Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You can squeeze it now.”

Megatron’s hand closed over the ferrofluid ball. Ratchet recorded the grip strength reported by the internal sensor. When the tool was returned to him, the surface deformations slowly vanished. The sonic frequency that provided resistance also restored its shape.

Megatron finally asked him, after half a dozen manual readings, “What is the purpose of these tests?”

The former warlord, forever-monster, attended his frequently-scheduled diagnostics promptly. He usually didn’t speak, which was for the best. In the beginning, it was the only way Ratchet managed to tolerate them. He could follow orders, if Optimus told him to repair Megatron— he could see that almost as a form of attack. Ignoring the strange remarks, all he had to remember was that this ‘con had once torn Optimus into over a hundred pieces.

The past could keep the present out of your mind for a while.

“I can take vital statistics from your own diagnostic. For most purposes, that’s fine. But there can be a discrepancy between what’s recorded by your system, and what’s really going on.”

Megatron loomed, considering the answer.

“Do you suspect anything?”

I would be a complete idiot not to be suspicious, Ratchet thought.

“No,” he said. “It’s been a while since you came aboard. You didn’t bring a complete medical history.”

Megatron scoffed at him, a sound he’d never thought to hear at such close range. "You know more than anyone by now, Ratchet. I haven’t had any issue with my legs.”

“Good to know,” Ratchet said bitterly. 

“Don’t lie to me.”

Ratchet threw the grip sensor at him.

He caught it, of course. Plenty of people had good reflexes, combat programming, plain old quick thinking. Megatron’s unflinching hand moved in near-synchronization with Ratchet’s motion to throw, like he had seen the future. There were soldiers forged for war with target tracking nowhere near that fast. 

And Megatron’s expression was genuine, despite that. His optic aperture opened with mild surprise. Articulation behind the plate of his face relaxed. He squinted, head tilting as he studied what was in his hand. His body had defended him without identifying the ‘attack.’ 

His smile contorted in an unfamiliar way. 

“Clever,” he said. “A way to get an unbiased measurement.”

Megatron handed the ball back gingerly. There wasn’t any point arguing with him, ‘I just wanted to hit you.’ He could go back and forth for four million years. Ratchet instead rummaged around in what passed for a decent office for practice. Medbay, yes, Infirmary, most of the time. IAST, it was not. Better than a field triage, but those saw all the usual battle damage. For all the once-in-a-million-cycles cases going on in this floating cyberzoo it was a miracle he’d been able to diagnose as much as he had. Science staff, First Aid aside.

He pulled out a spark-pulse spectrometer.

“I’m going to need you to open up. Won’t take five kliks,” Ratchet told him. 

I wish you’d resist a little bit, he thought as the ravenous spark was exposed to the room. The temperature rose immediately, along with the distinct smell of burning dust particles. The ventilation in here needed a whack again. Ratchet knew better than to look directly. Instead, he worked by the shadow cast by his own hands.

“I’m curious,” Megatron said. The green high-frequency light pulsed with healthy variation. Whatever actually was within communicated with his core processors and that was how he, like anyone, understood himself. The output briefly spiked with the words, “I have an interest in these things.”

But spectronomic measurement had been long discredited as a lie detector. The fluctuations could mean anything. 

“I’m sure you do. Given all the experimentation to violate absolutely everything.”

“Unfortunately,” Megatron responded, scintillating. “Dark science isn’t as engaging as one might think.”

“You can lecture Brainstorm in the brig.”

“He’s not that bad,” said Megatron.

Ratchet recorded the measurement and saved it to his personal notes. “And that’s it. Close it up before you burn in my optics.”

The thing that was ‘curious’ or ‘interested’ hid itself again behind armor that could deflect a warhead. But everything about it still animated Megatron. On some level, Ratchet knew, everyone would glow bright in response to ‘being talked-to.’

“The sedative is working. I feel its effects,” Megatron said, suddenly. “Your true purpose today is to confirm that I’m not tampering with my own diagnostics.”

