchet— remains here until I say so!” Soundwave informed. Maybe it was the voices he used, but the purple mech seemed oddly condescending. Maybe ‘smug’ was a better word?

      “Really. And how would I explain my absence to my team? Or is this a ransom now?” Ratchet hoped not, but Optimus goes through enough tough decisions. Ratchet didn’t want to be one of them.

      “Ratchet— not a hostage.”

      “Very comforting.”

      The room fell back into silence. The lights buzzed and Ratchet heard the occasional sound of pedesteps outside the medibay doors. Tools were strewn across the room, the workspace crowded with several unreadable datapads, no doubt containing the medical records and histories of the entire ship. Unfortunately, none of the tools were in reach, and even then, he’d have very little luck trying to fight Soundwave, of all mechs.

      “Ratchet— will be released— in— one hour.” Soundwave broke the silence with good news and Ratchet’s shoulders sagged in relief.

      He didn’t believe Soundwave would be lying. He had no reason to lie about what time he’d be released. Soundwave was honest, for a Decepticon. If he wanted Ratchet hurt or wanted Ratchet to be a hostage, he would’ve done it when he was passed out and incapable of fighting back. And checking his chronometer, barely 20 minutes had passed since he’d passed out. Most of the team still wouldn’t be awake, or at least, not wandering around base in an hour (which would be ~4:00 AM).

      “Well, good to know…” he mumbled back to fill the silence.

      The room and the buzzing lights seemed to steal any words forming on Ratchet’s glossa. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing— the less he said the better— so he accepted the awkward silence for what it was.

      Thirty minutes in, the doors hissed and parted to reveal Megatron’s powerful frame. The hulking gray mass’s pedesteps echoed, loud and commanding, as he walked to Ratchet. Immediately, the medic attempted to transform his servo, only to be reminded that he was restrained.

      Slagging stupid!

      The warlord noticed and raised a brow in unabashed amusement and mockery.

      “Doctor.”

      His voice was mighty, it demanded to be listened to.

      Ratchet felt an uncomfortable resonance within him— within his spark. It made his plating ripple and his optics twitched. There were no emotions or thoughts shared, at least, not directly like it would be in a sparkbond. Rather, it was a sort of… vague sensation; the faint realization of another presence.

      There was an uncomfortable feeling that Megatron and Soundwave noticed.

      “Megatron,” Ratchet responded stiffly. Megatron did not indicate that his spark resonated the same way his did— or perhaps, he just had a good poker face, as the humans said.

      “I am here to thank you for your purpose in ‘reviving’ me. I was not aware you were an Outlier,” Ratchet felt his spark horrifyingly warm— Megatron didn’t say ‘outlier’ like it was a curse like it was a moniker for Unicron himself rather than a group of mecha,” you must have saved many like this.” The warm and fuzzies quickly dissipated.

      Ratchet scoffed, “I am not like you, Megatron. I would never kill for any ‘Greater Good’.”

      “Perhaps you should, Ratchet.”

      The ambulance shifted uncomfortably in the medberth. His spark seemed to respond to the warlord’s words— like it was on vibrate, buzzing and fluttering. Like it was compelling him to listen, or even worse, obey. He supposed he was lucky to be just as stubborn as his leader (mostly).

      “I save mecha through my medical skills— skills acquired so that I’d never have to see a spark’s light fade in order to bring a loved one back!”

      “And yet you still failed to save them.” Megatron rumbled.

      Ratchet flinched, and a look of satisfaction gleamed in Megatron’s crimson optics.

      “Your potential is wasted on your pride… imagine how many could be saved, if you had simply killed them. It shouldn’t be so hard… the Autobots hardly have a rule against killing. It is war, medic. We have long passed the time of morals,” Megatron turned away, toward the door, he looked back at Ratchet. “Soundwave may escort you out now… Ratchet.”

      With that, the warlord exited the medibay, the doors shutting seemed to echo.

      A dolorous feeling settled wearily in Ratchet’s spark. A nagging voice in his processor whispered,

      He’s right.

      Harshly into his audials.

      Soundwave, as always, silently did the work to escort the medic. The restraints were disabled and Ratchet quietly twisted his wrist to bring back feeling into the joint. Medic servos are fragile, dammit…! The silent mech’s extra appendages reeled out to hold Ratchet’s arms behind him. He didn’t struggle.

      The Decepticon officer walked Ratchet back where they came and to the landing bay, where a groundbridge was swiftly generated in front of them.

      The cylindrical limbs loosened and Ratchet walked forward, but before he could step into the bridge, a tap on the shoulder stopped him. Ratchet turned his head to meet Soundwave’s ‘gaze’ through the visor. The screen flickered and letters started typing upon it.

      ‘You should have been a Decepticon.’

      Ratchet said nothing. He turned his head back and continued walking. Walking and never looking back.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet was returned to base quietly and unspotted.

      Megatron was successfully revived to full health.

      Soundwave didn’t care much for the organic inhabitants of the planet they roamed; however, they were an unavoidable part of… living here, for lack of a better word. He counted himself lucky that most of his hours were spent on the Nemesis, working in his comfort space, his environment completely in his control.

      The sound of Vehicon troops marching on patrol, the indistinct comm. link chatter that he liked to keep tabs on, the occasional ping from one of the leadership staff… it was domestic, at this point. Work was a good way to drown everything out, he knew from experience. But today didn’t seem to agree with him.

      The Nemesis had been steered into a loop around a sparsely populated area of the African continent, as they found that staying in heavily populated areas made a cause for concern with fireworks of great magnitude. Apparently, ‘New Year’ was a popularly celebrated holiday that employed the use of loud, obstructive, intrusive, ANNOYANCES, called ‘fireworks’. The celebrations were an unimaginable processor ache as unnecessary stimuli messed with the ship sensors, the colorful explosion causing many false alarms as it registered oncoming attacks.

      Ever since their first experience with the New Year’s mishaps, Starscream relegated all of the ship’s sensor input to be filtered through Soundwave. It employed the use of his processor to sift through the extra data, most of which was junk that brought down the other processes that ran within his brain module. Now, Soundwave never enjoyed admitting to any weakness with his masterfully curated and meticulously optimized processor, but even he couldn’t handle that much junk data constantly clogging his thoughts.

      Yet, he never spoke against it, even when he knew the adverse effects it had on his mind.

      The extra load of the ship’s entire nervous system was Pit on his helm, but he held steadfast. It was just for today, so he could ease Starscream’s paranoia, and then he could run the sensory data through a terminal and let a Vehicon captain keep track.

      Just one day.

      He has handled worse than prolonged mental stress and junk data overloads, it was for the sake of Starscream not getting on his case and potentially jeopardizing his trust in him. Starscream was paranoid enough, he didn’t need him thinking he was going to disobey (which in his mind, might as well be betrayal).

      Soundwave felt hot, his fans were on blast, despite the Nemesis having decent air conditioning.

      But he felt hot.

      His vents were working overtime, and his fans were buzzing uncontrollably. Soundwave hated the buzz of fans and hated how loud they were. His thoughts felt sluggish as if being dragged in slime or wading through water. It was infuriating, he’d be infuriated if the excess stimuli would allow him a moment to process his own thoughts.

      At this point, it was unbearable to even try thinking. For once, he felt like a passenger in his own head. At some point he had stopped moving entirely, he couldn’t even process the command to unplug from the ship. He remained motionless, his fans on high spin and his vents shaking from stress.

      He hadn’t realized he was shutting down until his helm had already met the floor.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave online slowly, each system and software booting up a few at a time. His thoughts still felt sluggish, but his processor ache had been significantly reduced. It felt as if there was less pressure now, and he allowed a sigh of relief. Then he finally noticed the cold packs placed around his limbs and on his helm. Ah, that also felt good. He sat up as he heard the familiar steps of stiletto thrusters.

      “Ah, you’re finally awake,” a high-pitched rasp echoed from the door of the room.

      “You are lucky you didn’t burst something, my medical skills only go so far.” Starscream snarked as he checked the monitors hooked up to the silent mech’s frame.

      “Laserbeak had alerted me the moment your cache had started overloading, you are lucky I was able to set up what I needed fast enough to be ready when the Vehicons dragged your sorry frame in here!”

      Soundwave didn’t respond, merely nodding in thanks.

      “Your vitals have stabilized now, but I recommend you stay on berth rest for the rest of the day.” Then he went silent. Soundwave nodded again.

      “... You could have told me, Soundwave. I am not a cruel leader, I need all of my crew to function at their best. That means I do have to try to take care of you. If you of all mechs can collapse because of a data overload, what hope is there for the rest of them, hm?” The acting leader crossed his arms. “You will reroute the nervous system of the ship to your terminal and watch the sensory data that way. If this happens again, I will be forced to use more persuasive methods of… cooperation. You should know better, Soundwave.”

      Starscream then left without looking back, leaving Soundwave with his thoughts. He laid back down on the berth and quietly vented. The cold packs felt good, and he allowed himself to relax in the cool medibay.

      He ruminated on Starscream’s words and felt some shame swell in his spark. He knew he could do better, Starscream knew this too. And he was right. Starscream may have been delusional and had an ego the size of the sun, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have questioned Soundwave’s reluctance to hardline with a ship that contained so much useless stimuli and junk data. He would probably approve without a second thought.

      Soundwave cursed his biased view.

      He will not question everything you do, he knows how to work with other mechs.

      He wondered how he gained the mindset in the first place.

      Megatron always did love a good interrogation.

      No, Lord Megatron had nothing to do with his insecurity with authority. It must date back to his time in the Senate. Yes, that made more sense…

      Laserbeak reattached to Soundwave’s chest with a chiding chirp. No words were exchanged, but he already knew everything they were trying to say. His long digits came up to stroke their neatly folded and slotted wings. Laserbeak expressed warmth and pleasure as Soundwave did so, in turn, making him more relaxed.

      It was… nice to know Starscream did care. It shouldn’t have been a big surprise at all, yet…

      Soundwave sighed.

      There was much about Starscream he didn’t understand. The mech was driven by ambition and spite alone, and Soundwave found that admirable. Even with Starscream’s previously elevated status and perceived elitism, he got along well with the lower castes and treated them like real mechs.

      At some point, Soundwave forgot how competent and able the Seeker was, as well as his intelligence and compassion…

      How did it end up that way…?

      “All is well, Soundwave. Starscream deserved it.”

      Hm.

      As he rested in the berth, he pulled up some music and let Laserbeak hum and vibrate to the song selections.

      It didn’t take long before Soundwave fell into recharge.

[-- ♫ --]

      Starscream watched as Soundwave settled back down on the berth and his spark spin slowed as the TiC went into recharge.

      The Communications Officer didn’t cause unrest in Starscream often, he knew exactly how much he could trust him and how much to rely on him. Contrary to popular belief, Starscream wasn’t stupid. Perhaps he could admit to being ambitious and rather desperate, but it wasn’t as if he had a lot to work with, being on a backwater planet with less than a third of Decepticon troops…

      It was a grim reality.

      Starscream knew he was competent, and he knew when to retreat. Giving out your spark for someone who wouldn’t do the same was frankly idiotic, and would weaken the Decepticon command structure overall. Unfortunately, Soundwave employed such an ideal when it came to the cause, and more importantly, to Megatron.

      Of course, it wasn’t all that surprising. Soundwave had more Autobot-like qualities than he cared to admit, most of them didn’t harm the Decepticons as a whole. But that self-sacrificial ideology was problematic.

      Sure, becoming a martyr may renew outrage in the populace’s sparks against the Autobots, but losing Soundwave would be a hindrance— no one has ever been recorded to do what he does. And more importantly, Megatron would spiral and become volatile, unstable, and unfit to lead. Of course, Starscream would happily take his place, but knowing the oaf, he’d insist on leading anyway.

      Idiots, the lot of them.

      It was his job to ensure nobody died while we were in the middle of nowhere.

      He had plans for Cybertron; great plans. He will bring back Cybertron better and stronger than before. And he couldn’t let anyone get in his way.

      Not Soundwave, and definitely not Megatron.

      He will get his way.

      Ratchet held Pest close to his chest, curled with his back against the foot of his berth. Another rare moment in his room. He didn’t like being inactive like this, usually, he’d work away his thoughts. He tried to, but it didn’t work. The moment he dropped a piece of equipment when he was cleaning his workspace, he knew he was too distracted to work. It would just make him a liability.

      So he sat and clutched the scraplet close, his thumb moving back and forth, stroking the small menace he had grown attached to. He still couldn’t completely understand why it wasn’t as… predatorial when he revived it. Especially the change in optic color. They were still a deep indigo, but it was… lighter now, like a bluish film over its optics.

      The medic sighed.

      He was still processing what had happened… killing Megatron, reviving him, his spark… And Soundwave’s words.

      The entire ordeal was a processor ache in of itself, but Soundwave.

      Soundwave didn’t need a voice or even text to send a message, but when he did…

      Ratchet didn’t think much of Soundwave, they’d never met before the war, and even then their encounters were limited. They were both, after all, support to their leaders. Even if Soundwave saw action beyond his terminal screen, Ratchet wouldn’t be there to meet him.

      But he still had thoughts about the mech; his loyalty, how much of a nuisance he was… and not much more than that. Many speculated the communications officer was an outlier with telepathic powers. Ratchet didn’t care much for those rumors and cared less for the connotations behind them…

      An outlier being relegated to the boogeymen of people’s minds… to be a source of fear and paranoia. To say they have a reason for hating them.

      It was disheartening.

      Of course, Ratchet never felt bad for the Decepticon officer, however, it still felt rather insulting. He supposed there was good reason to suspect, even he still speculated now, but he was never comfortable with why Soundwave had been thought of like that. It’s not like every incredibly talented, odd, or even creepy mech is labeled like this. There was a reason no one suspected Ratchet. Because Ratchet didn’t fit into what they believed an outlier was. Evil. Deranged. Delusional. Dangerous…

      He tilted his head back and let out a long sigh.

      You should have been a Decepticon.

      That is what Soundwave said.

      He hated how much it made sense.

      And he hated more that some part agreed.

      He wasn’t a monster, he couldn’t be a Decepticon. He was good.

      He had tried to convince himself that being an Autobot meant absolution, a way to redeem what couldn’t be redeemed— his blood. That he could prove himself better, and make a change instead of resolving to violence like the rest of his savage kin. He wasn’t like them, he wouldn’t be like them. He will rise above his tainted blood.

      But it was never his duty to absolve himself… he doesn’t deserve punishment. And neither did they.

      Pest made a low purring sound, sensing the medic’s distress.

      “Hush, little one… I am fine…” he reassured in a hushed tone.

      Ratchet was tired and tired of being tired. His life was an incorrigible mess at best and a bad joke at worst. He wondered if Primus just didn’t like him or if Unicron’s blood did taint him. He wondered if being a Decepticon would have been better; if he let his rage consume him. To let loose on the world that wronged him and his people, the world that forced him through his entire life to hide. The world that would condemn him for daring to help his kind.

      No, being an Autobot; choosing peace over violence is what makes me better. It's what proves them wrong. He combated the traitorous thoughts and was momentarily put at ease. He was better. He would be better.

      A message came over his open comm.

      :: Ratch? Doc? You in there?:: came Bulkhead’s familiar gruff tenor.

      Ratchet nudged Pest off his lap and let the scraplet scamper behind a storage unit. He pinged the door to open, revealing Bulkhead outside.

      “You didn’t have to comm me, Bulkhead. The walls here are thin enough for our voices.” Ratchet grumbled although he hadn’t meant to sound so annoyed. Regardless, Bulkhead’s brow ridge furrowed in worry.

      “... Are… you alright, doc? You don’t sound so good.” The ex-Wrecker frowned. Ratchet silently cursed. “Ahh, I am fine, Bulkhead. You do not need to worry… I am fine…” He sat up, his joints creaking. Bulkhead looked doubtful, but wisely let it go.

      “Uhh, I was going to ask about those EMF lessons you were talkin’ about, but I… assume this isn’t a good time?”

      “It’s a good time as any, sit down, I was looking for something to do anyway…” Ratchet pat the berth. Bulkhead came in, the door closing behind him as he sat.

      “So, where do we start? It’s been like… a millennia since I last used it regularly…”

      “If you’ve used it before, you can use it again. For lack of better words, your field is like a muscle and it needs to be exercised to work effectively without burning yourself out. Let’s just start with stretching it and controlling the way your field takes up the space around you.”

      The green bot nodded and obediently lifted the field suppressor, letting his field spread out naturally. Ratchet could vaguely sense his field, meaning it had spread rather widely.

      “Good. You’ve let it relax and spread on its own rather than keep it tight to your frame. Now that it’s relaxed, let’s try compressing it. Not all the way, but in intervals, a few inches at a time.”

      Bulkhead had a harder time following, but Ratchet was patient. He instructed the ex-Wrecker with a firm hand and clear words. Despite his grumpy and sarcastic attitude, the medic adored teaching. It very well rivaled his passion for medical work. He taught and held many lectures at public schools and universities in Iacon, even when he was running the Dead End clinic. He had acknowledged a long time ago he had a natural motherly instinct, always wanting to care and protect for others, he’d always wanted to be a nurturer. Teaching Bulkhead brought back a sense of nostalgia.

      It didn’t take long for Bulkhead to tire out, which greatly embarrassed him.

      “It’s just— I’ve been fighting a long time, and I usually never get this tired in just an hour!” Ratchet only shook his head.

      “As I said, your field is a muscle, as long as you keep working with it, it will work for you. And try not to use your field suppressor so much, that is what causes it to atrophy and hurt even more when you use it. I expect you to keep it off whenever you are here at base, understood?”

      “Yeah, thanks a lot, doc, I uh… really appreciate it. You helping an’ all that.” Bulkhead sheepishly smiled. Ratchet nodded back. He knew it was hard for Bulkhead to accept help, much less ask for it. He was just glad the mech was still interested in using his EM field after so long. He knew Arcee and many others who preferred suppressing their fields.

      “Of course, come back any time.”

      With that, Bulkhead left and Ratchet was alone.

      He felt better than before, less weighed down, and… helpless. Bulkhead was a good distraction, and he enjoyed teaching someone again.

      Pest, sensing the coast clear, scuttered back out and hopped onto Ratchet’s shoulder. The medic smiled and lay on his berth, the scraplet lying on his chest.

      Soon enough, he fell into dreams.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave thought about why he did what he did. He didn’t truly intend to speak to the Autobot medic at all, but he didn’t regret it at all. The outlier needed to hear that. And perhaps planting this seed in his mind would benefit them in the future. After all, Ratchet’s ability is rather powerful and exceedingly useful. And better, his loyalty would be hard to break. ‘Strong golden retriever energy’ as the humans would say (He got that from listening to Knock Out rant).

      Unfortunately, this had the added effect of the medic being impossibly stubborn in his loyalties and beliefs. He strongly regretted not getting to the medic first, not finding out sooner, and recruiting him before he dug himself further into delusion. Soundwave could guess why the medic had become such a strong Autobot loyalist, and he knew it had something to do with self-hatred.

      Being mistaken as an outlier has led him to be acquainted with the outliers of their faction and he has heard many stories of how outliers never realized they didn’t have to hate themselves, restrict themselves, or harm themselves; many told stories of never realizing they could fight until hearing Megatron’s speeches. Many, sadly, almost didn’t join because of their misguided belief that staying with their overlords would make them exempt from the discrimination— like a pet trying to impress a master who despises them. Luckily, those who had this belief were convinced by friends to join or decided to be Neutral.

      He wished Ratchet had been that lucky.

      Maybe the Decepticons have drifted from their original goal, but perhaps Ratchet’s sensibility would put some much-needed structure (and medical help) to the ship…

      He fantasized of a world where Ratchet would be happier on the Nemesis , no longer trapped hating something he can’t control, finally putting his ability to use and becoming a respectable Decepticon officer. He’d ensure the safety of those around him and wouldn’t be afraid to keep Lord Megatron in line. While usually, it would be his or Starscream’s job to check the warlord, Starscream had long been lost to treachery and Soundwave…

      Soundwave’s input was inferior. He knew nothing of leadership.

      “I respect you as a friend and ally, Soundwave, but it’d be best to leave the ruling to me, and me alone. I chose Starscream to be my Second for a reason. You simply were not meant for an advisory position.”

      Ratchet, however delusional he is, is incredible at being supportive and knowing what needs to be done. Being a Decepticon would solve many of the issues the medic has, including his tragic willful ignorance. He would open him to the lies he’s been fed, the flaws that make up his worldview…

      He would expose them all.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Optimus was concerned, to say the least. He hadn’t brought it up with Ratchet just yet, he wanted to observe more of what was possibly wrong with his medic… The ambulance had been quieter, more introverted, and distant. It was disconcerting to the Prime, he hadn’t felt so emotionally disconnected from his long-time friend since the beginning of the war.

      He knew he probably didn’t have anything to do with the medic’s state; Ratchet was usually rather transparent with his feelings. Well, he thought so. He was well aware of his friend’s habit of brushing off his own pain in favor of focusing on others. It was something he did as well, after all. But Ratchet wasn’t a liar, and he didn’t hide things from him.

      Right?

      Regardless, he knew he had to confront his friend soon, he hated seeing the medic so down… almost depressed. He looked like how Arcee did when she discovered Cliffjumper’s fate.

      Optimus decided he’d check on his friend tomorrow, perhaps in the morning.

[-- ♫ --]

      Megatron clutched his chest plate directly where his spark spun.

      He had known his spark had been tampered with the moment he’d been revived. Revived by one of Optimus’s lapdogs, he found it ironic and intriguing. He knew of the undead fairly well, it was one of the properties of dark energon, after all. However, true revival as he had experienced was completely different. The warlord had felt his spark be pulled from limbo and dragged into his cold frame. He had felt revitalized, rebirthed, and fundamentally changed as a mech.

      It was a strange experience. He had felt Ratchet’s spark within the final moments of his revival, and he could tell that some kind of exchange in spark energy had occurred. His spark felt leaden and weighted. He had opened his chassis to look at his spark but found nothing different— heavy purple tendrils bloomed like veins from the bottom right portion of his spark, but otherwise, he could not see Ratchet’s presence. Megatron did find it interesting that Ratchet’s gift hadn’t removed the dark energon, but maybe it hadn’t been perceived as an injury. Considering dark energon acted as a boost for the warlord, maybe it had gotten a pass. He wouldn’t know unless he had another example to compare, but Ratchet has revived woefully little mechs.

      He found it strange, if not unsurprising, he is an Autobot, after all. They held their arbitrary morals tight to their sparks like a lifeline. It was unfortunate that such an incredible mind and competent mech had been corrupted by their backward ideals.

      Megatron had briefly touched on the subject with Soundwave after he had debriefed Starscream and addressed the ship. Both of them had agreed the medic would have been better off with them.

      Ratchet’s wonderful gift must have dulled the more debilitating effects of the dark energon, or something else because his mind had felt… clearer since his resurrection. Like a fog had been lifted. He had deeply appreciated it; he hated that he only realized the lack of control over his actions and mind after his revival, nonetheless, he was grateful. He no longer felt on the verge of a snap, his battle protocols were no longer self-activating from irrelevant stimuli and he no longer felt constantly on edge. It was a great relief to have his mind freed.

      With a clearer mind, everyone benefitted. Starscream’s traitorous urges had been put at bay after seeing his Lord’s unclouded judgment and noticeably reduced irritability. Soundwave had seemed happier and even the Vehicons sensed the difference in air. It was still a violent and chaotic aura, but more controlled and focused. Megatron would no longer try to hurt the mechs he was supposed to lead.

      Megatron couldn’t help but laugh.

      You’ve helped me more than you know… Ratchet.

      Ratchet gazed at the sunset from atop his beloved cliff. Pest curled between his criss-crossed legs and the smell of hot sand lingered in the air. Desert red skies faded into deep purples and cool blues as the night went on.

      Ratchet didn’t usually watch the sunsets; he was too busy in the fading daylight of the afternoon to watch, and that was why mornings were best. But these days, he could barely bring himself out of recharge, on worse days he doesn’t recharge at all. He knows this cycle intimately. The desperate need for sleep, for the mind to sort itself, yet you wake up more tired than before and unwilling to go back once you’ve coaxed your body to get up.

      Today, he couldn’t bring himself off his berth soon enough to watch the sunrise. So, he’d have to settle for sunset. It was just as calming, he thought. The medic stared blankly as a few stars made their presence known with the waning light. He could see the moon, a waxing gibbous large in the deep inky sky. The air got cooler. Ratchet shuddered and stood, Pest scrambling out of his way.