Ratchet closed his own private files. “I’m not interested in whatever smoke-and-hacker nonsense you’re used to. You were forged cold and this isn’t even your original frame. I’m thinking more about Mille-Bornes syndrome, versioning maladaptation,” he said. But if the mech wanted to talk now, Ratchet had to hear it. The question all sane medics hated, wartime or otherwise: “Tell me how you’ve been feeling.”

…

Ratchet knocked on the door of Rung’s office. 

“You don’t have to,” he heard from within. “It’s always open.”

The quietly cheery attitude could almost convince you there’d never been a war. If a psychologist hadn’t been there for practically every part of it, Ratchet could be more seriously annoyed by the wall of prized models. He clearly had so much time on his hands.

“Ratchet! I don’t think we have an appointment today. When was our last follow-up? Forgive me, I can’t remember,” Rung said, coming out from behind his workspace. The last appointment had been about a million cycles ago. Ratchet could remember complaining about personal space, and the entire conversation had been uncomfortable. Something about caregiver trauma.

The door shut with an aggressive snap.

“A figuratively open door,” grumbled Ratchet. He sat down where he wanted.

“It’s been doing that for a little while now. I should get around to reporting it,” Rung admitted. He was more than experienced enough to know if you take this seat, he should take that other seat. He couldn’t have forgotten everything they’d spoken about.

“So…it may be a walk-in, but what are your goals for our session today?”

Ratchet sighed. “I didn’t come here to spill my tank. I need your input about a mutual patient.”

Rung’s supraorbitals shot up. No doubt having extra facial articulation helped him seem more ‘empathetic’.

“Wouldn’t you be better off asking Chromedome, if there’s a neuromedical…”

“Unless there’s some wild development, I’m not adding Chromedome to his care team. It’s been you and me. And unless we’re planning on calling Shockwave for a consult, that’s the end of the list.”

Rung visibly shuddered. That wasn’t an attempt to connect, that was just who he was. “I can guess what patient you mean, then. I understand that mental health can sometimes have a root cause in other body systems, but beyond that…”

“Just listen to me,” Ratchet said. “What we discuss cannot leave this room. No recording. No sharing this information with anybody but myself, and Optimus Prime. I don’t care what happens at Swerve’s, if we’re jumped by mind-reading aliens, get cracked in half by the DJD— you don’t say anything under the threat of torture. ”

“My chips are steeled,” Rung said, solemnly.

Ratchet began to explain.

“When the patient was released to the Lost Light, there were conditions. One of them is chemical sedation. His fuel ration is formulated for low energy efficiency and mixed with engine suppressors.”

“That’s extremely unethical,” Rung said.

“The patient agreed to it. If he should forget his ‘change of spark.’ Makes him easier to ‘subdue,’” Ratchet said. “And the patient reports sedative effects in line with the dosage. Servo weakness, slower processing, delayed reflex response, an instinctual sense that he's weak. He also claims it has a mood stabilizing effect, I can't confirm that.”

Rung crossed one leg over another and leaned on the arm of his chair, as if it would make him more comfortable with the situation. “Sedatives are prescribed to some to help regulate mental function. A Velocitronian patient of mine could barely sync his own clock until he received a cranial sedative implant.”

“That’s not the issue,” Ratchet said. “It’s all fake.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s a placebo. There is no sedative. Even before the space-folding mad science foolishness, his components are already power-hungry nightmares. Unused energy in that system winds up as heat, the spark starves, and the soup that used to be him melts a hole through our nice clean floors.”

Rung cringed.

“Never mind, the ethics are much worse. So, his reported experience must be psychosomatic…”

“Optimus thought it was necessary. Whatever the patient’s reaction to ‘Fool’s Energon’, if he stops taking it you can be certain he intends to get his ‘strength back,’ and that may be the only warning we’d have.”

“If your extremely dishonest plan has gone off without a hitch, I don’t see why my input is required,” Rung said, with distaste. He was never comfortable with what had been necessary during the war. Though he had to hear about it more than most soldiers. 