      Ratchet hated the hot sun and the feeling of sun rays on his metal or the feeling of sand under his plates.

      He hated the cold more.

      He didn’t use to hate it, but after Megatron’s spark…

      Ratchet rubbed the space between his optics where humans would have a nasal ridge.

      There were… memories, now. He started getting them two nights after his excursion. During his recharge cycle, he started receiving memories that weren’t his. Memories of dripping mines, clawed digits, ripped optics, and the booming cheer of a crowd. And he remembered writing. Those were the most prominent. Passion, anger, and love poured into words on a dimly lit, cracked datapad with sharp digits and a trained mind.

      He knew who those memories belonged to.

      The mech that started it all.

      The mech should be dead.

      Megatron was in his mind. Or more accurately, his memories.

       Ratchet could now recite half of Towards Peace by heart as if he wrote them himself.

       “ ... If you could step out of the system you would recognize it for what it is: A prison… Worse than that, it is a prison full of willing prisoners… ” (Excerpt of Towards Peace, Megatron of Tarn.)

( M̴̙̦̝̎͗̀̄̂͆Ṫ̶̨͈̠̭͚̖̼́̑̀͗̂̃̚͜͝͝ͅM̵̧͎̘̗̲̙͓̥̆̔̈́T̷̫̜͉͍̩̙̗͉̰̃̈́͆͜͠͠E̵͙͗͐͊͂̿͒͝͝ ̷̧̢̫̫̪̳̏̅̋̀̉̿̀#̵̨̳̼̀͜ͅ3̴̡̧͓̤̹̣͎͋̏̌̾͝4̵̡̩̙͚̼͈̫̓̈́́̀̕,̴͈͚̱̰͔͉̋̃̍̉̊̑̂͛̄̍ ̷͔͙̩̼̠̺̎̒̎"̴̻͓̳̠͌̾̋ͅB̵̪͂͛̈̀͛̀̿̄́͝i̶̧̛͍͇͓͓̝̾̓́͒̚͝r̴̙̤̬͉̖͇̂͜ͅt̴̘̖̗̝̲̲̜̀̑̍͜h̸̯̣̼̱͛̈͑̆̕͜s̶̜̘͇̗̩̀̃̄̎ͅ,̶̢͆̄̋͗ ̵̨̘͖͛̓͂̈́̇D̴̳̩̋̐̐̅̃̈́̚̚͝e̷͔̞̐̿͊͗͑̏ą̸̝̣̺̭̥̗̠̐ͅṯ̶̍͋͜h̶̗̿̓̍͆ͅs̴̢̲͎̝̞̟͕̮͎̀̾͋̔̾̇͘̚͠͝,̶̨̲̰̫̳̱͈̺͂̀͜ͅ ̶̡̡̪͓̫̔́͋̕͝a̶̮͇̯̬͉̾͋̈̅͊̕n̴͇̜̥̈́͗͂̈́̉͛̾̓d̸̩̙͇͇̲͐ ̶͙̊͆̑͌̑̚Ì̸̧̀ͅn̷̤͔̊̐̓̕͜͠ͅṯ̵̢͉̩̣̰̹̠̬̩͒̇̃̉̾̅͝ȅ̴̱͓̰̈́͠r̴̡̭̺̳̫̬͕͓͉̆̀͒͛̀̒̽̔v̴̼̪̉̉̋̆̈́ẹ̶̽̍̽͗͠n̶̤͎̆̆̓͌͘͝ṭ̸̙̘̔̔͝͝i̵̲̮͇̼̬̪̯̦͓̓͂̎͐͒̆͝ͅọ̴̢̦̦̫͎͐͐́̋ņ̶͔͈͎̺̭͊̓̄̎̂̊͆̔̍̚s̴̖͕̫̤̦͈̏.̸̨̞̠̣̈́̓͌̋͑̒̓͑̑͘"̸̛̫̱̞̓̀̏̀̉̑͘͝ͅ )  *

      Ratchet muttered. He felt insane; he had read Towards Peace exactly one time and had never touched another of Megatron’s works since then. But now he knew at least half, maybe even all of them. The air got colder, and the medic decided to start going.

      The cliff did not give the peace he sought. Not anymore.

[-- ♫ --]

      “Soundwave,” Megatron called from his place on the bridge, gazing out the window at the dark sky. The TiC was at his side at a moment’s notice.

      The Decepticon leader didn’t look back to see if his loyalist was there; he already knew. “I have a feeling we are in sync. We both know what we have to do… don’t we?” Megatron turned his head to Soundwave’s direction, enough to see the spy drone nod.

      He turned his head back to the window.

      “I am glad I can rely on you, dear Soundwave… Send a troop of Vehicon Miners to Q4-40.64||-116.95. Being so close to human civilization should draw out the Autobots… then I can make my appearance.”

      Soundwave understood Megatron’s plan, satisfied that it aligned with his.

      Unfortunately, he didn’t think he could calculate the probability of Ratchet being accepted afterward. Well, he knew the medic wouldn’t lose the Prime’s trust; the fool believed in the best for everyone, no matter what. However, he could leverage the others’ inevitable distrust, especially the two-wheeler. Arcee didn’t trust easily. Having that trust broken would devastate both her and her relationship with Ratchet. Inevitably, the medic will be isolated, alone, scared, and seeking refuge.

      His scarred lips twisted into a satisfied smile.

     This will work.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Optimus stood outside Ratchet’s door.

      This was the 7th day in a row Ratchet had spent in his room. Of course, the medic still did his tasks and duties, still diligently repaired them, and told them off. But…

The Matrix pulsed, sensing the distress of the mech beyond the door.

      Ratchet had been retreating to his room more often than he’d ever seen before. He had observed this behavior only once before when he was still Orion Pax (his memories of those years were foggy but salvageable). At the time, he believed it was when Ratchet had run the Dead End clinic.

      Optimus pinged a request to come in.

      …

      Access Granted.

      The doors slid open, revealing Ratchet at his personal terminal, words on the screen, but the medic wasn’t typing.

      “… Ratchet?”

      The ambulance looked… tired. Out of sorts and distracted, unusual for the medic. His paint seemed more gray and he could see how dim his optics and bio lights were. He’s been ignoring his health again.

      Optimus felt the Matrix pulse once more; he was thankful for the innate sense of others’ emotions. It seems Ratchet has been conflicted lately, according to the Matrix.

      Ratchet’s head shifted toward the Prime.

      “… hello, Optimus.” The medic’s voice was laced with static, quiet, and… resigned, somehow.

      Optimus walked inside. The doors automatically closed behind him. He stopped at Ratchet’s desk.

      He looked so much smaller than before…

      “What ails you, old friend…? You have not… been yourself.” That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Ratchet flinched, and his open field flashed with fear and panic before it was sucked against his plating. Optimus was taken aback. He wasn’t familiar with this behavior. He didn’t know what to say.

      “I am sorry; I did not mean to cause you distress. Would you please tell me how I can help…?” He lowered his pitch to a gentler tone.

      “Please, don’t, Optimus… I… I don’t want to talk about it…” Ratchet replied, his voice sounding strained; he could see how the medic’s hands tightened, digging into his palm.

      “Ratchet, I cannot help you if I don’t know what’s wrong …” his voice faded as the Matrix detected the ambulance’s rising tenseness, “… you have begun to be distant and unfocused. The team has noticed as well. We are concerned, old friend… I respect your decision to withhold this from me, but we are a team, Ratchet. No matter what, we cannot let one of us start lagging… We need you, Ratchet. More than ever…”

      The medic continued to stare at the screen, the bluish-green light illuminating his tired eyes. Ratchet’s head fell forward, then he nodded. That odd sense of resignation returned.

      “I understand, Prime…”

      Prime.

      Ratchet didn’t call him ‘Prime’ in private, at least, not without some denote of a joke or sarcasm.

      He just sounded… sad. And so, so tired. Optimus felt his brow furrow, and he stiffly nodded. He will support Ratchet, he always will. But at some point, one could not hold their feelings so tight to their spark. He considered giving a supporting gesture, perhaps a hand on the pauldron or forearm…

      It didn’t feel genuine enough.

      Optimus moved before Ratchet could protest, wrapping his large arms around the medic’s shoulders and letting his head rest beside Ratchet’s, his chin on his shoulder. Ratchet froze under him. He sensed no discomfort— just a sense of initial surprise and panic before relaxing into his hold.

      A sudden spike of guilt drew his attention back to the medic’s field; his face scrunched as if trying to keep his optical fluid at bay (he had seen a similar action on human television, a ‘Drama,’ Miko called it).

      “I’m sorry, Optimus… I am so sorry…”

      “What are you apologizing for, old friend…?”

      Ratchet did not respond right away; he didn’t need to. Optimus could feel the guilt and conflict… What had he done?

      The vents rattled in the ceiling, breaking the moment.

      “You should leave now; sleep, drink some energon. Your welds are still settling; the nanite supplement can only do so much, and I’m starting to run out…”

      The vents rattled again.

      Optimus frowned. “Ratchet, do you require repairs to the ventilation system? I can confront Agent Fowler about a checkup—” “ No! ” Optimus looked questionably at the panicked medic.

      “Please, if there’s something wrong you can tell me—”

      “PEST!”

       A blur of gray and the sound of scuttling was all Optimus needed to activate his blaster, the components folding into position and powering up. He could see it now, lighter blue optics, odd, but for all he knew, it could be a mutation. This wasn’t the kind of creature that let him think. Which was why he was pausing now.

      And because Ratchet had dove at the scraplet and… held it in his servos. The medic was also cursing out the little metal eater.

      Optimus kept his optics trained on the scraplet but allowed his blaster to lower until Ratchet would be separated from the ‘pest.'

      “Ratchet… I am not one to question your judgment, but I know that you know that scraplets come in groups. And an infection could, at best, be some minor damage, and at worst, another mech down on our team…”

      “Yes, yes, I can explain; just deactivate the blaster! I am not letting you blast a hole in my berthroom!” Ratchet hissed and miraculously… tucked the dangerous sentio metallico-consuming beast near his chassis. Optimus wasn't entirely sure what he was witnessing, but the creature hadn’t attacked. And he trusted his friend. So with reluctance, he powered down the blaster and transformed it into his hand.

      “I apologize, but I am sure I don’t have to explain why I am cautious…”

      Ratchet sighed and set the scraplet down on his berth, letting the small thing spin itself in circles.

      “No, you don’t need to explain… just... sit. Pest isn’t dangerous.”

      “Pest?”

      “I’ve named it.”

      “... I see…”

      “Respectfully, shut up, Optimus.”

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet lied.

      Ratchet was a truthful mech and tried his best to be honest, sometimes brutally so. But he was a liar.

      His explanation for Optimus was that it was a mutated scraplet he’d come across that was probably excluded from its swarm for not having the same base coding or instincts. It still ate metal via rust sticks with other additives. He didn’t try to explain his ability— his curse— even when it was the perfect opportunity. Primus, he was as cowardly as Starscream!

      Optimus had left in understanding and had called the rest of the team to Ratchet’s habsuite. The Prime was currently gently explaining Pest’s made-up mutation that caused it to be more docile and domesticated as the medic held it in his hands. Pest churred warmly as Ratchet rubbed circles into its soft underbelly. It garnered odd looks but they accepted the explanation with little suspicion and complaint.

      “So… this thing really isn’t gonna eat us?” Bulkhead was the farthest away from Ratchet and looked very disturbed. Ratchet was a little offended to be regarded as untrustworthy…

      Then again, he revived Megatron behind their backs… they had every right to doubt him, even if only he knew that. Why didn’t he ask for help? Reviving Megatron… reviving him would be a much, much worse decision than opening up to his team. The team that was meant to help him.

      Yet he still did.

      Truly Decepticon-worthy, huh?

     Ratchet watched from the corner of his optic as the children and other team members hesitantly played with Pest. The scraplet was immediately attached to Raf, much to the disappointment of Miko. Jack seemed happy to watch, but Ratchet could tell the teen also wanted to pet the little metal-chewer. Overall, the humans warmed up to Pest much quicker than the bots. Bumblebee did rub the scraplet’s head and seemed okay with it once he proved it didn’t want to hurt him.

      The medic watched, a little melancholic, a bit more than guilty, and… sad.

      It was a happy moment, seeing them so easily accept even the most monstrous of creatures.

      He shouldn’t ruin it with his presence.

      With that, Ratchet retreated to his room.

      Two pairs of optics watched him when no one else did.

      One blue.

      And one red.

      Megatron waited in anticipation outside the Nemesis, standing upon its bow and looking down on the spot they had chosen to ‘ambush’ the Autobots. He peered down through the cloudy skies which helped cloak the Nemesis. Soundwave informed him of Autobot signals and the presence of a groundbridge, Megatron soon spotted the attackers; the Prime among them. A wide grin spread across his scarred face.

      He had noticed recently that he felt truly attached to his body like his spark was grounded. His systems responded with renewed timeliness and energy, every joint and piston moved and locked seamlessly. Even his transformations seemed smoother and his weapons took less time to respond and charge. He felt renewed. And all thanks to that medic…

      The ‘Miracle doctor,’ hah. He earned his name.

      The only downside was the memories, every defrag cycle memories would come to him as he slept. He was lucid in the memories, but could not control the body he inhabited. He could, however, change the memory he was viewing through the optics of the medic.

      Most memories he witnessed were from the Dead End clinic, particularly traumatizing and guilt-ridden parts of the early war, or Orion. He even got a memory from just a cycle ago within the Autobot base. Unfortunately, he could not glean its location.

      Megatron found his most interesting memories were when the revolution had been in its sparkling days—young and unorganized, but passionate with a clear goal. Ratchet had a surprising amount of exposure to it, sometimes guiltily searching up how to join during days his will felt weaker. It was endlessly entertaining and informative to see how the medic struggled, to feel himself, how the ever-loyal Autobot wasn’t as loyal as he seemed. However, it was frustrating to see how baseless the ambulance’s loyalty truly was. Its foundation entirely hinged on Optimus. Or more accurately; Orion pax.

      Megatron could empathize.

      Orion was a mech easy to ignore, but one you can always spot once seen—Truly seen. Both he and Ratchet have experienced Orion’s light; pure and stubborn in its persistence, and very attractive—it seems. He could not blame Ratchet, he fell for the same star; but he realized one must not look directly at their star’s light, lest you be blind. And Ratchet was a blind, blind mech.

      But Megatron will give him the cure. Ratchet deserved to be with the Decepticons, with mecha who understood the pain of silence and pretending to be something you are not.

      Of course, he knew the Decepticons had changed beside him. He wasn’t unaware that the name ‘Megatron’ had become conflated with ‘the Decepticon Cause.’ Fortunately, a certain Autobot medic had put his processor in the right gear. He will bring the Decepticons back into greatness, to pursue their original goal. Freedom.

      His Cybertronian alt-mode came easily, his cog barely lagged to process the transformation command. It brought every mech joy to transform, it brought Megatron greater joy to feel his powerful thrusters shake the air and to feel the wind beneath his wings. It didn’t hurt that he no longer felt his fans rattle or his frame lag. There was no longer a stiffness within his chassis or difficulty operating his steering equipment.

      Megatron will forever favor his tank mode, but flying was an indulgence that was simply divine. No wonder why so many envied a Seeker’s freedom in the skies.

      He swooped down, his blasters engaging and his targeting systems locked onto the Autobots below. He didn’t aim to harm; he shot around them, herding them into a circle with blaster fire until backs met backs.

      Dramatically, the fighter jet transformed mid-flight; Megatron’s pedes met the ground, and the rest of his body followed as he skidded across the ground in front of Optimus Prime. He did nothing to hide his smug smile. Usually, he let Starscream handle the dramatic flight entrances, but he savored every chance to play with his rejuvenated frame.

      “Optimus Prime,” he greeted with an insincere bow. He could not see the Prime’s expression behind his battle max, but he could see the calculative gaze behind his mechanical optics. Megatron adored those optics, one of the only unaltered parts from Orion’s frame. He had once waxed poetry about those optics. He had long forgotten the words, but the sentiment stayed the same.

      “I thought you were dead,” Arcee spat. Optimus raised a hand before she could engage with the warlord.

      “Megatron, I do not know how you survived the spacebridge explosion, but I advise you to leave this mine and leave the humans out of this conflict. Do not think I don’t know why you chose this location.” Optimus’s voice reverberated in his surroundings, using the Matrix to project his voice further.

      “Oh, I have no intention of bothering the pests of this planet that you are so unwisely infatuated with… but, you are correct that I led you out here with your team for a reason.” Megatron’s optics gazed at each Autobot accompanying the Prime. The yellow bug he crushed the voice box of, the blue two-wheeler, and the green Wrecker. He smiled and Optimus narrowed his optics.

      “Well, some of your team… Ratchet stays behind, as always…”

      “What is this about, Megatron?” Optimus’s eyes meet his, turning his body to follow Megatron as the warlord circled the Autobots.

      “Have you noticed he’s a little… different? Perhaps… distant?”

      Optimus’s eyes narrowed.

      “What—” “Oh, you’ve talked over me enough over our millennia of functioning,” Megatron dismissed with a sneer before his grin returned and he resumed his monologue.

       “Rest assured, I have not infiltrated your base yet. However, you’ll find your medic may be compromised, in more ways than you may realize…” He let his statement settle and let himself victoriously grin as the Autobots broke out into outrage.

      “Ratchet wouldn’t—”

      “He would never—”

      “Vwhooorl!”

      However, the Prime quieted them down before providing his response.

      “We have no reason to trust or believe, and no evidence to back your claim. And what use would there be to expose a spy?” Megatron chuckled, Optimus as perceptive, yet, blind as ever.

      “Oh, Optimus, you misunderstand. Your dearest lapdog is not a Decepticon spy, but perhaps… worse than that, depending on how you see it. However, I find no reason to spoil the fun .” The warlord tossed something, causing the group to shuffle backward into a defensive stance. He laughed, “Oh, how dramatic. It is just a data slug, completely harmless, I promise.” The warlord crooned through a sharp smile. Arcee was quick to react.

      “And we should believe you? Funny joke, Megatron.”

      While she prattled, Optimus was the first to approach the data slug.

      “Hey, boss, we dunno if that thing’s safe…” The green one moved forward, expression guarded.

      “You can have your doctor run all the scans he can desire. There is nothing that will harm you. You could plug it in an outside terminal if you are so concerned. But I swear on my Decepticon pride, none of your technology will be harmed by downloading it…”

      Megatron paused for a moment to observe Optimus. The Prime flipped the data slug over, and over in his hand, checking for any visual sign of a virus within the grooves which imitated a human vinyl record. The warlord found himself enchanted by the primitive, yet, effective way the ex-archivist’s optics zoomed in and out to observe and catalog the grooves’ varying levels. An archivist could see what many could not; could read literal fine lining within any media.

      A younger Megatron had admired such fine perception. Megatron still did, at times.

      The Decepticon leader turned around to leave before he could see Optimus determine the safety of the data slug.

      “I do so hope you enjoy my gift.” He raised a servo.

      “DECEPTICONS! Our work here is done!”

      He bared his teeth; seams unlocked and moved. He jumped; wings replaced bare arms and thrusters replaced legs. And he once more greeted the sky with renewed vigor. His engines purred in satisfaction.

      Megatron sensed victory on the horizon.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      “Optimus, we don’t know if it’s safe!”

      “We will take it to Ratchet and he will confirm the presence of a virus. I did not find one in my rudimentary scans, however, that doesn’t mean much with Soundwave as the data slug’s creator.”

      “We should just destroy it and mail the scrap metal back to him.”

      “Arcee…”

      “It’s not SAFE.”

      “I hear you, but Megatron knows something we don’t.”

      “He could be lying.”

      “Yes.”

      “Then why are we taking the risk?!”

      A whine and three consecutive beeps. Then two clicks.

      “Bumblebee…!”

      “We will settle this at the base.”

      “Ratchet? We need a groundbridge.”

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet didn’t know what he was looking at. No, he knew exactly what he was looking at. A fragging data slug.

      And he knew exactly what would be inside it. Everything that would expose Ratchet as an outlier. From scans, he could tell the amount of data would have to include videos. He knew, for a fact, that papers referencing the incident would not take up this much data. So, he concluded that Soundwave had accessed security camera footage and recorded Megatron’s resurrection.

      The medic stared anxiously at the slug, rubbing it between his fingers. There were no viruses, according to extensive scans. They wouldn’t truly know until it was plugged into something…

      This was a bad idea. Scratch that, this was a horrible idea.

      I need to know what’s in it. I need to know for sure…

      He glanced at Pest. It could… no! What would Optimus think? He knows I am more careful than that, but…

      He shook his head. He was more honest than that. He had to be.

      He was not a deceiver or a liar.

      Aren’t you?

      No. No, no, no no no!

      The medic’s joints creaked, the pistons stressed from squeezing the data slug so tightly. Ratchet pushed air through his vents. Again. Again.

      What was he supposed to do? Maybe they’d accept him—

      “Spawn of Unicron…”

      “Honestly just makes things worse…”

      “Scary…”

      “Joining Decepticons…”

      “It’s expected…”

      …

      Even if they didn’t care, even if they loved and accepted him— if Optimus still loved him.

      He had already crossed the line. The moment he stepped foot in the Nemesis it was too late. The moment he killed Megatron and the moment he revived him. The moment their sparks were permanently intertwined…

      Ratchet laughed.

      “Ha… haha… ha ha hahahahAHAHA!” He threw back his helm, hitting the wall. It didn’t hurt.

      Optical fluid welled up behind his eyes. The laughs turned into sobs. It felt harder and harder to push the sound out of his voice box; as if his throat had squeezed in on itself. It choked itself. Noises became more violent; more abrupt, and choked; wheezed like wind through rusted fans. It was unbearable, painful, a stabbing burn, the kind that ripped through spark chambers and smothered a spark like a pillow over a sleeping baby’s mouth.

      Somewhere, a stronger, different part of his spark stung with the pain. Howled and cried painful victory. And a realization dawned on him.

      If he gave them the data slug, they’d see the content; and likely put him in some makeshift brig.

      If he gave them the data slug and told them it had a virus, they wouldn't see the content, but he’d have to lie.

      If he fed the data slug to Pest, the others would be disappointed and likely distrust the scraplet.

      He could… What could he do?

      He could… He could…

      Ratchet shuddered. His lips pressed in a thin line. There was only one right option.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Optimus attentively watched as Ratchet inserted the data slug and information started downloading. The medic said there was nothing of importance detected. He didn’t entirely believe him. The Prime liked to think he knew his oldest friend, and he knew when the medic wasn’t well.

      It was painfully clear in the way the older mech looked paler, his hands and area under his optics looked more gray, his paint looked more dull than usual, and the medic seemed stiff in his movements. Actions that would have been normally done with practiced grace were fumbled and hesitant, as if he were a med student again, only just learning how to apply his skills. It was disconcerting.

      And it wasn’t helping his case.

      Optimus didn’t want to believe his oldest friend would betray them. Ratchet was not that kind of mech. The Ratchet he knew was loyal, passionate, and unabashedly kind. If such a mech assisted the Decepticons, it had to be under duress. What the Prime couldn’t understand was why his friend never sought his assistance. Was he too distant? Had he inadvertently pushed his dearest companion away?

      The imagination is often crueler than reality, and when he lets it fill the blanks…

      Megatron was a master manipulator. Many discounted him, believing him only to be a brute. While in many ways that is true, above all else; Megatron was a revolutionary. And one didn’t lead a revolution without learning how to pull strings. And he was good at it. Optimus shuddered to think what such a dangerous mech could do to his friend’s mind. He’d be irked to think of Ratchet as someone weak of mind. Then again, did he truly know the medic as much as he thought?

      Evidently not.

      Team Prime stood tensely around the terminal monitor, lines of coding blitzed past in incomprehensible streams of data. Optimus could only watch tersely as the loading bar reached completion and a video started playing.

      He could immediately identify it as Ratchet’s Dead End clinic, presumably from a security camera given the perspective.

      The contents weren’t clear, the unusual darkness of the setting made the details hazy and movement blurry. The only light came from two overhead beams to the right of the room and the dim blue of Ratchet’s optics.

      “Is that who I think it is?”

      Bulkhead pointed out the white mech, the only other subject in the footage. Ratchet was quick to explain in his usual terse manner. However, it came across as more nervous than truly annoyed.