Ratchet vented heavily. Couldn’t anything important have an easy thesis? No, if he didn’t want to navigate comorbid factors and complications he wouldn’t have practiced medicine, Ratchet had to admit to himself.

“Since coming aboard, the patient’s health has improved, ” Ratchet said. “Dramatically. Engine performance is significantly better, energon sat is up 12%… he’s put on mass, if you can believe it. Probably armor density, but I wouldn’t write off the interior torque belts. The last time I opened up one of his limbs, just one of those was as thick as a—”

“This should be good news,” Rung interrupted, gently. He weighed what he would say next, extending the embarrassment. “It sounds like you’re upset that your patient is doing well.”

That was worth a laugh. Who wouldn’t be upset if the one responsible for so much suffering is ‘doing well?’ 

“I have no right to be. It’s my doing. The only intended additive was a bittering agent. But I’m his doctor, we have no idea what support his hardware needs and neither does he. I’m not explaining to Optimus that the most important criminal in history keeled over and escaped justice. The fuel already tastes so bad, you can’t notice the supplements.”

Rung nodded his head thoughtfully. I came here for a little more input, and so far I’ve been doing nearly all the talking, Ratchet thought. He must be analyzing me anyway. Ugh.

“I doubt that you and reasonably prescribed vitamins are doing harm,” Rung said. “Even with all that goes on around here, I expect the Lost Light is better for the health than herding around Decepticons.”

Ratchet sat agog.

“Do you think this is a fun vacation for him,” Ratchet asked.

Rung reminded him, “It must be a relief to not be facing execution, at least for a while.”

“The issue is this. The patient could be in the best shape of his life. It might as well be his original body, not the third. And he shows no signs of hitting a plateau, even if he must. Say he's ‘telling the truth,’ his reported weakness is psychosomatic. Then he obviously should be in here with you. He’d be delusional. I caught him lying. His reflexive grip strength gave it away."

“Or he has a good reason to believe he must be feeling weak,” Rung said. “Why do you say ‘it’s obvious?’”

“It is! I don’t know. He spoke to me during his appointment. Did you ever hear him speak during the war? I have! Megatron isn’t patient, or curious, he doesn’t laugh unless he’s about to rip you apart like a Cyberian solar bear!”

Rung nodded his head, as he had the entire time. Ratchet tamped down the urge to show him, physically, exactly where his tailpipe could end up. If Rung even had such a universal part!

They sat there, waiting for the emotion to fade at the speed of patience. Averaged between them, it was still some time.

“Ratchet, I would like to help you. Though I’m still uncomfortable about this conspiracy. But let’s discuss you for a klik or two,” Rung said. “This may be due to your focus on physical medicine. But seeking my advice, it took until this long— which is not so long, but it’s notable— to mention your patient's demeanor. His behavior. What change actually prompted you to come to me. The patient spoke to you and that wasn’t as important as his… er, specifications. Size, strength, capabilities.”

Ratchet grumbled, “What’s your point?”

“I just would like to know if this patient’s care has led you to feel weak in some way."

“Frag off,” Ratchet told him.

Chapter Text

Rung didn’t agree there was any ‘immediate concern.’ But he did acknowledge this patient was co-captain of the Lost Light, was known to be uncommunicative, was notorious for his history of instability. Conditions had been unpredictable on Rodimus’ extended quest. A pro-active (and non-invasive, Rung insisted) approach towards gathering more information was deemed best.

The first action was to determine his refuel schedule. Ratchet was aware Megatron consumed his ration at the expected rate, but Rung was interested when the actual act of refueling took place, and in what context.

The second action was to send a notice that Megatron was cleared for additional intake to supplement his rations, as any of the crew was. Ratchet was sure to emphasize that the sedative dose would not be diluted by recreational consumption.

The third action was to add more bitterant to Megatron’s rations. Temporarily. They shared the opinion that it was inhumane to experiment on the man. They were only checking if the patient still noticed the placebo’s taste.

The last preliminary action was to create more work for the man. 

“And this is a recent dossier?”

Megatron had it for only moments and seemed to have read it already. 