      “Yes, Bulkhead. Who you are seeing right now is Deadlock—or rather— Drift at that time.”

      “Woah, I knew he was a guttermech, but… wow. He looks… terrible.” Bulkhead looked disturbed. Bumblebee nodded in assent. Ratchet grimaced. “Yes. It was terrible.”

      The footage continued rolling and Optimus was noticing Ratchet’s tenseness. The orange mech was stiff, deathly still as if caught by Unicron himself. The ambulance was notably staring at the minutes of the recording.

      00.11.03 breems.

      00.12.40 breems.

      00.12.50 breems.

      00.12.56 breems.

      That’s when everything started going wrong.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet couldn’t breathe. He forgot how to open his vents. How to take in air, how to let out the sweltering heat pooling within his overclocked systems. It just kept building and building. The stupid recording. He should have burned the slug while he had the chance. It would have been worth the momentary disappointment of his team. It would have been worth it, they could have never known.

      00.12.56 breems.

      The numbers that would forever ruin his life.

      He could only watch helplessly as the time counted down—Could only fruitlessly identify every action, everything he could’ve done right to prevent the wrong he did…

      I’m so sorry, Drift…

      Ratchet didn’t realize there was screaming until he felt tendrils wrapping around him and recognized the heat was not from his own overactive spark—Rather it was from blaster fire and explosions. The medic was snagged and pulled away from the chaos. He couldn’t even begin to struggle as his processor failed to comprehend the present, perhaps too numb or overwhelmed. Either way, he couldn’t react. Or didn’t react. It didn’t matter anymore.

      He stared aimlessly as the base burned around him, support beams collapsing, sirens blaring, and explosions setting off everywhere. His team (would they even be his team anymore…?) scattered, fighting vehicons and dodging debris. But what he focused on were their expressions; how their optics burned worse than the fire which lapped at his plating and were crueler than the most grueling of torture. Not even the likes of Vortex could pry out half the amount of pain within his sobs.

      Arcee’s eyes flared and burned, ripping through metal and melting into the protoform like the fire around her. Her gaze was piercing, accusatory. There was no mercy. No sympathy. Bulkhead smashed and fought, he lashed with heavy blows. He had the optics of one seeking justice, not for himself, but for who he hurt and who made him hurt. The pain was blunt and it lingered. Bumblebee held the gaze of someone lost, someone frustrated. He stung like his namesake, quick at the cost of himself. The more he fought, the more parts of him were being burned along with his home. The betrayal, the hurt… It was all shown.

      And perhaps the face that hurt the most…

      Optimus was uncharacteristically savage. He fought like a desperate mech, fighting like it was the end of the world. Perhaps it was. It certainly seemed like it to Ratchet. The Prime swung and bashed, dragging broken parts of support beams as makeshift weapons to spear any threat who dared cross him. Optimus embodied the shared feelings of everyone on the team. Fury, hurt, frustration, sadness, disappointment…

      Ratchet could feel each accusation as if it were written on the walls in bright purple letters.

      You deceived us.

      His processor distantly registered the sound of a ground bridge opening behind him and how the tendrils loosely binding him were now shifting, encouraging him into the auroral light of the bridge. The cold interlocking fiber plates of Soundwave’s tentacles grounded him. The texture was similar to that of a tight cord, with a firm softness that made it easy to bend without unnecessary joints or mechanisms. It was wonderful engineering and an excellent distraction from the pain of knowing you had lost your family and it was entirely your fault.

      Familiar swirls of color encapsulated his vision. He welcomed the comforting warmth of the ground bridge, reveling in the relief of being away from the fire. To be distant from the destruction of his home…

      “RATCHET!” Someone screamed his name.

      He was gone before he could recognize the blue optics and the exposed mechanisms that cycled those burning cerulean eyes.

      Ratchet woke up quietly. His systems booted up slow and molasses-like. He only allowed his visual feed to online once he had gathered himself. He opened his eyes to dark grays and purples and an eerie silence, only the hum of electronics and the buzz of the light fixtures provided any ambiance to the otherwise dead silence.

      He still felt numb and awfully devoid of any emotion. Or… he didn’t know. His systems didn’t report any injury that could realistically cause his emotional processing systems and units to shut down or otherwise induce a dampened emotional state. Perhaps he was still in shock, he was still processing…

      “Good morning.”

      Ratchet yelped at the sound of a familiar, kind baritone voice. He looked toward the originator of the sound, only to find the imposing form of Soundwave tucked menacingly in the corner. He was almost entirely sure he purposely stood like that to creep people out. It was working.

      “... Soundwave. I didn’t think I’d be back in the Nemesis so soon…” He grumbled. He supposed he was grateful for the overwhelming numbness allowing him to not be a useless mess of a mech. The ambulance miraculously maintained his snark, although there was still an overarching note of… profound loss of depth in his words. They rang as hollow as a dead mech’s spark chamber or a broken bond. But he sounded normal enough, just enough to seem okay, to pretend nothing happened.

      To pretend he hadn’t betrayed his only family; hadn’t inadvertently led to them being chased from one of the only safe places on earth…

      “Change of plans! Surely, you can adapt?” Came a mixture of Dreadwing’s urgency and Starscream’s snideness.

      “I apologize for expecting Decepticons to actually hold a deal.”

      “Ratchet— Making terms up! There was no such clause!” Soundwave cheekily pointed out. The medic only petulantly glared back, too tired to argue longer.

      “Did… did they escape?” Ratchet did not need to elaborate for Soundwave to know what he was asking for. The silent mech played back the events recorded from his visor. Ratchet sat apprehensively, his air intake momentarily stopping as he watched. The base was trashed— exploded to the Pit, and nothing could be recovered. Ratchet rested easy, knowing that it was unlikely the Decepticons could have accessed any intel from the terminal before the explosions. He could see Arcee rushing to input coordinates into the groundbridge terminal. His lips pursed as the base became destabilized. The groundbridge wouldn’t safely open if a component was so much as knocked out of place…

      To his relief; the colorful lights spiraled open, and he watched as everyone moved towards it. Everyone looked in Soundwave’s direction as they did— Ratchet could see himself in peripheral view, wrapped in data cables. He couldn’t see his expression, but he could assume he looked dazed, going off what he had felt at the time (or the lack of feeling).

      Their surroundings lit up, denoting another bridge opening behind them, likely operated by Soundwave. As Soundwave and he started disappearing into the light tunnel, the last thing recorded was a pained shout.

      “RATCHET!”

      And the footage ended...

      Soundwave and he didn’t speak more after that. The Decepticon TiC predictably stayed silent in his little dark corner of the room. Ratchet wasn’t sure why the spymaster had to be there personally. It wasn’t as if he was particularly threatening. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he could pull off any escape in the state he was in and without any backup. His team was likely scattered by now.

      No one was coming to help him.

      Whether they wanted him back was another question he wasn’t ready to answer…

      The hiss of hydraulics drew his attention to the opening doors. Megatron’s imposing form emerged from the shadows beyond the door, the lights of (Ratchet only now realized wasn’t the medibay) the room cast a dramatic luster on his gunmetal gray.

      Megatron… looked better than Ratchet had ever seen before.

      He somehow looked more youthful, the effects of dark energon had added a madness in his optics and a sickliness to his frame. With the burden of hosting Unicron’s blood lifted from him, it was as if he were back in his gladiator days. The white, silver scars across his gray frame seemed to shine more prominently, and the dark bluish hue of energon and thin orbital derma had faded from under his eyes. Red optics glowed bright.

      However, a noticeable energon blue film was over it.

      Broken conjunctiva.

      Ratchet didn’t have time to ponder why before Megatron spoke. His voice demanded attention, and, well. He’d be a fool if he didn’t have his guard up around Megatron.

      “Soundwave, report back to the bridge. Give us some privacy.”

      Ratchet held back a huff of disbelief. No doubt this would be recorded anyway. He wasn’t stupid. The dark mech exited the room. Though Ratchet knew they would still be watched, it still gave him a sense of security when that blank visor didn’t feel like it was burning holes in his frame. Especially with the last words he said to him when he was here.

      You should have been a Decepticon…

      He still thought about it; and thought about it more once he started seeing Megatron’s memories (dust and decay, the sound of grinding gears and pistons about to give out. Pained cries and the crack of an energon whip, bright, fresh blue blood staining the ground, trying to feel nothing for the innocent mech lucky enough to catch a supervisor on a bad day). It was horrific, and he mortifyingly began to empathize with the warlord more after each terrible snippet of a lifetime of hate and discrimination.

      And the mech was in front of him now, staring at him. No, not just staring, but seeing.

      Just like he received his memories, Megatron likely received the Ratchet's too. He could see it, the look in his eyes, the understanding. Visibly, the warlord looked stoic, but there was just enough… sympathy there, enough of a knowing look. It felt similar to Optimus similar to Orion. But neither Optimus nor Orion would ever understand him— would never experience the intrinsic wrongness when interacting with others. The implicit feeling that you would never be welcome. The fear and frustration of being found out, of being helpless, of seeing what your own kind could do to you if they could. And then turn around and smile as if you weren’t one of them too.

      Megatron understood. He knew he would, he could feel it in his very spark, in the way they seemed to interlock so seamlessly. Resonate so well with each other. It made Ratchet angry.

      Angry, frustrated, conflicted.

      Why couldn’t it have been Orion to look at me with those eyes?

      Because you aren’t like him. You don’t even have the same blood within you.

      Your energon runs purple. You are tainted with Unicron’s spark.

      You are just like him .

      “Doctor. Ratchet.” Megatron rasped, voice oddly soft.

      “Sparks… I’ve only ever extinguished them. I always saw them with the background of a broken, mutilated mech,” People you mutilated, “I know you have too.”

      Megatron paused, looking contemplative, as if carefully assessing his words before he spoke.

      “... I’ve seen so much violence done to a spark. They felt so very fragile. I had forgotten the power of sparks, and their… beauty. Your memories of sparks, your thoughts, and feelings… They intrigue me. It is a rare chance to experience another’s life so thoroughly. It was not the life I expected from someone meant to be so privileged. You are, after all, of the group of mecha I always thought looked upon us like dirt, that they didn’t have problems or faced discrimination. Unfortunately, the world is not so black and white as many would want it to be…”

      Ratchet… wasn’t sure what to say, if anything at all. With the fog of dark energon lifted from Megatron’s mind, Ratchet could see his charisma once more, his silver tongue effectively engaging the medic with him. He made others want to listen, engaging the most primal instincts and desires to appeal to the crowd. To appeal to Ratchet.

      Passion and love. That is the core of Megatron. An insatiable urge to seek justice and retribution, to see the world how he never would have. To show others a world where change was possible.

   To Rise Up .

      Ratchet felt a part of him swell with passion. He couldn’t tell if it was his spark’s, or Megatron’s.

      “Yes, it is rarely simple…” Ratchet murmured back. His gaze flicked back up to the increasingly blue-stained red sclera of Megatron’s optics.

      “Your conjunctiva. It’s broken. When you saw my memories of sparks, the strain likely tore or inflamed it. It’s inconclusive why just viewing the memory of a True Spark, uh, sparks such a reaction, but…” Ratchet gestured vaguely. “It’s an easy fix. Drink some supplements for silica. Silicon tetrachloride, if possible. It should heal on its own,” Ratchet professionally informed.

      Megatron raised a brow. “I was not aware. Thank you, doctor.” The response was sardonic, but Ratchet could tell there was gratitude behind it.

      “Miners aren’t equipped with high-range medical detection systems. If the injury does not cripple you, it will not pass the filter as an injury. It sounds counterproductive, considering the abhorrent working conditions and the setting of your work. But… we both know miners were just as expendable as the Disposables.” Ratchet spoke as if from experience. A flutter of frustration flared in that small part of him he recognized as Megatron.

      The warlord peered at Ratchet with a knowledgeable stare.

      “I find your knowledge of my life, my very spark … Well, if it was anyone else, I would have destroyed them without thought. Regardless of my spark’s presence within them…” The Decepticon tilted his head curiously, baring his teeth. “But you, Ratchet… I did not know what to expect from your memories. Guilt, happiness, love, passion, desperation… are all expected. Terror in your every moment when you so much as step outside your hospital, the barely suppressed sickness, the frustration…

      I did not expect that.” He finished.

      “Well, I did not expect you to have the capacity to love others,” Ratchet retorted. Megatron looked ready to snarl but stopped upon seeing the medic’s softened features, guilt smoothing out the bitter lines into something sadder. “I… suppose we both got reminded of the gray-ness of our world. Our conflict.” He murmured.

      “Yes. I suppose so.”

      They didn’t talk after that. Megatron left the room with little fanfare, leaving them both to ruminate in their thoughts.

      There was an unspoken understanding that resulted from this conversation.

      Neither mech knew what to make of it, whether to act on it or not. Or simply lock it out of their consciousness. There could be no sympathy for the enemy.

      Was he the enemy?

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Megatron walked away with veiled frustration. He thought he had come to terms with an Autobot, much less one of a privileged caste, having been through the same experiences as many Decepticons. Seeing the medic, however, was a different story. He hadn’t noticed during his first visit, post-revival, but the Autobot had his EMF on.

      All. The. Time.

      He could feel the grief, the betrayal, and the self-loathing.

      The warlord had intended to use Ratchet as his own medic, under threat of course. But… he started to reconsider.

      Knock Out was a good doctor, despite his… temperament. Megatron could rely on the speedster to do his job and obey to save his own finish. He could rely on him to be loyal to himself.

      There was not much loyalty in the Decepticons anymore, he realized. Well, not exactly realized. He knew what was happening and was okay with it. The Decepticons only needed to obey. Earlier in the war; when they still relied on subterfuge and hidden passageways and codes. Where faith hopes, dreams, and energon were the only things holding them together. It was less necessary now, the only two goals were to beat the Autobots and revive Cybertron in his image.

      Perhaps that was the problem.

      Seeing the start of his revolution again, through another perspective…

      He did not think he had reached into Ratchet’s mind so deeply. It was amusing, poetic, even. That was what he thought, at first. Now, he thought.

      Ratchet gave him new insight, a glimpse back at what the Decepticon cause was, and should have always remained. Megatron grimaced. He has had these thoughts before. He promised himself to change the Decepticons. The Decepticons were meant to represent change, equality, and freedom… and yet beings like the Vehcons exist to be glorified servants and cannon fodder. A rare douse of shame overcame his spark.

      The medic’s mind… his spark; it revitalized more than just the frame. It refreshed his mind and cleared it of the foggy, angry influence of Unicron’s blood. He didn’t completely recall the experience, only small bits and pieces.

      He remembered a warmth that reminded him of home; reminded him of the first taste of sunlight in his whole functioning; reminded him of his first drink of engex; reminded him of the first time he earned Starscream’s approval (oddly enough); and reminded him of Orion’s smile.

      Megatron got to witness him building himself back from the ground up, painstakingly stacking every event, choice, hard decision, and sacrifice that got him to where he was now. It was enlightening.

      He prided himself in remembering his roots, remembering where he came from. But seeing through Ratchet’s eyes now, he knows he has forgotten what was most important.

      Why he fought in the first place.

      Armed with a reinvigorated sense of self, he made a new plan.

      Not only would he make Ratchet his medic.

      He would make Ratchet his Chief Medical Officer.

      His Decepticon.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave walked away from the room. He could listen in, but his Lord demanded privacy. So he simply watched… tried to, anyway. He could feel air moving around him, the hum of the ship, walking outside, the creak of movement, the distant pings and chatter from different comm channels, Starscream ranting to himself upstairs, and the opening and closing of doors. It caused an itch under Soundwave’s armor, a buzz within him that said he wasn’t alone in his own body, that the sounds around him, distant or not, now occupied his body.

      Soundwave didn’t like to admit to his sensory issues, irked to even be implied to be so weak as to break down because he’s so broken —

      Broken.

      Because what use is a computational, data-centered function if one cannot perform that function without having to be in an isolated room, away from people, away from distractions, away from anything that wasn’t the perfect texture and the perfect lighting? He was high maintenance, rarely did anyone want the services of someone so… difficult.

      But he knew his expertise was rare to find, his proficiency in communications and data collection was invaluable in wartime. Many in the disposable caste had either left Cybertron or joined a side and were currently stationed somewhere further away from the battle. Soundwave was also indispensable for his management skills. Starscream was excellent in his Command role and often helped run the more basic operations of the ship, no matter how much he complained while doing so. But Starscream wasn’t the one assigning chore rotations to different Vehicon teams; the one tracking every individual report and compiling it into comprehensible data, the one on whom the entire organizational structure of the Decepticon’s hinged.

      He was important.

      He was the only one who could contend with Megatron as the (literal) face of the Decepticons.

      And he was currently trying to turn off several sensors without medical supervision. In his defense, he’s done it before and hasn’t incapacitated himself. Yet. He wasn’t disabling his physical sensors, of course, but rather interrupted the signals that allowed sensory feedback to be processed. There wouldn’t be lasting damage that he couldn’t deal with.

      Soundwave felt he was having more tactile shutdowns. More days where even feeling the air of a vent and hearing Vehicons laugh over pirated human soap operas while working made him useless. The sounds, feelings; the mental pressure would burst a dam in his mind and flood it, carrying his thoughts away… so many errors and processes in a cache of unfinished thoughts and calculations, forever loading until the water drains away and the pressure ebbs. Like this, everything felt so far yet so close. Not too much he couldn’t perceive and consciously “think” of what he was experiencing, but too much to truly do anything but stay still and take the measurements of the things around him. Meticulously documenting their exact positions and coordinates to the area he was in.

      So he’d interrupt the sensory receptors and lock down the mechanism that reversed the process. It took too much time to calm down after a shutdown, and it happened too many times right on the bridge, where anyone could bear witness to the unflappable Soundwave turning into an unresponsive lump of metal.

      He’d be worse than useless.

      He’d be inefficient.

      And he couldn’t bear to be such a burden, to not only show weakness, not only bring everyone down but bring Megatron down—

      Unforgivable.

      (He could not be Disposable again. Could not be made so unimportant to be stepped on, ridiculed, belittled, abused…!)

      Never.

      Never again.

      He was important for success. He was important to the Decepticons.

      He was important to Megatron.

      Ratchet was now alone in his room.

      He forced air through his vents; attempting to keep his core temperature stable and his spark on a pleasant spin.

      He had work to do.

[-- ♫ --]

      Within the depths of a desolate planet; a signal was sent— a wavering, bright beam of hope sent into the stars for his lord to find.

      A turbofox curled against his cannon.

      And the fetal form of something long extinct, floating in suspension, waiting to be released.

      Starscream stared at the familiar comm code and coordinates displayed brightly on the terminal. It was written in Decepticon code and heavily encrypted, according to Soundwave. The message was from Shockwave of all mechs. He thought he had died.

      Now, Starscream didn’t truly mourn his death. Not in the way many expected one to mourn, anyway. Shockwave had a brilliant mind and suffered a fate no one would wish upon their enemies. Yet, the scientist thrived. He was a living example of the Decepticon cause; how though the Senate tried to put him down, Shockwave rose up.

      He was quite the inspiration for many. And it was pandemonium when he was presumed dead.

      Starscream wasn’t fond of connections. He cared enough, more than most expected of him. And he was observant. There was always a possibility Shockwave didn’t die. As bulky and slow as he was, there was ample time to escape the groundbridge before its inevitable collapse. It was highly unlikely. He possessed no advanced tactical unit, but even he could tell you that the likelihood of survival wasn’t favorable. But he wasn’t expecting Shockwave to have advanced far enough to create such a long-range signal… It was groundbreaking. According to the send date, the message began its journey a week ago. It shouldn’t have been possible to cover millions of lightyears in distance within a week, but knowing the character of Shockwave… he made breakthroughs like Wheeljack made explosions.

      The Seeker couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of his lip as auroral colors lit the space.

      Welcome back, Shockwave…

[--♫--]

      Soundwave was walking to Ratchet’s room, partitioning and assigning his processor to different tasks; one to keep his body moving correctly, and the other to freely think. Shockwave’s message was… unexpected. He had not formed a particularly deep connection with the empurata, but they had a mutual understanding with one another. They were both undyingly loyal and dedicated to their roles and jobs, and with that, came mutual respect.

      The spymaster had admittedly missed Shockwave’s stability and unwavering adherence to logic. Communication with him was satisfyingly straightforward and refreshingly simple. There was no need to parse through every word for a double meaning or subtle hint of treachery. They both knew exactly where they were with each other at all times. There was no uncertainty in what the other mech would do.

      So, Soundwave may confess that Shockwave’s company was more welcome than most… Of course, his experiments disturbed him like they did everyone else, but he could tolerate the undesirable image of a mech pinned up and dissected like a youngling’s science project.

      He felt his body pause before he could turn a corner and he tuned back into his body.

      Rattle. Rattle.

      The TiC could recognize the sound of Laserbeak’s talons against the metal of the vents, however… there was a distinct scuttling that he, unfortunately, recognized. In the intersection, the vent opened, dropping down a scraplet and Laserbeak, who immediately dove down to pin the scraplet.

>//-- Found the medic’s little pest friend.>> They sunk their talons further into its spherical head.

      Soundwave unwound a data cable to restore the vent screen.

>//-- Soundwave: was en route to Ratchet. Recommend: return ‘Pest’ to the medic.>> The TiC slipped his cables around the metal eater, careful to avoid putting the sensors in range of its sharp teeth.

>//-- I think it hitched a ride on us while we were exiting the Autobot base. How did we not sense it?>>

>//-- Recollection: temporary shut down of outer sensor units to ensure focus in the midst of fire and blaster plasma. Duration fits the timeframe the scraplet may have latched on without our knowledge>>

>//-- Damn.>>

      Soundwave ignored the use of human colloquialisms. He opened his dock and Laserbeak easily slotted in. Upon connecting ports, the tape deck received updated information on Laserbeak’s vitals and system status. His cables brought the scraplet closer and he resumed walking.

      He recognized the scraplet as the one Laserbeak identified upon spying on the medic.

      The TiC had hypotheses on the effects of Ratchet’s outlier ability on the processor. But he dismissed them as mere speculation. He would leave the true testing to Shockwave, once they retrieved him. Until then, he will ensure the Autobots won't interfere…

      The doors to the medic’s assigned room opened with a soft hiss. Ratchet’s systems booted quickly and he was one quick alert before he even processed why. His optics darted to the door and stuck on the dark figure who walked in… and the small, spherical scraplet within his data cables.

      “What— how? Where did you find him?” Ratchet tried getting up, but his restraints only allowed him to uselessly writhe in an attempt to reach the scraplet.

      “We have a stowaway…” Starscream’s reedy croon sounded from Soundwave’s speakers. Ratchet cringed. Starscream used to have a tolerable voice as a politician, and he didn’t know how he sounded when he pursued exo-planetary research, but he theorized the Seeker’s voice worsened with the more power he had.

      The medic looked back at the small gray scraplet wriggling in the data cables. He wouldn’t admit how much he cared about Pest, but he was scared for its life, he couldn’t revive him if Soundwave ended up coming here because he decided to kill the resurrected scraplet. So he held his vents and watched Soundwave’s unremitting visor.

      “And what exactly are you going to do with it? You could have exterminated it when you found it.”

      “It is unnecessary violence.” Optimus’s voice reverberated through the comparatively small room. Ratchet cast a doubtful look. Instead of ‘speaking’ further, Soundwave displayed his meaning through actions. He gently set down the scraplet on the edge of the berth, making sure its little legs were stable on the surface before letting it loose. The small thing wasted no time crawling up Ratchet’s arm and curling up on his chassis.

      The medic felt himself sigh in relief, he could not pet the scraplet, but he was sure it didn’t mind.

      He looked back up, Soundwave looked like he was about to leave, his back already turned to Ratchet.

      “Thank you,” the Autobot spoke before he could consider it a bad idea.

      The Decepticon froze before the open door but walked out anyway.

      Ratchet, horrifyingly, wasn’t offended.

[--♫--]

      Shockwave thought he might have smiled if he had a mouth or kept all of his emotions, however, his finials did swivel forward. He walked through the bridge at a steady pace. He knew there was no difference between the time it takes to go through a ground bridge or a space bridge; unfortunately, the processor was not objective, as much as it has been altered otherwise. It fascinated him as much as it frustrated him. He has never been one for psychology, however, he could bring himself to appreciate the ease with which it could be manipulated.