“If you find anyone who needs a vaccine dead, let me know. Wasn’t me,” Ratchet kept himself busy by organizing, he’d opened a crate and every one of the single-use test sticks and blotters had to be stored in the correct place, as well as quick-use injectors.

“It’s a long list,” Megatron said to him with vague criticism.

“None of these diseases are common in the modern day,” Ratchet explained, without turning around. “We are looking for the Knights of Cybertron. Wherever we find them, the last thing we need is the cybonic plague, or death whisker.”

Megatron seemed to believe him, which was good because in inventing some task, Ratchet had realized an actual potential issue. If it was still possible to accidentally crack open a derelict ship full of wartime chemical weapons, or attack nanites, there was no reason an even older time capsule couldn’t carry just as ancient a threat.

“Rodimus, I expected. And Whirl. It surprises me though that so many have ignored you,” he said. 

“I can’t blame them,” Ratchet said. “The combined shot kicks like a landmine. I’d skip too if I didn’t know the whisker can secrete your sentio metallico through your armor. If any crew need to hear that, I’ve included information about all the terrible ways to die for your convenience.”

Megatron scrolled through the appendices with mild interest. Then less mild. Ask me five hundred cycles ago what interests Megatron, Ratchet thought to himself. 

“I’m not on this list,” Megatron said.

“Got no authority to drag you in here.”

“Rodimus.”

“You have authority to drag him in. I’m giving the list to you,” Ratchet said. “Probably the only one to go after yourself. The others, you could hand off—”

Megatron said, “Look at me when we’re speaking of important matters.”

That voice was a weapon honed by threat. Ratchet was frozen looking ahead before he could question how quickly he’d lifted his gaze. Megatron was much nearer than he expected, could move his hulk with surprising stealth. It was ridiculous that Rung had actually told him, it couldn’t hurt to give him more chances to show himself.

It was the same man. Even renouncing Decepticonism strengthened him, somehow. He couldn’t be stopped.

“Give me the shot,” Megatron said.

Ratchet’s rational processing spoke for him when the rest of him insisted, don’t bother drawing a gun. “You might want to take it once you’re through with the list. It’ll lay a strong mech out for a cycle, three without painkillers—”

“I order you to immunize me. Now." If Megatron's alternate mode wasn’t some kind of tank, Ratchet would assume he’d transformed. Into himself. 

Ratchet’s hands found the cabinet where his recently-synthesized supply was hidden. He fit a capsule of vaccine into a sterile autoinjector.

Megatron commanded him to, “Pay attention.”

Ratchet was watching himself, watching Megatron. The mech lowered himself to one knee, bending almost completely over him. And Rachet wasn’t small, however he felt—

“Here,” Megatron said, horribly close. Close enough to notice his engine under the word, its part in forming a thunderous voice. Ratchet had to gather himself to see the former warlord’s head had moved, cervical junction flexing slightly to the side. His armor’s near-total coverage made access otherwise impossible. Exposed, there was a sliver of softness. 

He’s baring his throat, Ratchet steeled himself. This isn’t any threatening behavior. Megatron is at least behaving like he trusts me.

Fitting the autoinjector to the gap in the armor took only a moment, and pressing the trigger less than that, but it had to be held in place. Millions of inert nanites flowed into a living body, waiting to be recognized by its defenses. The actual injection’s volume was great enough, for the number of ancient illnesses it covered, to need almost five full kliks to finish.

Megatron stared at him the entire time, though who could tell? His optical caps hid any indication of where he was looking.

He smiled not-quite murderously. “You always were good at following orders.”

“The only reason I’m here,” Ratchet said.

Megatron stood, straightened, and he began rubbing the back of his gorget, the external area closest to what was now completely defended. Ratchet couldn’t guess how many over the course of the war would have wanted to have that opportunity, with a lethal poison loaded into the injector.

“Not even, ‘to heal the sick?’” Megatron asked him, pleased the discomfort was immediate. He never took his optics off Ratchet. “I’m disappointed if that’s true.”