      He has always been interested in the ways a brain module can be tampered with. What would happen if he cut off this section? Could a processor function without certain neural pathways? How long? How would it affect the mech’s behavior?

      Science was built off of questions and people eager to find the answer.

      And he had questions.

      He had a new scientific paramour. Ratchet, the Autobot medic, has a hidden Sigma ability, more commonly referred to as an outlier ability. Shockwave was uncertain about the lengths of Ratchet’s deception to ensure his safety, but he commended it. The scientist practically drooled over the possibilities opened up by the medic. Resurrection. He knew that Sigma abilities had incredible potential; an astronomical amount of possibilities, and Shockwave didn’t use hyperbole. The possibilities of what Sigma abilities could be were only limited by the amount of Sigmas born, which has been on a decline with the rest of the Cybertronian population.

      However, the Autobot medic’s Sigma could change the tides. If he had a chance to thoroughly test and experiment with Ratchet’s ability, it could be entirely possible to cease the number of Cybtertronian deaths on the Decepticon side. If Ratchet could infinitely resurrect the dead with no repercussions, dark energon would be rendered obsolete— inferior to the medic’s ability. The Decepticons would, effectively, be immortal.

      Unfortunately, it was only speculation and it was not foolproof, after all, according to Soundwave, the medic could only resurrect what he killed. All the Autobots would need to do to counter Ratchet is to kill troops faster than him, and that doesn’t even account for how the medic was likely to resist any attempt to weaponize his ability for the Decepticon cause. This made his audial fins twitch in phantom agitation.

      The exit came into sight— 8 kliks spent within the ‘bridge’ of the space bridge. He exited, finials swiveling into resting position. Dim purple lights greeted him. Starscream, Soundwave, and his Lord Megatron awaited him, all standing together.

      “Shockwave… how glad we are that you’ve returned to us from the ‘dead.’” Megatron welcomed the scientist, all bared teeth and sly grins, it almost resembled Starscream’s ‘scheming’ face.

      The empurata lowered his head respectfully. “Lord Megatron, I am here to serve.”

      “Excellent, you never fail to impress. Tell me, have you accomplished anything on your… sabbatical?” Lord Megatron tilted his head, gazing down at Shockwave with expectation.

      “I would never meet you empty-handed, my Lord.” Shockwave moved to reveal the small predacon sparkling, floating in suspension within the life pod. Megatron’s eyes widened and Shockwave didn’t need to look to know Starscream’s jaw had dropped.

      “Shockwave… have you brought a predacon to life?” Megatron peered closely in clear disbelief at the capsule containing the small, developing body of the predacon. Its armor was bronze with orange accents, still soft as aluminum before it grew older and properly hardened. The gray plates underneath were glossy, not yet matte, and protected. The empurata placed the capsule in his Lord’s hands, allowing him to observe at will.

      “Yes, it was my mission objective to provide you with a weapon capable of decimating the Autobots.” It was a coincidence that his objective coincided with his interest in reviving extinct mechanimals. “However, I would like your permission to experiment with the Autobot Sigma currently in your custody. I believe we all agree when I say he will be of use to us.” He didn’t truly need Lord Megatron’s approval for any experiment unless it altered the status of a close subordinate, but it was necessary to rebuild any lost trust from his absence. It would be unwise to push his position, although he knew he was favored by Megatron as a symbol of success and triumph over the Senate.

      The Decepticon leader grinned and passed the predacon capsule to Starscream, who humorously fumbled with it before shoving it in the arms of an unsuspecting Vehicon.

      “It seems we are in agreement on the Prime’s ex-lapdog. Do with him as you wish and consult Soundwave for anything you may need to assist in your experiments. I look forward to your results.”

      With that impromptu dismissal, Shockwave bowed his head and High Command separated into their businesses. Starscream incoherently muttered, heels clacking on the pristine floors as he walked away. Soundwave, positioned to the empurata’s left, pointedly stared at Shockwave before turning around and starting to walk. Shockwave already knew that he was meant to follow.

      The two walked the hallways silently, Shockwave falling in step behind Soundwave. The halls were still as he remembered with the dim lights and midnight purple reinforced metal, polished classily with no gaudy gloss. It was only mildly surprising that the ship was still well-kempt with such little resources, but he didn’t bother himself with the meaningless information.

      Soundwave stopped in front of a door that Shockwave recognized as a guest room; he pinged it and was satisfied with the security measures placed on the room. He identified several adjacent locations in the area— the quarters of High Command were down the hall to the left and the Vehicon barracks were down the right, the Eradicons were placed downstairs, nearer to the loading bays and docks.

      The optimal place for a prisoner.

      Shockwave pinged the door to open and he walked inside, Soundwave staying behind. The doors closed behind him and audibly locked with a click. He gazed upon the captive medic situated on a berth in the middle of the room. A scraplet rested under his servo. It activated a pathway to an image of Turbo curled under his cannon as he worked. He tagged the scraplet as ‘minor’ and then addressed the medic as he intended.

      “Autobot Chief Medical Officer Ratchet.”

      “You sound like Prowl.” The Autobot quipped. He tagged it as ‘nugatory’ and moved on.

      “I have been informed of your unique Sigma ability and have been selected by Lord Megatron to investigate the properties of your ability. I am here to inform you of your new handler, myself, and to transport you to my lab. Your restraints will detach from the berth and you will follow me. If it will encourage you to act appropriately, Soundwave is outside the door and will be assisting me.” Shockwave observed how the medic took the information, noting any minuscule moment and cross-referencing to approximate its meaning then appropriately tagging it.

      This is what he does to build a comprehensive profile of new characters and data, using his tagging system to create expansive semantic networks dedicated to everything he can observe at a time. He had created several passive programs that automatically detect data, and tag it based on pre-established definitions and associated networks, to manage processor efficiency— it wouldn’t be logical to continue unnecessarily partitioning more processor space to data profiling than needed. However, at this time, it fell within acceptable parameters to tag and intake data with little assistance from his programs. Which gave him ample opportunity to theorize what kind of experiment Ratchet would be.

      The medic had been tense, shoulders tight to his sides, trying to appear unshaken. The tremor of the fourth digit of his right hand gave him away, likely feeling strong fear, medic hands are designed to be completely still, even under extreme emotional duress. It was either that or his hands hadn’t been properly maintained, he marked it as more probable. They were in a war with limited supplies, the Autobots more so than the Decepticons, so it is logical to assume the doctor would have limited access to the instruments required to maintain his hands. However, rather bizarrely, the medic had responded to his Soundwave remark with…

      He would frown if he had a mouth. His audial fin twitched downward to compensate.

      What had insubstantially irked him was his lack of real definition for what Ratchet had done in response to the Soundwave remark. His shoulders had relaxed, his fourth digit didn’t stop its tremors, and his optics had brightened for .2 nanokliks before dimming. It couldn’t be a relief— shouldn’t be—  Because that didn’t make sense. Ratchet has no perceivable reason to be relieved that the second most dangerous Decepticon alive, barred Lord Megatron, was to be in his presence.

      A dose of 5-HT is automatically released into his system.

      The Senate did more to his emotional regulation systems than suppress them. Within his new body, his neural net had been altered and could no longer produce 5-Hydroxytryptamine, the calming chemical, a sustainable amount. It was intended to make Shockwave emotionally unbalanced by reducing the chemical responsible for happiness and pleasure, 3-Hydroxytyramine, while keeping the output of Epinephrine; the chemical that regulates stress and aggression, unchanged.

      With decreased 5-HT, Shockwave had consistent bouts of depression, heightened stress, anxiety, aggression, and violence following his empurata. This gave cause to somehow fix his emotional regulatory systems, thus, he employed automatic selective 5-HT receptor agonists which stimulate the neurons that produce 5-HT.

      He slowed his vents and his audial fin slid back into a neutral position. Shockwave observed closely at the live record of how much of each chemical was present within his frame. 5-HT steadily rose until it was balanced with the existing Epinephrine within him. Had Shockwave not been a scientific genius, he may have turned as unstable or disturbed as Whirl and Damus.

      Already emotionally drained despite never actually ‘feeling’ the agitation and subsequent calm— he can only ‘feel’ phantom emotions, though his body will still respond and react to the unbalanced chemical output, creating a physical impression of emotion— he set aside Ratchet’s profile and designated the passive profiling program to work on it.

      For whatever illogical reason Ratchet had any affection for Soundwave, he will solve; for now, he must focus on the task at hand.

      After all, he was ‘excited’ to have a new experiment. Sigma abilities had made him passionate before ‘passionate’ became synonymous with neutrality (or something or other that he couldn’t comprehend. He left prose, loquaciousness, and grammatically incorrect writing to Megatron and Starscream). Perhaps the old him wouldn’t deign to experiment in such… ‘morally abhorrent’ way. However, he was not here to ruminate on the past. He was here to explore the present, the now, what was right in front of him.

      Ratchet hadn’t spoken, although he had removed the scraplet from him by nudging it until it was a safe distance from his frame, leaving appropriate space to slide off the berth.

      “Will I be permanently in your… ‘care’?” Shockwave noted the sarcasm and promptly dismissed it.

      “No, you shall only be granted access to the lab as a test subject and immediately returned to your cell after I have extracted the required data. You may remain in the laboratory for varying durations based on the experiment requirements. You will be provided sufficient energon and medical care if needed.” The scientist saw how the medic made a certain face at his last statement, his optics had narrowed and his mouth grimaced. He categorized it as ‘disturbed’ and tagged the reactionary data as ‘minor.’

      “If you understand your circumstances and what will happen if you disobey, you will give an affirmative.”

      “Yes, yes, I understand.”

      “...”

      “Affirmative,” Ratchet spoke with notable irritation.

      Without another word, the restraints demagnetized from the berth and Ratchet regained his freedom of movement. Shockwave and any other sadistic Decepticon who would interact with the medic had full reign over the ‘shock’ feature of the cuffs. The scientist wasn’t sadistic, that would require happiness, and he felt no emotions by any conventional means. He was cruel, many could say he caused much harm to those unfortunate enough to be his experiment. He was not sadistic and he wouldn’t shock Ratchet without purpose.

      With a simple ping using the control code, electricity coursed through the medic.

      Ratchet screamed and collapsed to the floor with a loud thud. Electric arcs danced on his armor plating and he spasmed and groaned, digits visibly trembling and twitching from being overstimulated. His plating repeatedly flared out and in again, exposing some of the frame underneath. The tremble of his thighs and vents made an audible rattling sound. It looked painful, the way his body contorted and twitched. His optics were glossy and his ambulance alarms unwillingly turned on. They blared and blared. The scientist had no visible reaction.

      Shockwave silently noted the voltage and the bodily reactions he saw, flagging any variables that may have altered said reaction with a program designed to replicate Autobot Second in Command and Tactician Prowl (his battle computer which hosted his tactical genius was a work of art, he wishes to get his hands on the Praxian one day…) The shock automatically ended after 5 nanokliks, but the voltage compensated for the short period. The Autobot was left with ragged ventilations and unnaturally bright optics.

      “Are your limbs operational to walk to the lab?”

      The Autobot attempted to speak, but only emitted an incomprehensible string of static. The medic, defeated, mutely nodded instead. He wrenched himself up, using the wall as leverage as the berth would likely electrocute him again. Shockwave offered no assistance and merely observed the Autobot’s condition. Ratchet eventually stabilized himself and the excess electricity had dissipated.

      Shockwave turned around. “Follow me.”

      They walked out, meeting Soundwave in the hallway. The silent mech turned to see them and only joined them once Shockwave had made it a few paces down the hall to take his place at the rear.

      The rest of the trip was spent in oppressing silence.

      The Sessions: 1

      012.88.24

Session one. The test subject has been relocated into a room off the left of the lab. It has had its chronometer and spark tracking/locating disabled. Conditions in the room have the test subject in industrial cuffs magnetized to the floor. No supplements are provided, energon will be fed at the end of each session. The test objective is to observe the effects of revival on the revived subject and the revivor. The revived subject will be a Vulpes Velox. The test subjects will be monitored during the process for spark rate and the chemical levels within their brain modules, tracked by the cuffs. Following the revival process, both test subjects will undergo extensive medical examination within the lab. End summary.

 

Status Update: The turbofox has been released into the room.

 

Status Update: I have administered Subject R’s orders. Awaiting compliance.

 

Status Update: Subject R is unable to continue for the foreseeable future. Incident has been reported to the appropriate parties. Incident report is accessible to Clearance Level 8.

 

Comments: Shockwave, please refrain from killing your test subject so soon - S.S.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Ratchet sat curled against the back corner of the blank room. The room was painted in all white, and his blunt digits couldn’t scratch the paint without an unpleasant sensation racking his struts. The room was maddening. Not even his own plating could save him from the white, that had been stripped, too.

      Recharge has almost been impossible naturally, the lights too bright and hot on his plating, yet the floor and walls were too cold. And the medic simply didn’t trust he’d still be in the same place when he woke up. He didn’t trust any Decepticon, especially one as dangerous as Shockwave, to not mess with him as he slumbered. So he stayed awake even as the call of recharge dragged his frame down. Yet, even as he trudged through the muddy sea of sleep, he couldn’t help but succumb as sleep wrapped his processor in black, then nothingness.

[-- ♠️ --]

      He didn’t know what the beeping was, at first, or the slight buzz through his circuits until he heard screams. They ripped through his frame in sharp currents, like spines of pure force jabbed in violent spirals down his spine and arms and legs… The protoform buzzed and seized, he felt pressure on his head and arms, he could tell he was moving, but he could no longer tell hot from cold, rough from smooth, or even which direction he was facing. The world was just reduced to jumbled numbers and inputs with no meaning; stirred up in a cesspool of garbage and junk, useless outputs trashing his senses.

      Ratchet was left grasping for any semblance of a spark spin or air. He felt like he got run over by a cityformer, all his limbs left numb and sizzling with arcs of what he now recognized as electricity. He spasmed and whimpered, hearing the creaks of burnt protoform. His vision cleared of charge and optical fluid, and he could see the cold white of the floor and his hands…

      The metal around the cuffs was blackened and slightly warped— burnt and fragile. The wan metal flaked where it met the joints and servos of his hand. He tried moving his fingers, but it stalled as he felt lightning pain strike down his wrist. He let out a pitiful cry.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Ratchet didn’t sleep. He spent the rest of his time curled up and occasionally trying to so much as twitch his finger in a hopeless attempt to bring hope they would work again. Logically, he knew they could heal with some minor medical assistance, and it wouldn’t be permanent, hopefully… He pursed his lips. The voltage had to be high to cause the metal to warp. Yes, plating around the joints was often more fragile than the broader areas; they were meant to bend a little to allow more mobility, but… The medic stared at the crisp black which frequently creaked and cracked with pressure and felt his lip tremble.

      He wished he wasn’t so weak. This wouldn’t have happened if he had told them sooner. If he wasn’t so immature, so foolish… Then his team wouldn’t be scattered to the winds, wondering what happened to drive their medic so wrong. The plates of his abdomen creaked as he curled further into himself, like those small bugs the humans liked. Roly-Polys believed they called it. He felt that small… Just a tiny dot that can only curl up to help itself.

      The medic’s vents shivered, dragging air in and out, struggling and clawing. His body still felt sore and he whined as phantom pains danced within his worn circuitry. The sensory nodes of his plating had fizzed out and numbed themselves to the world. Only arbitrary numbers and measurements across his HUD could inform him of the environment… the gushing air from the vent, the dimensions of the walls and floor… the amount of pressure his body was under, etcetera, etcetera. Useless now.

      He almost missed the dim lights and dark steel walls he knew were just outside.

      But he could only stay curled in a not-so-safe shell and hope for the best.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Finally, his isolation saw a break.

      A hatch opened in the wall next to the door and a turbofox bounded in, a toy in its mouth and a tray of energon following shortly after it.

      Ratchet glanced up, blinking to clear his foggy eyes of exhaustion. His eyes went from the turbofox— currently chewing on the rubbery toy with boundless vigor— then to the energon cube. It was rationed, likely the kind they fed to Vehicons, but once he had dragged his frame to the other end of the room, he could tell it wasn’t tampered with. Or, at least, he thought so. Sleep deprivation addled the brain module, he couldn’t rely on himself to determine reality from daydreaming anymore. Soon. But he needed energon, and he…

      Do I need energon…?

      Of course.

      But if I… if I’m not here, they can’t use me.

      Any Autobot would die before giving the Decepticons any winning chance… especially in the final stretch…

      Ratchet stared at the half-full energon cube. The unbroken seal, the shiny container, the bright, life-giving liquid within…

      Would it be worth it— to live?

      Ratchet turned away from the cube and looked at the turbofox instead. He didn’t want to think about the energon. He didn’t want to think about those thoughts, either. So he stared at the turbofox, rolling around with its toy, in its own little corner. He thought the turbofox looked healthy. It had a lithe build and no visible discoloration, its plating was bright and fluffed appropriately with its emotions. It was energetic and had no struggle moving.

      He was a little envious of the turbofox’s freedom, but they were both in the same cage. The medic peered closer. The turbofox had a collar, purple and black with a sleek tag that didn’t hang down.

      “Turbo… hah.” Ratchet tried to laugh, but it came out in painful huffs.

      Before more thoughts came, a loud, shrill beep broke the hush of the room.

      “Subject R, the first test will commence. Your objective is to display your Sigma ability using the turbofox within the room. Kill it and revive it. I have supplied you with one Vehicon-Standard energon cube, when you complete your task, you will get more. If you refuse to comply within 3 megacycles, both you and the turbofox will face punishment.”

      Shockwave’s transmission ended with another beep, leaving Ratchet alone. With the turbofox. The turbofox he was meant to kill.

      I don’t have to comply with this. I could just… He looked at the turbofox, then turned around to look at the energon cube.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Soundwave tapped on the terminal keys. He watched the cameras lazily, Laserbeak could track them just fine, and the new reports were lackluster. The hunt for the Autobots was exciting, of course, it boosted morale more than anything and he can still hear the sounds of celebration below. The end of the war was within reach. The Decepticons will revive and repopulate Cybertron, hopefully…

      His current task was an old acquisition; the Iacon Database. It was written in old Autobot code; he had most of the new Autobot code decoded (though it rapidly changes every day due to Ultra Magnus, Prowl, and Jazz’s continued existence) but the old code was unfamiliar. He recognized some of it, having worked in the Senate, but the Senate used a completely different set of code than Alpha Trion’s. Soundwave could only crack away at the extensive database so much before he was tired. It took enough processing power to run the ship’s processes, especially since Starscream had been busy with the Autobot search, so he didn’t have additional assistance.

      It was frustrating. It felt that every day he was falling further and further behind. He should have decoded something more than two glyphs, yet, he was slower… less efficient, less useful…

      He shook his head. The war will end soon and he can create proper graves for his symbiotes, he can finally grieve properly, and live in a small house near a revived Crystal Gardens… Maybe he could get a new frame…

      Now was not the time for fantasies. Soundwave shoved the daydreams elsewhere and focused back on the database.

      The end of the war was near. He logically knew that.

      Why did he feel as if there was a storm just over that sunny horizon?

      Regardless of questionable premonitions, Soundwave needed a way to get back on task. He couldn’t brute force his way through his processor ache. Perhaps a break was in order… He flitted through his options; cutting off the feed from his visor to alleviate the stress of blue light on his optics. Eventually, he came to a decision.

      Perhaps visiting Shockwave would do him some good.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Ratchet had a plan.

      He knelt in the corner, facing in with the energon cube in his shaking hands.

      Energon was their blood, what kept them alive and fueled all of their processes. However, energon was extremely dangerous to a mech if used correctly. It was well known how reactive energon was, it was the reason why they were sealed in thermal resistant cubes. They make it easier to not accidentally blow up your energon if you leave it in the sun for too long, or any other incidents.

      It is also a well-known fact that sparks are great conductors of heat. They are balls of pure energy, spinning and pulsing with heat.

      So if the spark chamber was ever punctured, if energon dripped inside…

      Then you’ve just made a living bomb from a mech’s spark.

      Ratchet had seen it happen before. It wasn’t all too dissimilar to what mecha looked like after taking a shot in the tank from Megatron’s fusion cannon. All melted slag that burned and sizzled on the dirt, glowing bright, radioactive reds. Like hot iron.

      Their limbs would pop out their sockets, flying yards away in a spray of bright energon, long arcs of radioactive blue before they, too, explode.

      Oftentimes, nothing would be left of the mech’s body that would be useful, not even spark residue.

      Ratchet stared at the rippling blue liquid within the cube, caused by the trembles of his hands. He could drink it, he should… but should he?

      No, he shouldn’t let the Decepticons make him into their weapon.

      Living wasn’t an option here…

      His team wasn’t going to rescue him, not just because of his perceived alliance or betrayal, but their lack of resources. The base blew up, whatever Cybertronian technology left on this planet was in the Cons’ hands. It wasn’t an option for them to rescue him. He wouldn’t be worth the risk. He knew them, they wouldn’t risk the potential end of the war on a traitor. Ratchet knew this. He knew this.

      He jerked and immediately let out a painful hiss as his helm made contact with cold, hard metal. The first thing he realized was that he was being hung up above a berth. When he looked down. He saw a long, shallow basin of energon right below his…

      His spark chamber.

      I’m supposed to be dead.

      Ratchet dazedly recognized there was a tube connecting his (closed) spark chamber to an IV solution above. Likely a mixed vapor to instigate spark vapor production to stabilize his spark…

      “You are awake.”

      Ratchet tensed. Shockwave walked around the medical berth into his peripheral.

      “Your cuffs allow me to monitor your spark rate. Your plan was not effective, both in thought and execution.” Shockwave took away the basin of energon and poured it somewhere the medic couldn’t see, “If you intend to commit suicide when you have access to energon, then I will be forced to use extreme measures.”

      The medic was despondent. There was a dreadful clarity now in what he had done.

      He… he tried to kill himself.

      The full weight of it hit him then as if simply thinking the words suddenly made it real. But he still had… worded it correctly. He had intended to solve a problem. He planned it and went through his reasoning. However, he didn’t recall explicitly what he was planning to do.

      Ratchet never considered himself suicidal.

      But looking back on his life, his thoughts, his feelings… It was almost painfully obvious now. Like finally seeing something that was camouflaged. It was always there, he may have even known it to be there, but he never saw it. Until now, that is.

      He still felt numb. Too many feelings to pick one. Too many to portray so he simply didn’t. Everything felt so startlingly bleak, bleaker than before. Than anything.

      There was no way to deny it or hide it.

      No way to pretend he was okay.

      Because he tried to kill himself.

[-- ♠️ --]

      Ratchet was back in the white room. The turbofox was still there, curled in a different corner and chewing on its toy. Shockwave had, reasonably, changed the administration of energon. His servos were still restrained in front of him with the shock cuffs. Energon was fed directly into the fuel pumps in his arm through an IV which connected through the roof of the room. His restrained hands didn’t have the maneuverability to take out the IV, trying to grasp the IV tube resulted in a blessedly low shock, however, it was painful enough that he couldn’t grasp it long before his digits began to darken with minor burns.

      Unprocessed energon within a Cybertronian wasn’t lethal, but it did make him queasy and he felt sick and unstable the majority of the time. It does get processed at some point, but as non-lethal as it was, it was still a method of poisoning.

      He was kept hooked on the IV for… however long it was. He wasn’t sure of time and he had given up trying to keep track. It had felt like years had passed within the white room, with that energon drip, with that turbofox named Turbo he was meant to kill…

      And the numbness within that felt so familiar now.

The Sessions: 2

012.88.25

Session two. The subject has been prohibited from contacting its food or performing any unsupervised movement. It will remain this way for the foreseeable future until the subject is cleared of risk. Subject R now remains stationary and fed energon through a jejunostomy tube. I have concluded the best outcome would be to neutralize Subject R’s essential systems incrementally until the subject is suitably susceptible to manipulation and coercion.

 

Status Update: Soundwave visited the lab at the 9th hour of the ‘human’ day-cycle then visited Subject R.

 

Status Update: Soundwave has left the subject and the lab. Subject R’s spark rate has decreased exponentially and visibly showed signs of relaxation.

 

Status Update: Subject R has been reminded of its objective to use its Sigma on the Vulpes Velox. His spark rate increased exponentially within the span of three klicks. Subject R experiences stress and anxiety when presented with repeated orders to kill and revive the Vulpes Velox, this stimuli will continue to be repeated until it is obeyed. However, due to Subject R’s condition, I cannot leverage food to contribute to further external conflict. I will first observe if negative stimuli can compensate for the loss.

 

Comments: I’m sure being locked in a room with Starscream would give twice as much negative stimuli as being stuck in a lab with you, big boy - K.O.

 

[-- ♠️ --]

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Shockwave was silent in his cleanup. He could have had a Vehicon do it after Subject R had cleared its tank, but the scientist did not see a reason to not clean up himself, it also provided a bonus of observing Subject R unconscious. He did not believe this would setback the experiment process, and it was unnecessary to leave the subject in its own sick.

      The Empurata did a basic diagnostic, provided physical affection to Turbo in the form of repetitive, horizontal combing of the cybernetic tissue, and attended to the subject’s jejunostomy tube. Shockwave collected the purged energon and digestive acid to properly dispose of or recycle.

      He stood at the exact middle of the desk and chose to take this time to tidy his priority trees and review the short-term memory data he had collected. His mind opened without effort and he proceeded confidently. Shockwave had opened up his processor many times before this, altering his brain module to process and filter mass amounts of data as he needed.

      The ‘tidying’ was done swiftly and efficiently, and then he became aware of the many activities stemming from the questions of Subject R’s ability. Semantic Networks had already formed in response to this phenomenon; in addition to many imaginings and ideas.

      Shockwave had difficulty directing focus from one scientific endeavor to another, his processor found more logic in completing a set list of items before it was acceptable to switch projects. However, he had finished reorganizing his processor and had not begun the next steps of Project Predacon or Subject R. He was allowed to freely think about Subject R’s ability.

      Shockwave had one question he was most interested in:

      Was there life after death?

      The scientist had never truly considered it a possibility; he did not deny the existence of the Cybertronian deities, they had been proven through methodical, thorough work and have long been accepted by the scientific community as fact. However, there was no logical answer that could satisfy the claims of those who have seen the passing on of relatives and ‘swear by Primus’ they had seen something. Shockwave had dismissed these alleged sightings because in every case prior, it had been staged or a mirage created by the processor to soothe itself.

      But now there was a way to revive the dead; and it made Shockwave… question. Shockwave did not have a complete theory for how Subject R’s Sigma worked, only what he had read from Soundwave’s thorough report. It was an excellent informational text that expertly broke down every piece of data the Decepticons had available to them pertaining to the Autobot medic. However, he also recognized it left much to be uncovered— to be discovered by him. It ignited the smallest part left of his old self that still experienced passion and excitement, which he now only read as chemical statistics to infer the ‘mood’ he was meant to be in. Shockwave could understand the logical reasoning for such a reaction, with his past infatuation with Sigma abilities, their causes, limits, and everything there was to know about them, he wanted.

      Shockwave does not feel the same about Sigma abilities as he did so long ago, he’s unable to. However…

      Soundwave once advised him that he was not a new self because he is different, rather, an evolution of his old self which still resides in his processor, just changed. Shockwave didn’t care for the sentiment. But perhaps… it wouldn’t be illogical to indulge in prior ‘habits’ that are relevant and could prove to gain results. Subject R has been all that Lord Megatron seemed interested in besides the Predacon and defeating the Autobots. This was an unnecessarily roundabout way to agree with Soundwave on this aspect of his statement.

      So he spent one hour and 47 minutes dedicated solely to questions, theories, and hypotheses of Subject R’s Sigma ability.

      He stopped completely and had cleaned away his physical thoughts from the desk at two hours, exactly when Soundwave entered the lab, predictably silent.

      The Spymaster walked toward the terminal where Shockwave had stored his thoughts, shamefully, in a rather discordant manner unbefitting of a scientist. He felt Soundwave’s unremitting faith, even through his moments of disastrous, fallacious action and thought. The spycraft reorganized the data perfectly as Shockwave would have done it himself. It brought safety to Shockwave’s admittedly unstable personality— no matter what others perceived, the truth was that the scientist’s neurotic tendencies were hidden by necessity. Shockwave does not think he cares for what others think, and this is when he is both grateful and burdened by self-awareness and the immanent biases that are congenital in all sentient beings. Shockwave did several experiments on himself post-Empurata to fix the irreparable damage the Senate wrought against the entirety of his body chemistry, not only for himself and his health but because he cared for others’ opinions.

      Shockwave monitored Subject R’s condition on several other monitors, Soundwave joining him.

      “Soundwave… you did not come here with intentions of visiting me alone.” The scientist stated. Soundwave made no noise.

      The silence… was freedom. In a metaphorical sense— Shockwave did not feel the need to pretend he was a monolith of pure, objective reasoning. That level of objective thinking cannot be replicated by a mere mortal, no matter how they pretend to be immortal. Shockwave….

      Shockwave looked at Soundwave, and without words, without any normal means of communication accepted widely by any community other than their own, they knew what the other spoke. In the scientist’s mind, it wouldn't push the boundaries of their understanding of the universe and the lack of laws that dictate it. It won’t cause a revelation of a lifetime to anyone who discovers it. However, Shockwave does believe in a well-tested, well-supported theory, a theory that states: If one is attached to another in the way of speaking with no words, and pure understanding of oneself and the other, you are on the level one may call a relationship.’ It doesn’t come from any scientific paper. The words weren’t thought of and spoken into existence by a physician making the next breakthrough with his new paper. This was a theory crafted hundreds of millions of years ago, when, perhaps by chance or mere circumstance, a relationship was born. Two mechs got so close as to speak only with memories, syllables formed by echoing laughter, tone emulated by shared experiences, and words spelled by conversations many days past. Shockwave doesn’t believe himself a poet for communicating the abstract with pure metaphor, figurative statements, and language. This simply wasn’t something he could describe with science and explain it correctly.

      Then Soundwave walked away.

      And nothing changed. Shockwave spoke the only sentence that could be heard. Soundwave had said enough with just the memories and experience. Shockwave returned to work, monitoring, recording, going back to theories, hypotheses, tests…

      Soundwave went to confront Subject R.

[-- ♠️ --]

      The door of the white room opened. Ratchet could hear it hiss and thud as it closed again. He couldn’t build the will to push the air through his hydraulics or strain the delicate fibers of his body to put on a brave face, straighten his back, and look at his captors in the optic. The prisoner had tired himself out. Ratchet was… unbelievably tired.

      “Ratchet.” The modulated mockery of Optimus’s voice echoed in front of him. His shoulders relaxed and he couldn’t complain about it. He’d accept fake comfort… just as long as he knew it was fake.

      “... S- o- nd…” Ratchet stopped instantly as his voicebox shorted, the sound was grating against the audials, and his throat. He should’ve known… one didn’t get electrocuted and not expect their vocoders to short-out eventually…

      It simply hadn’t occurred to the medic… it should’ve scared him, that he of all mechs would just… forget that. But he couldn’t even give it any more processing power than a single thought and maybe the impression of panic on his spark.

      The Spymaster hadn’t commented, remaining an oppressive, dark entity within a room of white, except for the turbofox… who didn’t seem intimidated by the spindly mech at all— bounding toward him and chewing on his lanky digits. Soundwave merely curled his digits into a loose fist, not having the correct hand structure to make a proper one, but it seemed to deter the excitable pup enough for it to stop, and instead, terrorize his legs. The Decepticon made no move. Ratchet finally lifted his head after straining to see the scene in his peripheral. It was uncharacteristically humorous… and in this moment he could, perhaps, ignore the heavy cuffs around his wrists or the tube feeding directly into his tank and the lack of feeling in his precious hands.

      The scene felt out of place enough to not feel real.

      But the soreness in his limbs was real.

      So must this. And that made him feel… better?

      He wasn’t entirely sure.

      Soundwave persisted in staying entirely still. Even as Turbo somehow managed to find purchase and proceeded to crawl over the mech. It balanced on his shoulder; attempting to gnaw at Laserbeak, who transformed themself to avoid the eager pup’s advances.

      Maybe I am insane…

      Laserbeak separated from Soundwave’s chest, now indulging Turbo in a much-needed game of chase. Ratchet was afraid the turbofox would run out of ways to entertain itself, seeing as he was… incapacitated.

      Once the chaos had been sufficiently focused away from Soundwave’s body… he displayed an image of his visor. Of a scraplet with Energon-blue eyes, its jaws around Laserbeak’s wing, blurred as if taken mid-chase between the two.

      Ratchet had to wait several seconds… until memory was finally recalled in his processor of the identity of this familiar scraplet.

      His tanks lurched.

      I… forgot about it…

      How long had it been? Surely not long enough to forget the… scraplet (What was its name again…?)

      But it had.

      And he didn’t even know its name. Just that… he knew where it came from. The scraplet he revived when he was still an Autobot (I am an Autobot!) and took him to… to what…?

      To his favorite cliff!

      He had forgotten that too

      How… how much did he forget already…? Without even realizing…?

      Scraplet… chewed on metal and tools within his room… a… it was a…

      Pest

      “P-e-e-shttt…” Ratchet croaked through his fried vocoder, even if it felt like he was ripping through the delicate mesh within his throat, even though it felt like he blasted microscopic glass straight into his trachea.

      Optical fluid built up behind his optics… forming a thin rim of fluid on his bottom lid until it spilled over…

      How much of myself have I been losing… without a single hint of it…?

      It’s impossible to know…

      Because how can one mourn what they’ve forgotten?

[-- 𖤓 --]

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet didn’t get as many ‘intrusive memories’ from Megatron’s spark anymore due to his lack of sleep, and thus, he did not as easily access his memory core, however… He’d get… urges. Moments where his spark is hijacked and he feels like a different mech. Seconds where such a great rage overcomes him… it was as if Unicron itself had infected his spark, which… wouldn’t have been far off had he not assisted in purging Unicron from Megatron’s spark. Perhaps that means I took some of the load for Unicron as an equal exchange…

      He was sure he would’ve forgotten this fact too, had he not been reminded of Megatron’s presence within him when Shockwave repeated the parameters of his ‘experiment.’

      To kill Turbo and revive him with his bare hands, presumably, considering the lack of weapons…

      It is in my best interest to fulfill the scientist’s wishes… I would rather survive than remain in this blasted white prison! I cannot afford to lose my senses out of spite!

      A rasp from within, a whisper. A desperate call to fall to survival instincts, to kill to survive another day.

      The phantom of a gladiator.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet lowered his hands, right atop Turbo’s head, and opened his eyes.

      The turbofox yipped and licked his charred digits with delight, sneaking in some teeth too.

      “N-o-o-ot… Su-b-jt R…”

      “N-ot… R…”

      Ratchet sighed, leaning his head back. His limbs fell lax, eyes closing from exhaustion and his vents wheezing from his staggered breath.

      I would have become a warlord too…

      He petted Turbo as best as he could without functioning digits.

      Going through what you did…

      Megatron…

      Optimus’s armor plates trembled, and cold condensation droplets made galaxies on the dented metal. A slate gray moved across the sky in thick coils of cloudy wisps and a cool gust of wind followed. The Prime was isolated, stuck in his alt mode beneath the dingy hood of an abandoned truck stop.

      This was overwhelmingly bleak, he thought.

      He picked up a thunderous boom over the horizon.

      “Cshhk—cshhh— expected heavy rain and thunder Friday 10:00 PM in—cshhh—” The female weather reporter’s voice came and went as Optimus finagled the radio system. With his suspicions confirmed, he resolved to find a new place to hide away. In technicality, he knew radio waves could not be traced to the receiver, however, he does not doubt the abilities of Soundwave to find him some other way. With a low rev, he drove back to the highway. As nice as the cover was, he couldn’t afford to stay in one place for too long.

      As he gained speed on the highway his surroundings gradually blurred into indistinct streaks of color, he thought. Optimus thought a lot now. He thought before, continuous chain links of one thought after another. Is my team up for another mission? Who is best suited for scouting? Who is partnering up? Where is my team concerning one another? How long will it take for us to get to the other’s position? Does Ratchet need anything?

      Ratchet.

      The clouds became heavier, heavier until it rained. The cold droplets smacked against the metal of his alt mode. The sky was blotted with dark, dark gray.

      Ratchet.

      Optimus turned off the AC within his cab to feel warmer. He knew it wouldn’t do anything; his nervous system didn’t extend to those components beyond a general impression of what was there. When Ratchet had explained it to Raf, the young boy likened it to ‘Feeling something when your limbs are numb.’ Ratchet had grunted and muttered, ‘How should I know?’

      Ratchet. The Ratchet who answered any questions with patience and a side of snark; who would get Raf’s attention by tinkering with something in front of the boy; who contemplated converting a small portion of a storage room into a ‘music area’ for Miko to ‘play her heart out away from him’; who measured out energon consumption by the day to make sure everyone except him had the appropriate amount of energon for their needs; who was their grumpy, snarky medic with the biggest spark out of all of them.

      He was taken away by the Decepticons and dragged from the destruction of the base as fire rained down; taken away before he could even process what had happened on that Primus-forsaken data slug.

      The death and revival of Deadlock, known then as Drift.

      The reveal that Ratchet was an Outlier.

      It explained everything and nothing.

      Optimus was no closer to uncovering the truth behind Ratchet’s ‘betrayal.’ However, now with the medic’s newly revealed background…

      There were many assumptions he could make based on his admittedly limited knowledge of Outliers and their position within pre-war Cybertronian society. Optimus loathed his complete lack of knowledge or context. He rifled through the files of his own memory like the pages of a datapad, searching for the key moments he needed to piece together the facts— to fill in for everything he didn’t know. While what he knew of Outliers was meager, he knew Ratchet. He knew his medic, his oldest friend.

      Optimus let his body fall into autopilot, simply following the road and letting the feeling of asphalt against his tires; the rain smacking his roof; the whistle and sharp caress of wind at his sides; and the warm rumble of his engine— fade into the background, to lead him into the focused state he needed to consult his processor. To find answers within the cracks, between lines, within the silent lulls in conversations. There was something he wasn’t seeing, not invisible, not small, but hidden underneath a thin sheet, waiting to be uncovered.

      He took in the cool air.

      He started with the facts he knew; The beginning.

      Back in that too-short time, back when he was an archivist, back to when he started getting to know Ratchet. When they first met.

      Optimus was taken out of his memory with the thunderous roar of the storm ahead. He felt the humid, stuffy air of his short-term home transition back to the frigid cold of a desert storm, dust whipping around him in the wind. The warm, pale grays, oranges, and yellows of his sparkling hood were replaced by cold slate gray and pale blues.

      Optimus Prime… rarely dwelled on memories so far into the past. So far he couldn’t recognize himself in the naivety of Orion Pax. Because now he was older and wiser than Orion Pax ever could be. Wiser, with more memories than his lifetime.

      The Matrix of Leadership thrummed, heavy and blistering hot around his spark. If he listened closely enough, he could hear the voices of the previous Primes just beyond the veil of death, always there, always, watching, always having something to say. And presently, it seemed they had much to say about Ratchet. They were debating about the next course of action, some were insistent about punishing Ratchet for his crimes. We don’t know what Ratchet did beyond reviving a Decepticon before he was a Decepticon. But clearly, there was more than that. We don't know what that entails. Exactly. None of us can prove anything this is useless speculation…

      Optimus shut out the voices again. Sometimes, he truly doubted the ‘wisdom’ of the sparks that rested within the holy vessel. Often, the Primes acted more like a gaggle of children with no emotional maturity and all of them hated each other. Other times, they were wise, patient, and truly lived up to their titles. But it was only really the original 12 (he had yet to hear from 13…) who gave true wisdom, and that was few and far between. Otherwise, the more mature Primes besides the 12 would assist when they weren’t busy making sure the others didn’t fill the Matrix, and Optimus’s head, with unnecessary rabble.

      If this was what every Prime before him experienced, no wonder why so many of them were mad (besides the ones that weren’t true Primes, of course…)

      With no useful Primely insight, he was left once more to consult the thunder and rain.

      Ratchet…

      When Optimus, no— Orion — had first met Ratchet, the medic was in a darker time in his life and Orion was still a youngling. Ratchet had wanted nothing to do with him, but Orion was adamant in keeping the medic company. The young medbot was still studying to be a doctor at that point, but seemed to be struggling and hadn’t been drinking as much energon as usual. Ratchet hadn’t exactly opened up to a random youngling about his issues, but Orion was good at inference.

      Looking back at the memories, Ratchet was barely an adult, perhaps the age of Bumblebee, and he had looked like that. Grayed out, dark blue circles under his eyes and stress lines he’d only seen on older mechs and war veterans. Undoubtedly, the mech was depressed, and little Orion Pax had known that. Perhaps not consciously, but he knew something was deeply troubling about Ratchet. So little Orion was there for him whenever he could be. And Ratchet had someone who cared about him, and someone he too could care about.

      Gradually, Ratchet started looking a little better. Orion never figured out why, but he was happy for him, and he knew that, maybe, he had helped.

      He would never know.

      Lately, Optimus felt like he still never knew. Ratchet was always there for him, and he was always there for Ratchet. But their times of emotional support and solidarity never manifested verbally. Whenever they needed each other, all they needed was to brush their fields or send a comm and they would be at each other’s door in the next hour. They’d stand with open arms and embrace each other; protect each other from the harsh world beyond their walls. But rarely did they ever speak of the problem.

      Perhaps that was the root of it all.

      Optimus would never know— would never get to know, because Ratchet was gone. Floating in the sky on a ship he didn’t have the means to track.

      And he’s never felt so played since the Exodus; since failing to stop Megatron from irreversibly destroying their planet, their home, the place they promised to save and turn into a better place. The moment he knew the Megatron that would give his spark for the chance for a better world for all Cybertronians no longer existed. Maybe he never did.

      And maybe Ratchet never did get better. Maybe… this wasn’t something Optimus could ever see, something Orion never saw, because he was looking at the wrong things. Looked at mission successes and failures, optimal positions, and deciding where each member was most needed. Looking at the numbers, and failed to notice the mechs those numbers represented. So in his own head, trying to get ahead of Megatron— trying to get over his dead friendship, he failed to notice his decaying relationship with the friend he had now. With the friend he always had.

      Optimus began going faster, trying to drown out his guilt with the rumble of his engine the scream of wind, and the smattering rain. Faster and faster, he could feel his tires burn from the friction. Faster and faster, until he lost control like he did everywhere else in life. His tires slipped, his momentum too great to stop. He flew to the side, drifting on the sand and dirt, feeling the grit and sediment fly into his seams and mud coating his tires. He could feel himself beginning to tilt over and transform from pure instinct. He grunted as his momentum carried over and he rolled to the side, finally coming to a stop once he’d already dragged through the mud.

      Pathetic…

      The Prime stayed there for hour-long seconds. Lying there, covered in mud and dents, scratched to Pit and back, looking nothing like his name should inspire. He let the rain wash away the loose dirt, sand, and mud from his frame and let his body cool down. His spark slowly returned to a normal pace, and his frame no longer felt as if it was burning up in the atmosphere. Optimus stood at a sluggish pace, dragging himself back to the road and transforming after checking his transformation seams were clean.

      He drove on, ignoring the grit in his gears and the heaviness in his spark. Despite how his t-cog and tires were burnt out, he couldn’t bring himself to regret that moment of sparkling-level emotional maturity. But it brought him the same amount of satisfaction as a good spar, a book getting him to cry, or a well-deserved rant. It felt like his emotions were released effectively, although it was messier than he’d ever allow himself to be normally. But…

      Optimus laughed internally.

      That was the most cathartic experience he’s had in… well… since they had landed on Earth. It didn't feel like nearly enough considering how long it’s been, but… it was good for what it was; pushing his engine to its limit, going fast and hard on the pedal until it felt like he was burning his rubber, letting loose like he was made to be a racer. Trucks weren’t built for speed, not that Optimus cared, but he did err on the safer side whenever attempting to speed up in his alt mode. It was built by humans who didn’t know that their truck would be used to rescue teammates and make sure their human charges didn’t die. So he couldn’t blame them for not considering his needs. But it did feel good to speed, despite likely compromising his safety in more ways than one.

      Ultimately, he was okay, and he felt a little better about life.

      And now he could focus on what to do, rather than get lost in what he could have done to ‘save’ Ratchet.

      The truth was that it didn’t matter. Not right now. He could resolve how to be a better friend when he had his friend back.

      His number one priority is to contact the U.S. government, preferably Agent Fowler. And then he’ll locate the rest of his team.

      Then, they will get their medic back.

The Sessions: 6

012.88.29

Session six. Subject R is ready for assimilation. It will be taken to interrogation room E2-7 for psychological evaluation and information extraction. High Command will determine Subject R’s assignment thereafter.

 

Status update: Subject R has been officially released until its next Test (Date TBD)

 

Comments: Excellent work, Shockwave - M⌥ *

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Subject R didn’t like sitting much; didn’t like staying still at all. The aching sensation in his pedes and rubber tires was the only thing distracting him from his deteriorating mental state. He was sure this was their intention, Shockwave’s intention; he long knew that they sought to use him, use his abilities to further their own agenda. It didn’t matter much, resisting, anymore. He’s tried everything to ground himself. But there wasn't a substantial ability to do so when you were locked with prison-grade mag-clamps in a kneel and being fed through a tube.

      The subject could walk now.

      Because…

      Because… 

      Ratchet— Subject R?— blinked himself out of that stupor. Yes… he remembered now. Turbo.

      He avoided thinking about Turbo. The sweet fox… Once he had been taken off of the jejunostomy tube, Shockwave refused to supply any energon until he complied with his little ‘experiment.’

      The subject was used to functioning while on 30% tanks. However, combined with being sustained on unprocessed energon, building an unhealthy amount of waste in his lines, and immediately being starved afterward…

      His tanks plunged into Red very, very fast. In less than a day, fast.

      The ambulance had swiftly gone from delirious to hysterical, then edging on mad. 

      It didn’t take any energy at all for him to simply… Lure the turbofox closer… right under his servos, and…

      Mag-cuffs have sharp, uncomfortable edges. More so with electrical ones that were shock-capable. They would chafe and scratch the fragile metal of his wrists, already warped by the high-voltage shocks. His derma pulled back in trepidation. My wrists…

      They were so pale now when they used to be dark gray like his protoform. The only hint of black was now in the twitching joints and spasming seams.

      Energon dried laden in each crevice and line, stuck in his pistons and hydraulics that made the fine precision of a medic’s hands.

      At his weakest, when he was curled on the ground, writhing in self-pity and getting endlessly nearer to death, the traces of Megatron’s spark overtook his fading light. It infused him with the strength to take his fate into his tremulous servos and hold it tight, strangling it so it may never leave his sight. A cunning, sharp clarity erected in his processor, making itself a wide berth among the foggy exhaustion of starvation.

      Violence to survive.

      It was the Pit. And his goal was survival, no matter what. Get good at what they want you to do until they think you’re a trained pet. And strike back.

      That’s why he woke up again, cold, hands soaked in energon but not in the way a medic’s are stained. But in the way a murderer is stained. Dripping because you had your hands guts deep into a Cybertronian trying to keep them from dying. Dripping because he had just bashed in an innocent turbofox’s skull. He didn’t even do the revival until it felt too late.

      At least, he knew now, it didn’t matter how long it took. If he has the body and he killed it, it can be revived.

      However, it did feel colder. When he reached for its spark, like trying to catch something drifting away in the waves, it was colder, deeper into the Well. But he did save it. After an hour-long second of pulling Turbo’s spark back to shore, the little thing was up. More dazed than the scraplet, it had stayed down for a moment, processing. Its skull was good as new as if that red-tinged moment of desperation and hunger was a mirage…

      Turbo stumbled back onto its feet, shook its head, pawed at it, and then bounded off to play. As if nothing happened.

      Maybe… in the mind of Turbo, it was a passing dream… maybe he doesn’t remember it at all

      Ratchet slumped back into the wall. Turbo was taken out of the cell a few minutes after the revival.

      It’s been a bit since then.

      Maybe even a while.

      Time doesn’t seem to move within white walls.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet was escorted back to his room.

      The mech wasn’t as unsteady as he should’ve been if he was kept locked down; regardless, his proprioception wasn’t ideal. His vision would still swim and veer between lens focuses until he was dizzy. Even with better energon, the rapidity of the transition from unprocessed (It didn’t even count as low-grade to him) to mid-grade was staggering and addled his performance as his body and frame healed, the damage done by the paltry energon wasn’t insignificant and required extensive repairs that would normally be done with the assistance of a medic. Ratchet could only hope that the Decepticons would take him to Knock Out (He would do it himself but he severely doubted they would let him, inhibited as he is).

      His guards, unusual Vehicons— they bore distinctive stickers and decals, the kind Miko had on her guitar or the kind he’d seen on other automobiles in Jasper— one had space-themed stickers, the other had many small rectangles with colorful stripes and symbols; a flag, he recalled. They were gentler than any handlers he’s had thus far (which wasn’t many, considering how long he remained in that damned white cell) and made quiet conversation— nothing he heard, just the distinct buzzing of electrical signals passed and received when privately communicating with comms. As he expected, they had no EM field, at least, not one generated by a spark (even humans have small fields of their own, though he has yet to test if they are capable of utilizing it on purpose; ‘gut instincts’ and ‘the feeling of being watched’ have led him to… inconclusive results). But the company was nice. Even if colors now gave him a helm ache and severe eye strain, seeing other, technically living, beings other than himself and Turbo was a relief.

      However, the subject found himself disabling his optical input as soon as his doors closed behind him. He sunk to the floor, back against the door, and vented.

      Ratchet found he had access to a personal washroom now. Or maybe he always had? It wasn’t like he got to stay unrestrained in his room long before Shockwave took him away for that experiment. The subject washed himself as long as he could before the shower automatically stopped, likely to conserve water and solvent. They were in a flying ship, after all.

      Subject R had difficulty with memory, the processor confused him as a whole. No ordinary memory creep. Never simple forgetfulness. He just… couldn’t visualize certain things. Like his optical feed shorted out just before the memory. The subject could recall some things happening, the general strokes. But the details got lost in the artifacting. This should have bothered him much more than he felt he was. He just… couldn’t muster much emotion for the complete absence of control. He’s been living on the edge, always on the cusp of wrong. Off-putting. Even when he thought he was doing well, pretending to be normal. He could control himself, how he acted, how he reacted quite well.

      Unfortunately, he could not control the energon that flowed through him.

      And that was it, wasn’t it?

      All his functioning, this very situation he’s in, is caused by mere chance. An unlucky draw.

      Primus must truly hate me…

      Ratchet hefted his weighted limbs on the berth, the complementary comfort slab welcome to his aching joints (that hadn’t been there before… maybe Soundwave put it there. Soundwave was nice enough for that… since when did he start thinking Soundwave was nice? )

      Sweet unconsciousness greeted him with a numb embrace.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Subject R works in the medibay now.

      He got interrogated by Soundwave.

      It was uneventful.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Everyone calls him Subject R now. He tries not to refer to himself in this way, but…

      Transformers were made to rapidly adapt to new environments for survival. This aspect extends to mental faculties as well. A Cybertronian may gain new behaviors and thought processes to assist the transition between the familiar and the unfamiliar. These changes are usually impermanent and don’t pose a significant risk to a cybertronian. However, rare cases of ‘Transformation Persistence’ may prevent an individual from breaking patterns they’ve internalized, especially in continually hostile or abusive environments.

      In short… Subject R is a designation bestowed upon him, likely to force a mental transformation, an adaptation to better fit in and survive. Unfortunately, Ratchet was not immune to force transformations such as these. Mechs in Spec Ops are the only ones who can overcome this biological hurdle, especially in prolonged, deep undercover missions. It took a level of control and discipline in one’s processor to recognize and properly neutralize mental adaptations and prevent them from evolving into persistent transformations. Subject R knew how to identify the problem and knew the technical knowledge needed to overcome it, but none of the experience or discipline needed to do anything about it.

      Having a part of his spark quite literally attached to another’s didn’t help.

      It was problem enough, dealing with normal mechs recovering from force transformations— often results of Shockwave’s infamous conditioning programs run on captured Autobots, a program to force new Decepticon ideals and identities over an extended period. Or as it was rumored. Regardless, with enough stress, pressure, and consistency, the likelihood of forcing a mental adaptation, conditioning a mech, was high.

      The implications of persistent mental adaptations and transformations in itself is a terrifying concept, one Ratchet hardly ever touched on. But when it was discovered you could induce such machinations yourself… well...

      It wasn’t the first thing Subject R thought of, but it was obvious in retrospect. Repeated uses of certain words and phrases, constantly imposing a will, enforcing the idea of an achievable goal through means of transforming himself mentally… or maybe this was all pointless speculation. Maybe it was just a way to excuse himself for giving up and giving in for being so… invariably weak.

      Now he spends his cycles in his room or the medibay, assisting Knock Out in minor tasks and occasionally mentoring. Simple advice when the younger medic wasn’t sure. With a professional, seasoned medic on board and available to help, there was little excuse for any loss of troops. Of course, more could be manufactured, but that took resources the Decepticons, evidently, didn’t have. If Knock Out had kept up his steady net negative on patient return, then eventually, Vehicons would just be reduced to walking junk bins. While Ratchet would gladly let this fate befall the Decepticons, he remained loyal to his job.

      Knock Out was strangely amicable company, if not exceptionally vain and flirtatious. The automobile was surprisingly attentive and receptive to the older mech’s feedback and suggestions and Breakdown was pleasantly quiet and equally as conscientious as the red doctor. The larger mech often fumbled with smaller, delicate tools, but his servos were as precise and steady as any medic pair (obviously with less sensitivity.) Shockingly, both of them kept their EM fields open unless with a company besides Ratchet or their patients. Otherwise, their fields were like bright datapads in a dark room. It was relaxing, in a way, familiar and nostalgic.

      These days, they were practically synched to each other’s fields, always tuning in, sending small vibrations, single-note messages.

      Subject R was told it had been 10 days since he’d been released from that Primus-forsaken white room. Ten days…

      Knock Out had already put him on medication to keep his hands steadier and his processor stabilized. “Mood-altering substances,” he had said. “They’ll balance out your stress-makers.” Ratchet was sure there was a more professional term, but he couldn’t grasp it from the fleeting memories drifting in the fog of his brain module. Frag it all. He truly was useless now, if any hint of distress made his refined mind crumble from the foundation. Utterly useless. I needed that… he humorlessly quipped at himself.

      Subject R stood to the side. His hands trembled and twitched more than he was comfortable with, and he had woken up with a memory of Megatron’s, which automatically took his morning into the Pit.

      This wasn’t the first memory of Soundwave Ratchet’s had. But it was hard to compile every occurrence. Soundwave was in many memories, and the subject could finally process exactly how long Megatron and Soundwave had known each other. Which was a very long time.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      “Subject R?” Knock Out sat beside him on their designated ‘eating’ table, in its own isolated corner of the lab. The racer set down two energon cubes. “I got your ration for you if you dare to break your streak of… what was it, Breakdown? 24 joors?” “28” “28 joors without energon!”

      “...”

      “... Fine, then. Just stay still like that, if you’re dying from starvation then at least get snuffed looking like a Prime, hm?”

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Subject R sighed, the pressure in his joints and spinal column releasing as he sat. Pest was curled in a makeshift pet bed that mysteriously appeared in his room one day. Knock Out insisted on detailing him, and being as… derealized as he was, couldn’t bolt out of the lab to save his dignity.

      Instead, something else happened.

      Well… at least he’ll look pretty when he dies.

      The doors hissed open and an unfortunately familiar sight greeted him. Silver, gunmetal gray glinted in the overhead lights, making the Lord of the Decepticons look tinged with purple.

      Megatron stood to his full height, towering over Subject R like a parent dwarfs their child.

      “Doctor…” He rumbled.

      “Subject R … Knock Out has complained… thoroughly about his injuries to your hands. I can’t say I am surprised at all, considering what I felt over our… bond.” Each syllable was pronounced and every word coarsely refined. Megatron took a loud, booming step toward the comparatively diminutive mech in front of him. “Well, at least you didn’t ruin your new paint… it is rather fetching— expected of Knock Out’s work. I lament the doctor’s sacrifice of his own paint job…” He condescended.

      Subject R’s new scheme was simple— black with orange and green accents. The majority of his white plating was painted in black except for his arms and a portion of his back, which remained white. His orange remained, with green painted on the edges exceptionally cleanly. Red was painted from the outer edge of his orbital socket to the inner edge of his optic housing or ‘eyelid’ as humans say.

      “However, I am impressed with what you were able to do… the aggression, the anger, the fury…”

      Megatron leaned over Subject R, optics like intense red spotlights piercing through his armor and straight into his spar.

      “Was like that of my own…”

      “I felt a similar surge, right before Shockwave had released you from his hold. The exact same sensation of the pure savagery of survival that I am well acquainted with… and I felt that here. Knock Out described you as a wild beast former, and I found that the claw and bite marks fit quite well with that account…” Megatron’s optics flicked over the dried energon on Ratchet’s digits and dripped on the corner of his mouth.

      “Energon suits you.”

      “I disagree.”

      “Ah, the Doctor speaks at last… tell me, Subject R, what exactly happened, hm?” The Lord probed hauntingly.

      “You know what happened, Megatron– ACK!–”

      “Subject R… I do not take pleasure in hurting you…” Then, he knelt…

      “I do not easily express attrition… the ability to apologize or admit my wrong-doings… is a blade that has been long left un-sharpened…” Ratchet remained still, only processing partial words. However… the sincerity in his contriteness didn’t go unnoticed. “But a dull blade can still be wielded well… Ratchet…”

      It took just a minute for him to hear the pounding of footsteps and two Vehicons carried him to the medibay.

      Megatron does not visit him, and Knock Out wails his grievances about his ruined paint job, much less the horrendous bites and claws!

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Three days later, everyone calls him Ratchet again.

The Sessions: 7

012.88.31

Session seven. I intend to prove whether Subject R can revive Vehicons and Eradicons. The Vehicons own spark fractals— the bare minimum required to run a basic Cold Constructed (CC) Enforcer-Base Processor (EB-Processor). It is in the Decepticon’s interest to cut down on the reparation and production cost of Vehicons. Subject R’s Sigma is an obvious solution. Subject R will be retrieved from its room as well as two Servant-class Vehicons and one War-class Eradicon.

 

Status Update: Subject R has been presented with its objective and a Servant-class blaster.*

 

Status Update: Subject R and the Vehicons converse, the Vehicons exhibit signs of basic ‘happiness’ and ‘concern’. Subject R is reluctant to engage and remains largely quiet in the conversation. When asked the purpose of the Vehicons’ presence, Subject R responds truthfully. The Vehicons become distressed.

 

Status Update: Subject R and the Vehicons/Eradicons agreed on a plan of action. The three subjects are shot cleanly through the helm, where their spark fractals are housed and are offlined.

 

Status Update: Revival was successful. I have drafted and sent a request for Subject R to use its Sigma to revive Vehicons, Eradicons, and Others to Doctor Knock Out and High Command’s discretion.

 

Comments: I know Lord Megatron permitted you to use the Vehicons as you wish, but I liked V-PX.1016 and V-PLX.8927 - K.O

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Subject R felt like he knew this room. Well… he did know this room. He knew what happened here, objectively. His first test: to revive a turbofox. His first test, where he tried to… kill himself. Right, that… did happen, didn’t it? He… almost forgot. How did I forget that…?

      The door hissed open again and two Vehicons walked in. Not Space and Flags… He recalled the previous Vehicons who escorted him semi-regularly. These two had different markings, one with yellow stripe decals running around the helm, arms, and legs; the other had hand-painted designs of earthen plant life curling around their frame— clearly not done by Knock Out, the lines were shaky and the paint was spread unevenly. At least it seemed sealed correctly so it wouldn’t easily scratch off… He’s been spending too much time with Knock Out.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet is used to the Decepticon medibay now, as well as his co-workers. He is not surprised at all when he has to fight Knock Out to resist ‘fixing’ the two newly-revived Vehicons’ paint jobs.

      “But they’re atrocious! If Vehicons are deciding to individualize and bedazzle themselves, at least do it right!”

      “We’ve already had the conversation…” Breakdown murmured from the side, preparing mineral supplements for the Vehicons, who were chatting with their comms like most of the Vehicons seemed to do.

      “It is ridiculous!”

      “Perhaps it is simply an ‘aesthetic’ choice,” Ratchet interjected, “I heard humans do like a ‘personal’ touch at times, rather than clean lines.” He thought of Miko’s own admittedly very messy painting style and graffiti.

      “And perhaps I have given humankind too much credit in their paint jobs if they think this— blasphemy — is acceptable! Utterly ridiculous!”

      “Let it go, Doc Knock!”

      “No!”

      Ratchet sighed. Perhaps a bit too fondly, for mechs who would gladly dissect him alive if it weren’t for his… defection? What is it that he was now? A war prisoner? An experiment?

      A tool?

      … an ally?

      As he watched the two Decepticons bicker over the aesthetics of the Vehicons’ paint jobs, he considered, just entertained… the thought that they just could be…

      Friends.

      And he found that, maybe with concern, maybe with worry, that he didn’t mind that at all.

      “What are you smiling about?!” Knock Out sniped.

      “You focus your time in the wrong places. If you must talk about paint jobs with every mech who walks through this door, perhaps you’d do better as an esthetician and leave the medical work to Breakdown and I…”

      “I am a perfectly competent medic, you rusted scrapheap! I’d like to see anyone here try to do my job in such glamor and style!” “You’re starting to sound like Starscream. He’s a bad influence on you…” “I am making a point, Breakdown!”

      Yes, I think a friend is the correct term for this…

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Soundwave and Laserbeak visit his habsuite every other day now. Their company is quiet, yet still as chaotic as nearly every other part of this ship (It reminds him of his days on the Ark… when he saw just as many Autobots as Decepticons. When there was never a silent moment. When the war seemed to fade into the space of laughter and comradery. A space that no longer exists.) He found himself concluding that this was why the Decepticons hadn’t won the war yet.

      The spymaster, today, was in the mood for music. The three of them sat in a comfortable configuration on the berth, Ratchet had his back against the wall and his knees to his chest, Soundwave sat on the edge of the berth; Laserbeak was curled between Ratchet’s legs. Pest was in the room somewhere, and judging by the faint sound of crunching metal, he was likely chewing up his new toy— A titanium alloy, not too tough to chew, but tough enough it’ll be fun for the scraplet to try and eat— that Soundwave got him.

      Ratchet tapped his digit to the rhythm of the music— he recognized it was pre-Golden Age, an orchestral piece with heavy use of Crystal harmonics to substitute actual singing, giving an intentionally disconnected, robotic feel often associated with religious music. He was not musically inclined, but nobles enjoyed music and it was a common enough subject in high-caste conversation that the medic was able to pick up some stuff. The music was swaying, pulling, and pushing like the waves of an ocean. Very compelling, and very tasteful. He expected nothing less from Soundwave.

      “Ratchet: Enjoys orchestra?” The Decepticon uses a synthetic voice rather than piecing together voice clips. He only really did his ‘remixing’ when proving a point or wanting to convey a tone that generically made glyphs did.

      “I never really had time to enjoy music or explore music tastes… The only times I sat and listened was if I was invited to any soirees and such. Otherwise, whatever was on broadcast suited me fine when I was studying or wanted background music for any reason…” Ratchet pulled from his memories, “I believe I’ve always been a fan of pieces like these. It kept me grounded in times of stress.”

      Soundwave often asked questions like these. Innocuous, casual questions that usually, intentionally or unintentionally, made Ratchet think of the past. Remember it. The questions helped him keep hold of his mind. Knock Out and Breakdown have a similar effect on him, they reminded him of old coworkers or students, they made him remember. Guiding Knock Out to be a better medic helped him keep his thoughts straight as well. It felt almost too easy, slipping back into a mentor role— it had been that way with Raf as well.

      Raf…

      He thought of the children, and his… team, every day. But he avoided it. Soundwave did too. If one thing was intentional, then it was the way the Third in Command avoided asking questions about his past team. He hadn’t mentioned or shown anything to him since showing him the recording of their escape from the collapsing base. And that was enough to keep him content. He knew his team was tough. Stupid and reckless at times, but… they could get out of it. He hoped they could get out of it. Prayed.

      Before he could put himself into a spiral, he manually terminated the oncoming thoughts of his team. He switched back to music.

      “I like the use of singing crystals to imitate a choir,” Ratchet remarked. Soundwave nodded.

      “Soundwave: enjoys complex harmonics as well. Satisfying to listen to and pick apart.”

      “Is that because of your habit of using isolated voice clips?”

      “Soundwave: gained skill first in voice clips, then applied it to music.”

      “I see…”

      Ratchet found himself growing more okay with letting the team fall into the back of his processor.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Arcee ducked behind another rock, weaving between different covers, inching closer to her goal. The sound of heavy machine operation and drilling echoed in the caves. This energon deposit laid in a claustrophobic space— a much tighter fit than what was normal, but that worked in the bike’s favor.

      She zig-zagged across the cave until she could see Vehicons. She could see them, as she pressed her back against the large rock, right over her left shoulder.

      The motorbike didn’t notice it then, too focused on the goal, on the energon, to register how different these Vehicons looked. Sure, she was a good scout, and she noticed they were mostly servant-class rather than labor-class like the big mining operations had. Perhaps, she even noticed the different colorings muttered on their plating, the stickers and decals. The lack of scratches, all denoting inexperience and defenselessness.

      And in hindsight, she didn’t need to kill anyone at all to get energon.

      But one lost faith in a Decepticon’s ability to hold their word or not shoot as soon as one turned their back when in a war for 4 million years.

      So she took her shot and didn’t flinch when arms flew off and Vehicons were swiftly, messily, painfully separated from their lower halves. Blue decorated the walls.

      Blown-apart components of mechs littered the floor, entrails still dripping with white, processed energon, mixing with the fresh energon and grossly bubbling.

      She took as much energon as she could reasonably fit in her subspace and hid the rest where she could find it and where the Decepticons couldn’t when they inevitably checked out the mine. Then she bolted, transforming and retreating into the unmapped woods.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      “THREE CASUALTIES, GURNEYS HEADED TO THE MEDIBAY!”

      Field medic protocols booted up before Ratchet could react, calmly setting aside what he was working on and responding. “What’s the damage?” Knock Out hissed over the comm line, the doors opened and two gurneys rolled in, Breakdown rolling in a third one.

      Ratchet felt his spark stop spinning.

      His escorts. They hadn’t been here this morning. They were assigned to supplement the miners in a small energon deposit.

      Two had their spark chambers blown open and actively leaking spark gasses and internal energon. The third, a Vehicon he had seen hanging around his escorts on off-shifts, had his arm and shoulder completely missing.

      Breakdown rifled around to find something to keep the spark gasses in while Knock Out talked.

      “There’s nothing we can do for them, but Shockwave sent them here last minute for you, Doctor, so I suggest you get a move on and start reviving!”

      Ratchet moved forward without thinking, his hand folding into his battle blades. He could tell they were still alive. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. Their sparks are housed right under their brain module. But they still required spark gasses to keep the spark alive and healthy. Spark gas contains important nutrients for the spark. Vehicons have small spark chambers, housed in their chests, right beneath the pectoral plates. Instead of the spark being housed there, the chamber is only used for the gasses, and lines connecting the chamber to the spark fractal pumped the gasses there.

      He brought the blade down the base of their necks, cutting off the line. He could see when each of their fractals dissipated, wispy white smoke leaving their necks, leaving black stains on the metal.

      “Well? How does this revival thing work?” Knock Out impatiently called, leaning forward then quickly leaning back after the stench hit his olfactories.

      “It’s a… pull. It is not a science, at least, not one I can study or decode myself.”

      “So… it’s magic?”

      “... No.”

      “You described magic.”

     “I need to concentrate.”

      Knock Out obediently quieted down, sitting on a chair that Breakdown retrieved earlier to watch with him.

      Ratchet recalled how it felt, reviving the footsoldiers earlier this week. It was harder, and much more taxing than a single mech. Afterward, Knock Out forced him into temporary bed rest and then reluctant light-duty which involved him organizing the medicine shelves and taking inventory. Relaxing, near nostalgic work.

      He let his spark reach out to the spark fractals floating in the in-between. Like magnets, they clung together, trying to find the spark pieces that they were once joined to. It made it even harder to pull them back, the speed at which they ‘die’ was much faster than if it were a whole spark…

      But Ratchet snatched them from the All Spark.

      Like trying to swim up from the depths of the ocean, the gravity of the Well tried to make them stay.

      But, like always, Ratchet won out, and they broke the surface.

      Two memories transferred to him.

      Then he awoke on Knock Out’s lap.

      “Good morning, Doctor.” Ratchet checked his chronometer, having since been restored by Breakdown and Soundwave since he’d been cleared. “You took a little less time to wake up than last time… however, you still require bed rest. It will take a few hours until your gyroscopes and proprioception reset to standard…” He’d been passed out for six hours, the lights in the medibay were dimmed, and the gurneys were cleared and folded against the wall.

      “For now, you can either sleep in the medibay with us, or we can call—” “How are they?” Knock Out paused. “They are well, Doctor. We got them on mineral supplements, gave them an oil change, purged their lines, minor tune-ups… they’re basically brand new!” His boisterousness fades into subtle concern.

      “You did a good job, Doctor… I convinced our gracious Lord Megatron that you would be… indisposed for a day. You may stay here or wander around, check on those Vehicons if you must, just don’t get caught in Megatron or Starscream’s optics. And we all know Soundwave wouldn’t report you unless you decide to betray us.”

      ‘Betray us.’

      He laughed a little.

      “Wha- What’s so funny? Breakdown, did I say something funny?”

      “I don’t think so, Knocky.”

      “It’s nothin’, Knock Out. If I and the patients are fine, I’d like to move around, sitting around and sorting scrap metal from parts is hardly a scintillating past-time…” The medic sat up, feeling his galleries work to oil up his joints. He only creaked a little.

      “Well… have fun, I suppose. You owe me now, I hope you remember!” The red mech called after him as he passed the threshold of the medibay.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet sat in a small alcove of the ship, near the top, right below Megatron’s floor— yes, there was an entire floor of the ship dedicated to Megatron and anything or anyone he put up there; High Command, he knows, lives up there— it was one of the only windows on the ship. He held a security (Soundwave) approved datapad. It had access to the Decepticon’s online library and basic comms, Soundwave had taken the liberty of putting himself, his escorts, Knock Out, and Breakdown on it.

      Speaking of his escorts…

      The two now stickerless Vehicons found him easily— he had long ascertained that he was bugged— and had taken to silently following him several paces away; further than they normally did, but within acceptable range to watch for suspicious activity.

      Until now.

      The two now stood directly at the sides of the window alcove, trying and failing to hide their nervousness and palpable need to speak.

      They just awkwardly hovered around him, the effect further exacerbated by their poorly hidden comms communication between them. The constant buzz back and forth, with him directly in the middle to catch all the feedback, was driving him insane.

      “... you may speak if you wish. I don’t bite.”

      “... You do, though.” “Nova!” “He has literally bitten mechs, Dr. Knock Out complained for weeks!”

      “What do you two want ?” Ratchet purposefully cut the groan he wanted to emit. These two reminded him of his students as soon as they talked. Naive, curious, painfully awkward… He knew, based on the numbers that popped up on the datapad’s comm system that they were made quite later on in the war (numbers 10124 and 11201, he didn’t know which one was which).

      Vehicon designations were organized by frame type (V or E), assembly location (city: IAC, PLX, PX, KA, etc.), and construction number. Obviously, the construction number could get long, so they used ‘batches’ more often (PX10, PLX2☌*, KA7☍*, etc.).

      Ratchet’s wandering mind finally snagged on what he heard.

      “Nova?” He tested the name. “Do you Vehicons name yourself… or did someone give that to you?”

      The Vehicons looked between him and each other, then finally settled on him. The left one, Nova, apparently, spoke up. “We name ourselves, what’s it to you?” “ Nova… ”

      “I don’t have a problem with it,” Ratchet raised his servos, grumbling. “Just curious. I’m guessing you were the one with space stickers?”

      “... yes.”

      “And what about you?” The medic waved his hand at the right one, the one that had flags on him before.

      “Oh, I’m Daryn.”

      “... Daryn? ”

      “You got a problem with that, medic?” Nova stepped forward. Aggressive, isn’t he? “No, No, I don’t have problems with either of you,” the ambulance sighed. “I find it odd you chose a human name, rather than a Cybertronian one like your friend.” “I like Daryn— Dar - in, two syllables, very nice to say!” “Syllables..?” “You know, how you separate words!” “... ah. You mean in the… English language. Not Cybertronian. We call those Ci-Glyphs. Or cigs.” “But that means cigarette.” “... what? ”

[-- 𖤓 --]

      “Mister Ratchet, sir—” “ Just. Ratchet. Please, Nova.” “Yes, sir— look, look, does this look okay?” The medic sighed, he’s been doing that more often, and looked over his shoulder. The Vehicon had written his name on a spare datapad. Ratchet quickly penned his connections and praised the escort for doing better than last time.

      Nova sat back down in the corner impromptu ‘dinner table’ of the medibay with Daryn.

      Knock Out strolled up beside the ambulance.

      “Sooo… I guess you’ve become a mother duck, hm?”

      “Shut up.”

      “Yes, Mum~”

      The clang of a flying wrench against an impeccable paint job echoed through the medibay.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Megatron viewed Knock Out, Soundwave, and Shockwave’s reports on Ratchet over the past few weeks. Their new doctor had settled in quite nicely. Yes, despite his reputation as the ‘Hatchet’, he had made friends out of his Decepticons. He allowed a faint smile to cross his scarred, weary face plate. If his Decepticons could make friends, as self-serving and cruel as they may be, all hope could not be lost for the original cause after all…

      It seemed, unexpectedly, Ratchet was the new Beacon of Hope for the Decepticon Movement.

      “So… what are we going to do about our dear Hatchet? ” Starscream drawled, resting his chin on his hand, leaning against the armrests of his chair.

      The Decepticons were gathered together, discussing Ratchet’s place within the Decepticons. Megatron stood at the head of the table, High Command sitting on either side of the seldom-used prismatic furniture. Shockwave and Soundwave sat on the left, and Starscream on the right. Executive Vehicons stood at the port side, and the Executive Eradicons stood behind Starscream.

      Knock Out, similarly, stood beside the door, reluctant to join the other troop leaders.

      “Ratchet has proved himself to be an indispensable asset to our cause… and a beacon of hope for the Decepticons. I, too, have come to understand that the doctor’s presence has impacted the mecha in his presence positively.” Megatron stood, voice booming in the closed meeting room.

      “The Vehicon Mortality Rate has exponentially decreased since Ratchet was admitted to use revival treatments in relevant medical cases,” Shockwave read from a datapad he took from the Vehicon First Sergeant, Brigade (V-PRX.28). “Brigade reports that morale, both in War and Servant class mecha has improved since mortality rates decreased and Ratchet has familiarized himself with many of the squads. He also reports that his squads are more willing to fight and improve their capabilities in a war setting rather than remaining ‘undisciplined cannon fodder,’ in his words.”

      Megatron nodded along. Starscream was filing his claws.

      “It greatly pleases me to hear that, Brigade,” Megatron addressed the presently mute Sergeant, recovering from a damaged voice box, fortunately fixed by Knock Out’s renewed medical knowledge under Ratchet’s guidance. Another mark on the medic’s increasingly positive rapport. Brigade stiffly nodded back and retreated beside the other Vehicon officers.

      Knock Out spoke next.

      “Well, sire… I believe that our new member has been a general net positive! And he looks dreadfully good in Decepticon colors… but I digress. He is an excellent mentor for Breakdown and me, very informative. My only complaint is that the medibay is now horribly overcrowded.”

      “Mortality is down .” Starscream sassed.

      “Not with the wounded, Starscream! “Commander!” “—But with the Good Doctor’s, ah, new friend. You see, he is, as Mister Brigade has graciously summarized, very popular with the Vehicons! And Eradicons! They simply adore the old mech’s war stories and history lessons, and I must admit, he is quite the storyteller!” Knock Out grinned.

      “That’s wonderful to hear, Knock Out, but we don’t care about how the stupid doctor gets along with our troops! We need to know if he is USEFUL!” The Air Commander spat, standing up.

      “Sit down, Starscream! … Knock Out is correct,” Megatron berated.

      “M-My Lord? Whatever do you mean?”

      “You all may recall me ordering that Ratchet retain his name, rather than being subjected to the rather… dehumanizing designation of ‘Subject R,’ yes?” The group nods.

      “I have plans for our newest doctor, for you see, I believe the Decepticons… may have lost their way. We have long been blinded by our hatred of the Autobots, living too deep in the present to remember our past! We stood for something great, once. A dream of freedom and equity, a vision of a future where mecha of any kind can seek fulfillment outside of the caste they were born in!”

      Megatron paused, turning to face his officers.

      And his friend.

      “Look where we are now. Manufacturing ourselves a slave caste .” he brought his hand across the room, addressing the Vehicons and Eradicons, who were uprighted upon the sudden attention. Then, they realized how Megatron confessed to their existence. Then the High Command did.

      “This is not the future my younger self had envisioned. It may have been the future I have been unconsciously building… but it is not a future I will allow!”

      Megatron raised his fist high.

      “I! AM MEGATRON OF TARN!”

      “LEADER OF THE DECEPTICON REBELLION!”

      “THAT is who I am!”

      “Do you remember who you are?!”

      Optics throughout the room brightened, astounded, and disbelieving. Awestruck.

      For many, this would be the first time seeing Megatron as he was, as his original.

      For a few, this was the return of a mech they long thought was dead.

      “ALL HAIL MEGATRON OF TARN!”

      Ratchet sat in the medibay, staring at the same numbers on a spreadsheet he hadn't been reading.

      It was Quiet Time. Daryn and Nova sat on the floor, criss-crossing their bodies— Daryn draping himself perpendicularly atop Nova, reading a sparkling-level datapad and Nova drawing over his writing practice— as Ratchet attempted to work.

      He had only just woken up from another echo of a mech he seemed to know more of than not. Megatron: A cruel bastard, a tyrant, a mech belonging to the most twisted of minds and the most sadistic in Cybertron’s recent history. But… Megatron was also caring, paternal, and passionate. Ratchet’s memory of the leader’s revival comes to mind, that briefest moment, when his world became oversaturated with overwhelming love.

      Now, Ratchet began to understand that evil and good are not independent of one another; more so, they are constructions made of smoke and mirrors. Illusions to justify actions and morality. The Decepticons, a force of ‘evil’, sprang from Megatron’s bottomless well of love, from the most tender part of his spark. The Autobots, created to oppose the terroristic ways of the Decepticons, to give hope for the victims of Cybertron’s destruction, but also contribute to the same issue.

      It doesn’t matter where you point the finger; there’s a person dead, and the death toll welcomes another into the Well.

      Him, his kind, accursed with the title of ‘Blood of Unicron,’ unworthy of walking upon their god’s celestial body because their very existence is tainted. He, a doctor.

      He, a killer.

      He, who is called ‘friend’ by many.

      That was the truth Ratchet was facing, a truth he always knew, buried in the depths of his processor. Good and evil… don’t truly exist. The Decepticons hurt him, Megatron hurt him, he’s reminded of this fact when his wrists click non-functionally and when he glimpses down at the burnt joints. The Decepticons are evil in the sense that they hurt many, but…

      Ratchet was grappling with a new truth now. Lives are valuable, the spark is valuable. But to someone who can make both last indefinitely, truly immortal, what was a life worth? Like humans had taught him… a life is valuable because of how short-lived it is, death gives life meaning; therefore, how far away death is must be directly correlated with that life’s value, right? The youth are valued because death hasn’t even brushed them; they have much to look forward to. The elderly are valued because death looms over their shoulders; they’ve made friends with it, but their earthly ties want to keep them from slipping fully into its arms. And where does that leave a species like Cybertronians?

      Cybertronians, theoretically, can already live forever. Technically, if you were to keep replacing parts, transferring frames, all while supplementing the spark and brain module… it would not be impossible to keep living forever. Things such as stasis contribute, the ability to turn off all non-essential systems, so the cost of being online has been lowered to a degree that they can functionally double their lifespans, given no disturbances. However, for as many ways as there are to live, there is an exponential number of ways to die. Many that were engineered and birthed by fellow Cybertronians.

      Ratchet is familiar with how Cybertronians die. The concept haunts his every action, defines his very being. His existence means death is inevitable.

      The spark is fragile, it requires this exoskeleton of metal and wire to live. Sparks are frighteningly fragile. Until war killed the innocence of the population, only those born in war understood how easy it was to kill a seemingly unkillable species.

      Megatron, like Ratchet, was familiar with death. Death defined his existence, too, or he made it his existence. He wasn’t born a gladiator after all. Nonetheless, death clung to him still, sticking between the joints of each digit and under each perfectly manicured claw, crafted for violence. For death.

      They both were intimate with the concept of an unkillable species being killed. Were responsible for it more than once.

      Ratchet shifted his focus to feel the air in his systems… feeling his fans forcing it through radiators and his cooling systems…

      Being here, working with the Decepticons… teaching them, interacting with them regularly… it exacerbated his chronically conflicted spark.

      But he can’t say he necessarily… regrets it. No, he doesn’t regret helping the soldiers like Nova and Daryn, who are barely the age of Bumblebee. He doesn’t regret getting to know Knock Out, Breakdown, or even Soundwave and… Megatron.

      A smile pulled at his lip, and he glanced back at his two mentees, now arguing over the pronunciation of a glyph in Daryn’s storypad.

      No, he doesn’t regret it at all.

      The Decepticons… were neither good nor evil. The Decepticons were made of good and evil choices. Not good and evil mecha, but individuals that made those choices.

      Ratchet closed the document that he was getting nowhere with, and instead pulled up the camera function and a new data stick. He took a photo.

      He, in the foreground, being the camera operator. Daryn and Nova are in the background, locked to each other’s sides like puzzle pieces, pouring themselves into Cybertronian writing.

      Looking at himself in Decepticon colors, his full black, orange, green… and red rimming his bright cerulean optics…

      It was the most comfortable he’s felt within his own metal in centuries.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave was not obsessed. No matter what Laserbeak said, he was not obsessed with Ratchet.

      Soundwave was also not in denial.

      The Spy Master stared down at the photo the ambulance took of himself and his two Vehicon mentees, going by ‘Daryn’ and ‘Nova’. As a matter of course, he had access to all files on every computing device connected to the Nemesis’ mainframe. Everyone used their personal devices or themselves to take photos, so the possibility of stumbling across photos taken by a Nemesis monitor was… unlikely. But Ratchet kept surprising him.

      So really, it wasn’t his fault if he had a folder with the photos Ratchet would randomly take since his first one with the two Vehicons.

      He was not obsessed.

      He was not in denial.

      Which is why, like all healthy, mature mecha, he locks the camera feature on all Nemesis-connected devices, uploads the photos onto a personal device, and deletes the original ones from the Nemesis files.

      Soundwave then sent a private comm. message to Ratchet, stating that he was visiting the mech’s quarters in half an hour.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave would be the last to admit that he was generally… avoidant of Ratchet. Moreover, he was avoidant of the feelings the mech gave him.

      The mech was a soft spot in the way rot softens a fruit. A sign that there was no worth in that fruit anymore. No worth in Soundwave to have such softness. Ratchet, for some inexplicable reason, became a blackhole in his processor— a force of attraction so strong it destroys everything in its path.

      He wasn’t aware of the development until recently, when he felt… uncharacteristic urges. The kind of compulsion he thought he had long outgrown. The kind of impulsivity that Megatron spurred in him. That Orion and Optimus did. And that realization made Soundwave admittedly… nervous.

      Soundwave found himself… wanting for the medic’s presence, and has coped with that sensation by religiously tracking the doctor through the ship's cameras and creating an alarm that alerted him when the ambulance was within two turns of Soundwave’s office. He had also learned that Ratchet was a conversationalist, to his utter devastation (He had secretly hoped the doctor would be good company, but also feared that possibility. In part due to his ‘emotional constipation’ and his ‘crippling anxiety’. In Laserbeak’s words).

      The few times he willingly met the Nemesis’ newest ‘recruit’ was when he truly felt ready to be in his presence. When Soundwave felt… stable enough, emotionally and physically, to interact with an unknown variable. True as it is that the Decepticon has been keeping tabs on the ex-Autobot for much longer than said ex-Autobot’s duration on the ship… and had interacted with him before, no less… Soundwave simply didn’t know where he stood with the medic anymore.

      They were rivals, enemies, at first. And that was easy. Any emotion or sympathy felt could be disregarded for the interest of Megatron and his mission, as he is well-practiced in doing. Being a prisoner and captive was just as easy. However…

      Soundwave couldn’t have predicted this… switch.

      Ratchet had sorted himself into a nebulous, undefinable place on the ship.

      A… friend.

      And possibly… a true Decepticon.

      Yes, Soundwave had wished for this outcome, had fantasized and argued for a world with the doctor and his powers to be at their endless disposal.

      But Soundwave has dreamt, wished, fantasized, argued, and hallucinated before. He knew it was unlikely for Ratchet to turn his back on his precious Prime’s ideals.

      However, the pieces, in pure luck, landed in just the right way at just the right time… for such a possibility. A miracle. And Soundwave held no faith in miracles. He believed in miracles, yes— meeting Megatron, Ratchet’s (possibly) Unicron-given power of resurrection, and…

      Megatron’s moral resuscitation.

      All were miracles. But Soundwave did not believe that miracles happen when he wished for them— miracles happen by chance.

      Primus must be laughing at him. Throwing Soundwave his short-term fascination to him but not his centuries-long yearning and love. To give Megatron back his mission and rationality, but not Soundwave, the return of his devotion.

      Perhaps it was destiny that Megatron would forever remain out of Soundwave’s grasp (and maybe that was true for Ratchet and Optimus, too. He wasn’t blind. Maybe he rested in denial with himself and Megatron, but from an outsider’s view, the infatuation from the medic was painfully apparent. And painfully familiar).

      So he stands in front of Ratchet’s habsuite doors an hour and a half later because he said he would and because he determined he was more prepared to face the medic.

      The doors slid open, and he manually kept himself relaxed and focused on the oil flowing through his galleries and the faster-than-average spin of his spark.

      “Soundwave,” Ratchet curtly greeted. “Come in— you said you wanted to see me?”

      He thought of saying something.

      He nodded instead.

      Ratchet didn’t seem to mind.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      “This is a dream.”

      “It is not.”

      Ratchet was starting to get familiar with the sound of the artificial voice Soundwave adopted when not using voice clips. It was low with a slightly breathy quality and noticeably accented, however subtly it sounded. It reverberated pleasantly in his audio receptors. His voice sounded remarkably familiar to a character on one of Miko’s televised shows. Kevin Michael Richardson was the voice actor for this character— a green-skinned man from Earth’s sister planet, Mars. Apparently. He remembered because Miko was certain that the man could mimic Bulkhead’s voice perfectly, but he was unconvinced.

      No human could imitate Cybertronian vocalizations without the use of technology.

      Regardless, the voice was similar enough to the actor’s performance, and Ratchet admittedly found it… pleasing. He had a preference for deep voices. Evidently.

      But his affinity for Soundwave’s artificial voice had nothing to do with the scenario the medic was in now, being that he was outside of the Nemesis for the first time in what felt like years. And…

      They were on the cliff.

      The cliff.

      The cliff.

      Ratchet’s special cliff where he watched the sun rise. Where he had ‘recently’ (it was technically a recent development, but it felt so long ago) began feeding Pest treats on a metal mesh blanket. Where the sand became gold, and he momentarily forgot all his woes.

      It was morning, approaching midday. Long past his preferred hours of visiting…

      But this was so much more than he could ever ask for or expect.

      “This has to be a dream.”

      “Soundwave: can confirm that Ratchet is currently online.” Then the cheeky bastard smacked Ratchet’s back with a data cable. Aft.

      “Quit it. Surely you recognize how unbelievable this situation is— what reason do you have to bring me here? Does Megatron know I’m out here?!” Ratchet, for all intents and purposes, was incredulous, confused, and vaguely terrified. However, both of them could feel the undercurrent of gratitude from the disbelief.

      “Megatron: has been experiencing…” Soundwave considered his next words carefully. “Megatron: has had a second awakening.”

      Ratchet scoffed. “Was that supposed to mean something to me?” Soundwave could sense the disingenuity from another planet.

      “Ratchet: is supernally connected to Lord Megatron through your supernatural abilities. Ratchet: experiences Lord Megatron’s memories, and Lord Megatron shares Ratchet’s memories.”

      The ambulance quieted.

      “Conclusion: an abduction, drawn from extended observation between Ratchet and Lord Megatron.”

      “I see.”

      “Ratchet: should know more than anyone what an awakening is for Lord Megatron.”

      “Should I be scared? Just look at what happened the last time he had an ‘awakening,’” Ratchet grumbled. “Negative: Lord Megatron has rediscovered the Decepticon mission and is attempting slow reforms.” Soundwave turned to Ratchet, fully addressing him. The medic’s gaze stayed on the horizon.

      “Status Quo: has been disturbed too frequently; too much. Extreme Change: expected. However… Soundwave: could not predict such a miracle.”

      “I didn’t take you for a believer in miracles.”

      “I am not.”

      Upon arriving back on the Nemesis, Soundwave immediately abandoned Ratchet.

      The medic found no reason to pursue the mech after that moment on the cliff… Ratchet may be dealing with his own existentialism, but he had long clocked that everyone in this Primus-forsaken war was 1) traumatized and 2) emotionally constipated. As he imagined Miko would say, or any of the children he was, concededly, missing dearly.

      Nova and Daryn were there to accompany him to his room. They had been applying new stickers to each other.

      “We brought paint in your room and a bunch of tarps, so don’t worry about the mess!” Daryn said as they walked. “If you don’t want us in your room, it’s fine, we can sit out in the hall,” Nova proposed.

      “You can stay in my room.”

      The bestickered Vehicons did a celebratory clap.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      The Vehicons had to sit outside anyway, because, of course, when all Ratchet sought was a mildly peaceful night to be appropriately freaked out by his and Soundwave’s… moment, Megatron wanted to talk.

      Of course, the Vehicons didn’t mind giving them privacy, so that left Ratchet presently standing in front of Megatron, who had taken to sitting on the end of Ratchet’s berth. It thankfully put them at a more even height, so the medic didn’t mind as much, but…

      He didn’t try to conceal the faint anxiety and slight annoyance in his field.

      “Medic Ratchet.”

      “Lord Megatron.”

      “Just Megatron.”

      “What?”

      “I… find myself uncomfortable with the title. For obvious reasons.”

      “Yes… obvious reasons. ”

      Megatron sighed, but it sounded far more harrowing with his strained vocoder.

      “I am under no illusion that you are somehow oblivious to our connection. I am not dumb. ”

      “I never said you were. Megatron.”

      “... You are not making this easy, Doctor.”

      “Was I meant to? Megatron… Soundwave informed me that you had announced your intentions with the future of the Decepticons. And forgive me if I don’t exactly buy into this… what you did, in kinder words than what I mean, was rash.” Ratchet exhaled with visible strain.

      “I am not meaning that I am against your decision, but surely you must realize this will cause dissent amongst your troops? And what of the thousands you have stationed amongst the stars?”

      “I will release a statement, and the message will be carried by every mech who hears it. Word spreads quicker than you give it credit for, Doctor.” Megatron retorted.

      “You didn’t answer my first question.”

      “ I will handle it, Doctor Ratchet. ”

      “…”

      Ratchet took in air and vented with a harsh puff.

      “Even with our… connection,  I am still very reluctantly trusting you. You are manipulative, and you lie every time you open that face hole. However, I don’t think you can lie about this… and not to me. I know how much this faction means to you, and you know what it meant for me… for mecha like me. ” The last sentence tapered into a tremulous whisper, more air than sound.

      “Please, handle the Decepticons… delicately. We are not fragile, but the faction has been spiralling since even before Praxus’s destruction. Treat this with care and tact like you never have before, use that damn clever processor for something other than violence. I know you can, Megatron. ”

      Megatron said nothing about Ratchet identifying as a Decepticon. He listened.

      “I understand. Thank you, Ratchet.”

      And Megatron hefted his large frame up from Ratchet’s berth and left.

      Subject R sat with its back against the wall, picking at its joints mindlessly, waiting for Soundwave. Starscream refused to ‘babysit’ it, so he told it to call Soundwave, so it did. Except, it didn’t know what to say when Soundwave responded. Instead, the TiC would ask clarifying questions, and Subject R would respond with a simple yes or no.

      Yes, it was in its room.

      Yes, it is alone.

      No, its escorts weren’t here. They had to help with transporting energon since the Nemesis docked.

      And yes, it felt safe.

      So Soundwave told it to sit in its room until he came to take care of it. Soundwave’s artificial voice somehow sounded warm, each subharmonic layer blending into a calming wash of sound against Subject R’s audials. It helped it feel more at ease. It had been feeling off-kilter since Ratchet faded out.

      Subject R knew itself to be a version of Ratchet, not a separate entity. Simply a state of mind. But it felt different enough from its usual that it felt like it may as well be a different mech. But it wasn’t a different mech.

      It was…

      Yes, just a state of mind. Just a way to cope when the memories are too hard. It remembered it had woken up from one of Megatron’s more violent and traumatizing memories: seeing Cybertron go dark and realizing he would never come back to it. Ratchet had woken up and quickly dissociated, which resulted in its current state.

      Subject R.

      When Ratchet could safely detach from overwhelming thoughts and emotions, it could calmly process subconsciously.

      It was useful, if a bit unhealthy. But it was better than the pure repression from before, so Subject R settled.

      It privately wondered what Team Prime, what Optimus, would do if they were confronted with this state. It wondered if they would accept that the Ratchet they knew would not be coming back to them.

      The thought faded as it came, before it could do any damage to its fragile self-esteem. Ratchet was still attempting to rebuild it from the ground up since his revelation from a few (approximately 2) weeks ago. It was slow-going, but better than nothing.

      Sounds of heavy metal soles meeting heavier metal ground, marching toward his door, vanished its pondering. The doors slid open to reveal Soundwave beyond them.

      Subject R silently watched the TiC walk in, shutting the doors behind him.

      “Subject R: Feeling well?”

      “Yes.” Its responses were concise and spoken subdued tone.

      “Ratchet: Will feel ready soon?”

      “… not soon.”

      “Ratchet: is fine. Will take all the time he needs.”

      “Thank you… and it’s… ‘its’ right now. For now. I don’t know.”

      “Ratchet: feels it's an it but still Ratchet?”

      “… I don’t know.”

      “Ratchet: is fine. Ratchet: can be ‘it’.”

      “Thank you… again,” the ex-Autobot murmured, picking at its joints once more.

      “Soundwave: Happy to assist. Ratchet: Would be amiable to music?”

      Ratchet smiled.

      “You don’t have to ask to play music… actually, Soundwave, ah…” The Subject mulled its next words over, chewing them between its teeth with uncertainty. “You’re… welcome here. In my room. At any time, for anything.” He spoke quickly. “With forewarning, of course, but uh, once you’re invited… you’re welcome to most activities.”

      …

      “Soundwave: feels great gratitude. Ratchet: is very kind…”

      “You’ve done a lot for me.”

      Soundwave sat next to Ratchet on the berth, the former scooting to make room. Soon, the melodious sound of a foreign whistling instrument filled the air, accompanied by soft percussion and more strings joining and harmonizing the melody. The music swelled, waxing and waning, cycling in sweeping legatos the full range of a yearning sensation.

      Ratchet found it pleasant.

      “Ratchet: … still wishes to leave the Decepticons?”

      The subject waited until the next song to answer: a lovely quartet of singing crystals.

      “… I wish I could say, whole-spark, that I do… but I think you know that I’ve gotten… attached. I- I’ve found myself doubting that same judgment my spark has made. That I truly see myself as… as a Decepticon. It goes against everything I’ve… I’ve worked towards,” Ratchet confessed, so softly he feared the mech beside him couldn’t hear over the sound of music.

      But Soundwave heard him. He usually does.

      “Ratchet: is conflicted. It is torn between its desires and reality. Soundwave: agrees that Ratchet is a Decepticon, but Ratchet must return to the Autobots.”

      The subject stared at its hands, gently rubbing a thumb on the inner side of its digit’s joints.

      “Soundwave: … has taken the liberty to assist Ratchet’s Autobots.”

      Its head whipped around, eyes wide, golden yellow hue shining brighter in excitement.

      “What- what do you mean? D- Do you know when? Who?”

      “Soundwave: sent a message to Autobots Bulkhead and Arcee through Laserbeak. Subject: The Nemesis’ flight schedule for the next two months. The Nemesis: is docked for one day out of them.”

      “Today… they-they’ll be here today?! ” Ratchet shot up to his feet, the cloudy gaze of Subject R left behind.

      “I- I- I can’t believe this! You- YOU of all mecha! Helping me! ” He grinned, eyes alit. “Soundwave… thank you. ” The medic clasped the darker mech’s hands within his, meeting his eyes through the visor— at least he thought he was. They could feel the differences between their servo types clearly— the way Ratchet’s short digits and rounded tips curled around Soundwave’s long spindles unbidden by such an obvious incompatibility…

      And Ratchet’s field had extended, initially without his realizing it. It spread around Soundwave’s form, warmth hugging from every surface, the medic shared the fluttery madness racking his systems and seizing his self-control. It almost overwhelmed Soundwave… but it didn’t. No sensory nightmare, just the somewhat anxiety-filled sensation of sharing another’s feelings. A sensation of just enough panic— feeling filled to the brim but not overflowing. Not drowning.

      Perfectly manageable.

      Soundwave… could enjoy this. With Ratchet.

      The Spy Master doesn’t open his field, but he was fine basking in Ratchet’s and soaking in the sensation of the medic’s digits around his.

      He made the right choice.

[-- ♫ --]

      Soundwave could admit that his decision to betray the Decepticons by directly assisting the enemy was perfunctory at best and reckless at worst; however, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought it through before. He simply enacted the plan with little thought before he met with Shockwave, which was to decide whether Soundwave should think he was sound (heh) of mind or not for his decision.

      He concluded that he had made the right decision and was further emboldened to confront High Command throughout the past two weeks about his decision, starting with the low-stakes players.

      Safe to say, Knock Out and Breakdown were only mildly upset about their timetable on Ratchet’s return to the Autobots moving up. They knew as well as anyone that the medic had to return eventually.

      Knock Out had commented, expressing gratitude for having given Ratchet ‘a dashing new look for his dashing escape!’ and had promptly laughed at his own joke. Knock Out regularly confounded Soundwave. This was not new information.

      Breakdown displayed more remorse over the group’s rocky beginnings, especially over Ratchet’s ‘induction’ into the Decepticons via ‘crazy mad scientist, don’t let the logical act fool you,’ using his red-helmed partner’s words. Soundwave didn’t even try to defend his friend. It was an apt description.

      He moved directly up to Starscream for his next conversation.

      Starscream began fussy, like in most conversations, barred direct confrontation with Lord Megatron. The SiC was remiss toward Ratchet’s eventual departure and ended up lecturing the Spy Master of loyalty (A time it must be to have the conversation from Starscream to Soundwave. Desperate times.) Soundwave marked the conversation as a success when the greyed Seeker waved him away, screeching about ‘getting out of my sight!’ before the doors slammed shut to his room.

      Soundwave questioned himself on why he bothered with the incorrigible Seeker before reminding himself that he held his position for a reason. Starscream can be competent. Excel, even. Unfortunately, the Decepticons had become masters of self-sabotage, as of late. Soundwave himself is now among that crowd.

      He would have been the highest ranked to join if Megatron hadn’t been the greatest offender, competing with Starscream himself.

      Soundwave truly surrounded himself with idiots. His idiots.

      Those two conversations happened within the first week till the Nemesis’ docking day and Ratchet’s escape day.

      The Spy Master was stalling for several days of the second week before confronting Nova and Daryn. That conversation was awkward and involved fake sobbing (“Well it’s not like I can actually cry! How else do I express my fatal sadness! I’ll die of a broken spark!” “You’re a dumb aft, Daryn.” “Your dumb aft!”) Overall, the two guards took it remarkably well. Each pointed out how it was inevitable and they were only disappointed they hadn’t thought of helping first, then elaborated they’d fix that oversight by directly helping the Autobots rescue Ratchet on the day of.

      ‘Don’t try to stop us!’ ‘Yeah, you may think you’re tough shit, and I’m sure you are, but we’ll still find a way to surpass you!’ ‘Yeah!’

      Soundwave was horribly reminded of Frenzy and Rumble, of his symbiotes in general. The missing pieces of his spark ached, and he felt resolute in Ratchet’s attachment to the two roguish Vehicons. If a firefight broke out, he would do his best to protect the bestickered couple.

      The next ‘conversation’ was a notice sent to all the troops within the Nemesis, directed to all private comms except for High Command and Ratchet. The ship-wide notice simply contained a date and a summary of what was likely to happen, a warning not to engage, and clear instructions not to share what the notice said under any circumstances.

      Soundwave silently thanked the Vehicon leaders for their competence when they privately organized their crews, providing a brief of the situation and producing a concise list of reasonable follow-up questions to Soundwave through a private comm. All without alerting the upper brass.

      He returned the list with his responses and received a thank you back for his quick response. The rest of the week, not even a peep of news concerning the escape day, at least, not where he could hear, which was more than enough secrecy for him.

      And at this point, he could admit he was stalling.

      It was the day he had talked to Ratchet, and Megatron was still none the wiser of today’s planned events.

      Soundwave… hadn’t talked to Megatron in months, truthfully. Not since those few halcyon days when his lord had been revived, newly minted as he had been in his glory days. Back when he had that one-off fantasy of awaking beside his lord in a berth they shared…

      Truthfully, he had gotten more estranged from Megatron. The closest he had felt to truly knowing him in the past… centuries was that fateful meeting, Megatron’s announcement to reform the Decepticons. To embrace its revolutionary roots once more. His spark had soared then, a long untapped reservoir of old hopes and spirit flowed through his frame like fresh energon, alighting his passion anew.

      It felt like an awakening. In more ways than one.

      And it oddly felt like goodbye.

      Megatron had gone through his own journey to arrive back at the beginning. Soundwave recognized it that day.

      His lord didn’t need him anymore.

      Lord Megatron was a bygone era.

      Megatron… Megatron wasn’t back; he’d never be that mech again. Not after everything, no. But… a piece of that mech lived on through the Megatron of the present. And the Megatron of the present didn’t need Soundwave.

      The Decepticons had universally acknowledged Soundwave as the backbone of the faction, there to ground Megatron’s boundless passion and lofty goals. And Starscream was the tool, the means to achieve that goal, there to support and rise with Megatron. It was a dynamic they had been eager to embrace, one that had worked for a long time thereafter.

      Until things began changing.

      Until Cybertron went dark.

      Until The Exodus.

      No one dared to utter it aloud, but it was an unspoken feeling. An agreement with no words.

      Everyone felt the impending decline of the Decepticons further into darkness. The bloodthirsty crowd looking to benefit from war and dissent rose to overpower the voices of those old revolutionaries with ideals and ideas of ‘justice, not vengeance.’ New propaganda began circling. ‘Peace through Tyranny.’

      Shockwave began his experiments with mass-produced drones to distribute to stations lacking in numbers, that would need to feed less and train less to deal with the sudden drop of supplies, energon, and soldiers.

      The Vehicon was born, and a new slave-caste was instated into the Decepticon faction.

      Megatron needed Soundwave then, when things were spiraling, and Starscream came out of more meetings needing a tune-up or an energon patch because tables were flipped and energon cubes were wasted.

      But was it ever Soundwave’s responsibility to fix Megatron?

      … It had to be. Because no one else could.

      The dynamic fell apart.

      And then they arrived on Earth.

      They failed.

      Megatron left for five years, promising an army. Neither Soundwave nor Starscream could stop him.

      He came back with dark energon.

      And then he ‘died.’

      He still needed Soundwave then. Needed him to pull together whatever scraps he could so his lord and longest unrequited love could remain alive.

      Soundwave had lost… lost too much to even consider letting Megatron go. No, leaving him dead wasn’t an option.

      And then, just on a chance day, snooping for intel, not truly expecting to find anything… his saving grace. Evidence of an outlier ability in one Autobot medic positioned coincidentally on the same planet, who could revive the dead for the price that the life must be taken by the medic’s own hand.

      Soundwave had said it before. He believed in miracles in the sense of spontaneous happenstance, which irreversibly affected his life, so had it not happened… he would not recognize the self from that outcome.

      He had admitted before, his meeting with Ratchet in this way, through his ability, was nothing short of a miracle.

      He’s trodden this path before, revisited this thought many times in the recesses of sleepless nights and daydreams.

      Meeting and knowing Ratchet the way he had was a miracle. And he would not recognize himself had it not happened. He could well theorize what may have happened.

      Ratchet’s untapped potential and maintaining his venerable denial until the day he would inevitably get caught in the crossfire.

      Megatron likely would be revived through more unsavory means (In any reality, Soundwave had faith his master would find a way to live, one of the qualities he shared with Starscream).

      And Soundwave… would have shared Ratchet’s fate.

      Vehement denial of who he was, what he was, specifically to Megatron… and he would meet his own end. Caught in the crossfire between Megatron and the Autobots. Loyal until the end.

      But Soundwave would not allow Ratchet or himself to succumb to such a fate. Because Megatron didn’t need Soundwave.

      An older version of himself would surely self-destruct if he had such a revelation.

      However, Soundwave was different now, in all the ways that mattered. He had, inexplicably, miraculously, created an identity outside of ‘Soundwave, Third in Command, Spy Master, Lord Megatron’s lapdog. ’ No, he was more than that; he knew this because the mech who loved Ratchet, who would betray the Decepticons to defy fate, was not Megatron’s lapdog, the TiC, the Spy Master.

      It was Soundwave, a listener of music, incorrigible gossip, and Ratchet’s friend.

      Maybe more than that.

      And it was this Soundwave that would march into his old flame’s quarters for the sake of his new flame.

      Soundwave, friend of Ratchet, would speak to Megatron, friend of someone.

      Entering Megatron’s quarters felt familiar. The lights were dimmed and Soundwave recognized the ariose sound of music drifting through the entryway. Laycroon’s Lament, composed and performed by Condor, was written as a love letter to his favored opera, one of Soundwave’s favorite pieces. Megatron had expected him.

      “I’m not occupied by anything urgent, Soundwave… come inside old friend,” Megatron called from further than the dark mech could see.

      Soundwave’s spark warmed with the old moniker, no bitter undertone overtaking it.

      He wandered in, following the sound of the lament as it cycled through the verses detailing Laycroon’s want for identity, underscored by a heavy melodious percussion. Soundwave knew the song by heart, had met the composer once, and recorded her live performance, which Megatron was playing now.

      Megatron sat in a chair beside a short, rectangular storage compartment for datapads, and knowing Megatron, physical copies of his favorite writings. The chair overlooked the glass wall of Megatron’s room and the deck beyond. They had docked at a lee, a ways away from the ocean.

      The music was being played by a cassette player. A nostalgic piece of equipment… and one of Soundwave’s first alt-modes.

      “This planet may be inhabited by pests… but I could never bring myself to let the population degrade the world they dwell on. They have a beautiful planet, poisoned by Unicron or otherwise,” Megatron confessed, voice low, the rasp softer than it would be at his normal volume.

      Soundwave unlatched his visor… and let the de-transformed pieces retreat around his helm.

      “Soundwave: … Agrees with Megatron’s assessment. Earth is beautiful.” His lips are too scarred to move, never mind the pieces of his mandible that were missing, but the sound comes out from the speakers embedded in his throat, amplifying the sound of his vocoder. He used his artificial voice. His real one saw its last use a long time ago.

      “Yes… but you did not come here to speak of this planet’s beauty over Laycroon’s Lament, did you? You may wonder how I knew you would see me today. Let’s just say, Starscream and most of this crew… are not subtle when it comes to anxiety. They never let slip what was meant to happen today, but I had heard you were making rounds. Talking to people. Very unlike you, old friend,” Megatron gave a gravelly chuckle, like rocks in a grinder.

      “I assumed you would come see me today, seeing as you haven’t attempted to approach me in the past few… At least I enjoyed going through our library of songs, picking which memories to re-experience… My gladiator roots demanded I be appropriately prepared for our inevitable conversation.” The Decepticon joked at the expense of his theatrical tendencies. Soundwave silently nodded, optics narrowing in facsimile to a smile.

      “Well, Soundwave? What have you come to see me for? Or would you prefer we finish the song first? It is quite good and I know you are particularly fond of it…”

      “Soundwave: Would like to finish the song.”

      He was not stalling. Not at all.

      The midnight mech stood beside Megatron’s sat form, accompanying him in observing the ocean in the distance, the sparse clouds rolling across the blue sky. A perfect summer day by human standards. Soundwave then chose to confront the song he was passively intaking.

      Condor’s mournful alto tone carried the song forward, building a push-and-pull momentum through crescendos and diminuendos. The end of her lines quavered in artistic expression of desperation, slowly developing into a stentorian climax in forte, her notes climbing up and up as she declared Laycroon’s doomed story.

      Laycroon in The Spark of Primus was a side character constantly used by others to further their own goals, barely considered her own mech by the world she lived in and by the story. She existed purely as an exploration into the darker part of the opera’s theme of Transformation and how constant adaptation to others’ needs can lead to tragedy and loss of identity.

      In a twist of dramatic irony, Laycroon never gets the identity she sought, dying in the second act, still a tool for her masters.

      Many critiqued The Spark of Primus for mishandling Laycroon’s character or for fumbling its themes.

      Condor was one who loved Laycroon’s character as it was written… and had made her lament as a tribute to the complex themes of the character, which reignited appreciation for the story and its characters, and a new love for Laycroon. This included Soundwave, who had never heard of The Spark of Primus until listening to Condor’s Laycroon’s Lament for the first time. He remembered feeling the yearning within the song so strongly he thought himself glitched upon the conclusion of it.

      He remembered being vaguely disappointed that the song wasn’t actually in the opera, but had attended a performance with a Senator anyway.

      He hadn’t known then how alike he and Laycroon were and would be. Except, Soundwave did not intend to die without an identity beyond a symbol of what happened when one transformed themselves utterly to others’ needs.

      With that thought came the dwindling cords he associated with the end of Laycroon’s Lament, Condor singing the scale down into a long doleful note, ending simultaneously with the music, then a strangled gasp.

      The dying breath of Laycroon.

      Soundwave let himself bask in the silence at the end of a song before speaking to Megatron.

      “Today: There will be Autobots coming to rescue Ratchet. Soundwave: Has informed everyone of this event. Soundwave: Gave the Autobots the Nemesis flight schedule. Soundwave: Intends for the Decepticons and Megatron to do nothing.”

      The silence stretched on.

      “Soundwave…” said mech tensed at the low growl of Megatron’s voice, “if you would kindly inform me of your reasoning behind your decision, if any? I’d hope there was. Surely I was not mistaken when I called you the smartest mech I know, second to none, back in our glory days…”

      “Megatron: Was not mistaken. Soundwave: Superior.”

      “Then explain.”

      “Soundwave: … Has become attached to Ratchet. Soundwave: Is a friend to Ratchet. Ratchet: Cannot stay here. It would break his spark one day.”

      “I see. And that is your only reasoning for leaking Decepticon intel and staging, what, for all intents and purposes, is a coup… because it would break your new friend’s spark to stay here. Am I correct?”

      “Megatron: … Is not mistaken.”

      “I see.”

      Megatron heaved air through his vents.

      Soundwave does not speak and does not move, trying to remain unseen and unnoticeable to the aggravated mech.

      Megatron drags a few more cooling intakes before attempting to speak, temper withheld.

      “I almost admire your audacity, but I cannot say I am surprised. The things you did for me once I had earned my loyalty… were leagues worse than this. Fine, the Autobots may take Ratchet unhindered if our dearest medic so desires to remain with them. I have been meaning to get ahold of Optimus Prime… to discuss our factions going forward. Perhaps our wayward medic is the key to resolution,” Megatron mulled over the idea aloud. Soundwave felt the tension release from his joints.

      “Then it is decided. I will not interfere. I congratulate you for mobilizing everyone on a shared goal— how you managed that is beyond me.” Megatron shook his head, looking almost… amused.

      “If you wish to wait out the oncoming storm with me you are welcome to. I… may be wishing for my old friend’s company.” The poet offered, uncharacteristically vulnerable. He looked like the unestablished, yet spirited, miner Soundwave knew before.

      “Soundwave: Is needed to supervise.”

      “Very well, those imbeciles need it.”

      And Soundwave had… concluded all of his business for the day.

      The Autobots awaited him.

[-- 𖤓 --]

      Ratchet was nestled in the alcove, that small literal window to the outside world. It oversaw a sliver of the Nemesis’s many wings, the rest was a sparsely forested wood, green fading into yellow-white sand. Dotted in the distance, almost imperceptible if not for a Cybertronian’s enhanced sight, were human houses. A spread of brown roofs and tan siding or brick.

      Across the hall, Nova and Daryn had their backs against the wall, sitting on the floor. Between the pairs’ legs was a game of Primes and Protectors. Ratchet had taught them how to play a few days ago and the couple managed to find a physical copy in a supply closet. Somehow.

      They brought the board everywhere and turned it on to play every chance they got. Nova was winning this round, telling from the sound of Daryl’s winces and whines every time he fumbled a piece.

      The two told Ratchet that everyone on the ship already knew of his departure on this day, much to his bafflement. He decided for his own sanity to be thankful that bloodshed would be less likely.

      “Uh, Ratchet?” Daryn called from his side of the corridor.

      “Yes?”

      “You, uhm… I know it’s a dumb question, but will you really leave…?” The Vehicon’s question dwindled in confidence as he spoke it. “I mean… Megatron’s tryna reform and stuff, right? It’s not like… one-hundred percent guarantee we’re back to enemies and can’t see each other… right, Ratchet?” His tone turned pleading, each word an uptick in pitch.

      Ratchet had wanted to avoid this line of thought.

      When Soundwave confessed his plan, of course, he’d been ecstatic. As much as he enjoyed his time with the Decepticons, sans the torture and chronic pain in his servos, he belonged with his team and his humans. Sure, memories escaped him, but his spark knew they were precious.

      And he had left them with no answers.

      He had to confront them again. To explain himself— explain everything.

      Because he knew now that the Decepticons meant something to him, they always had. Ever since the movement began, Ratchet had yearned for the kind of acceptance the Nemesis crew gave him. He was… fond of many of the mecha who likely put hundreds of Autobots on his operating table. But the same could be said of any other Autobot.

      No one is innocent in war if you’re in it.

      And Ratchet would have to make peace with it. No mech could escape this conflict without energon on their hands, so there really wasn’t a point in getting up and arms about the sins of the Decepticons he’d grown to love.

      They all shared their sin.

      So… Ratchet would regret those deaths and wish for their peace in the Well, with Primus. But he won’t make himself responsible for every death done by Decepticon hands and punish himself for seeing the other side as they are: mechas just like them, trying to survive, trying to go home, trying to live.

      No, he wouldn’t stop loving the Decepticons. He wouldn’t stop loving the Autobots either. He wouldn’t stop loving Cybertronians… and that somehow included himself. Included outliers. He loved himself or maybe he will, but he loved the Nemesis crew and he allowed himself to do that. He was allowed to care and allowed to give himself happiness and Primus-dammit he loved the Decepticons and he loved Soundwave!

      “I’ll find a way to stay here, once in a while. Can’t get rid of me that easy— who else will teach you Cybertronian board games and make sure you keep up with schooling?”

      “Wait. Seriously? Won’t the Autobots, like… not allow that?” Nova looked at him in disbelief despite the generic face.

      “The Autobots don’t allow a lot of things. We still do a lot of those things. I do not mind breaking a few more of those and they can’t stop me anyhow. I voluntarily chose to be a provisional Decepticon medic and consultant. I’m not even fully under Autobot law anymore.” Ratchet waves his hand stiffly, avoiding aggravating the still-raw nerves.

      “… You’re pretty cool for a walking scrap-heap, old man.”

      “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Ratchet drawled, poorly hiding his amusement (though he wasn’t really trying).

      He resumed staring through the window, the Vehicon pair following his example and silently playing.

      The brief silence was broken by the familiar sound of the Decepticon TiC’s pedesteps echoing in the Nemesis ship’s halls. Ratchet didn’t turn to look, but he glanced over his shoulder when he tracked the sound directly behind him, a faint shadow falling over him where Soundwave blocked the dim hallway lights. Ratchet returned to the view.

      “Autobot ETA: Fifteen minutes. Ratchet: Should move to the Bridge. Optimus: Predicted to be present. Megatron: Wishes to speak with him. The Bridge: Logical choice for a meeting.”

      “You sounded like Shockwave, for a moment there…” Ratchet mumbled. “I’ll be there, and… I’d prefer it if we went now.”

      “Soundwave: Will accompany Ratchet. Vehicons: Vacate to your barracks.” The Spy Master turned and didn’t bother looking to see if the pair complied or if Ratchet had begun to follow him.

      Ratchet followed quietly.

[-- ♫ --]

      “Soundwave.”

      Soundwave stopped as he heard Ratchet’s footsteps stop. He heard the urgency in the shorter mech’s voice, the slight quiver pronouncing the ‘wa’ glyph of his name. The thinness of his voice puts more air between ‘S’ and ‘ou,’ creating Ratchet’s distinct blend of an upper Iacon accent and a Kaonite one.

      The midnight mech turned around to see Ratchet, hands on his sides, his right one fidgeting, his thumb rubbing the side of his first finger. His black and red companion kept his golden gaze on the ground, lips fixed in a grimace he wished he could wipe away. His eyebrows pinched in that way Soundwave always found cute whenever the medic was particularly concentrated.

      “Ratchet: Is concerned?” Soundwave lowered the tone of his artificial voice, bringing more warmth and resonance within the chest for a sense of comfort and stability. The kind of voice that came naturally to Optimus Prime.

      The medic took a few moments to answer, chewing on his words, trying to taste their outcome if he were to spit them.

      “… Soundwave,” he repeated his name, aureate optics realigning to meet the taller mech’s visor. “The war is going to end soon.”

      “I’ll make sure of it,” Ratchet blurted it out like a secret he wasn’t supposed to tell before smoothing his voice and continuing with confidence, “I cannot stand by and let mecha keep dying. I never thought I’d say this but I love the Decepticons.”

      He let those words linger in the air, linger in Soundwave’s audials, let it sink in before he inevitably pushed it outside in favor of listening to the rest of his medic’s speech.

      “I love the Autobots too, I– I care for both sides, and I may be more comfortable with my ability, with what it requires me to do, with its side effects, but I refuse to keep bringing back mecha from death, knowing they will go back and fight! It’s been what I’ve been thinking even before now, just as a medic, the best medic on Cybertron because I didn’t want to use my ability! AND I STILL LET MECHA DIE.

      “Cybertron… us, WE deserve to go home. To rebuild. I will never say it will be easy, but this is the first time in a long time we’re even close to it being possible. Megatron has finally come to his senses, everyone on this ship is tired of war or has seen nothing but war! The Decepticons were made so that future generations could live knowing they didn’t have to waste away on a mining planet millions of lightyears away from their own home planet because mecha who didn’t even know them said that because they were born with a certain alt-mode in a certain caste, they deserved it! But now our new generation is being onlined for war.” Ratchet took in a quavering gasp of air.

      Soundwave looked down at the red-black ambulance.

      Ratchet’s wide optics fluctuated, zooming in and out .001 centimeters at a time, their glow vacillating from dim to bright.

      They stood in that hallway for a time. Three minutes, to be exact, according to Soundwave’s chronometer. Three long minutes of just… thinking. Processing.

      When Ratchet spoke again, he had his fists clenched in a way Soundwave knew would hurt him, but he wouldn’t interrupt. Not now.

      “The war will end. Not today, no, but… I would like to facilitate the possibility of… peace talks. Soon. By next month, to be precise and wishful. And I need you to make it happen because you’re the only one who could make the idiots on this ship even consider listening to reason. And I… I’ll handle the Autobots separately. But know this:

      No matter how long it takes, we will see each other on the other side of the war, not on other sides within it. Understand me? Do you understand me, Soundwave?”

      “Soundwave: Understands.”

      “Soundwave: Understands you perfectly.”

      Ratchet straightened his back, chin held high despite the way his lower lip trembled.

      “Good. Good. Then that means it has to happen. We will make it happen.”

      “Soundwave and Ratchet: Superior.”

      Ratchet laughed, though it came out as a cough from surprise.

      “Yes… yes, Ratchet and Soundwave are superior.” He shook his head, smiling. Soundwave couldn’t tell if he was in disbelief or amused. It was likely both.

      “Let’s get to the Bridge now, okay? I’ve spent enough time yapping…”

      Soundwave nodded and they walked together, side by side, to the Bridge.

      As they came up on the doors, currently left open for convenience, everyone saw an urgent notification, colored in red rather than purple, pop on their HUD, consuming a fourth of their view.