…

Megatron completed the task with brutal efficiency. Every crew member on the list arrived at Ratchet’s office within the cycle, a queue stretching outside in the corridor while more vaccines had to be synthesized. 

Although Ratchet didn’t ask, many patients spoke freely about the experience encountering Megatron. It was a large ship and a majority of crew had no need to interact directly with, in the words of one, ‘anyone important.’ Many obviously still resented Megatron’s presence, but most also feared him. They reported for their appointment immediately.

To also be incapacitated immediately.

“Hey, Ratchet? You think you could have planned this out a little better?”

Rodimus said that, but he also was looking at the door like he’d bolt.

“You're talking to me about planning? Did you get clocked on the head by an asteroid? A small moon?” Ratchet crossed his arms, waiting for one spare dose to synthesize.

“Ha ha, very funny insubordination, love to hear it,” Rodimus shot back. “Look, almost the whole crew’s going to be out for days. We can’t get underway like this, we got to set down someplace and recharge the engines… got an important hearing, that’s stuff to do!”

“And what? You’re in a hurry to wait somewhere else? A parking ticket’s held us up for longer.”

“Yeah, and a parking ticket’s a ‘necessary consequence of local space jurisdiction blah blah, Ultra Magnus, blah.' This? It’s elective. It doesn’t have to happen.”

“You think nothing holds us accountable if it doesn't,” Ratchet grumbled.

“Couldn’t you have done it in, I dunno, stages? Steps? Groups? Bring-your-buddy? Some crew today, some crew next week…?”

Ratchet reached inside the medical synthesizer for the holdup that meant he had to listen to this whining. “Sure, I could have. And we could be running around encountering who-knows-what with only partial crew compliment. It’s better we stay put, lay low, and keep out of trouble for about three damned cycles.”

“That’s not a medical decision. That’s a command decision, hands off.”

“You can take it up with Megatron,” Ratchet said, loading the final tiresome immunization into the injector. “He signed off on it, Ultra Magnus agreed.”

“You guys are ganging up on me,” complained Rodimus. “You know Megatron only said that because if I’m knocked out, he gets to stomp around unchecked.”

Ratchet told him, “Actually, Megatron took the first dose. ‘Captain gets the first taste,’ bah.”

“Well, he’s menacing the place like he doesn’t feel a thing. Only a ‘real tough guy’ would keep throwing himself at Optimus Prime, I guess.”

“Like you’re not a glutton for punishment,” Ratchet snorted. “No, that’s an old pirate tradition, I think. The captain of the ship gets first crack at looted fuel. If he dies, the crew knows to dump the whole lot.”

“Wow, so self-sacrificing."

“That’s what I said. Hold out your arm.”

At least it was relatively quick for Rodimus. He had a standard ease of access through the cubital joint.

“OH. Okay. Okay, yeah, I see…”

“Did Megatron get chatty while you were kicking and whining on the way to my office,” Ratchet asked before Rodimus lost his faculties.

“Not much— ow! Oof, ‘pleased to help!’ I took him down a peg and asked if he’d like to reformat into a cop car, join the fun police— Agh! That doesn’t mess around!”

“You tried to get off the ship when you heard what was going on, didn’t you?”

“He laughed at me, Ratchet! He said he let me get as far as the airlock. ‘I’m an Autobot now’, ppft, still the big name in crushing all hope— AH. Oh. Hey. Hey, can you call a cab? I don’t think I can…”

Ratchet caught him. That was one of the worst reactions to the shot today. After a quick vitals check, any medic would be confident there wasn't an allergy. Rodimus had a lot of bravado, but his system was more sensitive than he let on. Couldn’t be so highly reactive, full of energy otherwise.

“I’ll call someone to carry you to your quarters, you’ll sleep it off quickly,” Ratchet told him.

Rodimus’s optics opened to their maximum aperture.

“Please just drag me yourself,” he begged. “It’s gonna be him, he’s still on the hunt out there. Don’t do this to me, Ratchet. Buddy? Don’t let him throw me over his shoulder.”

Ratchet patted him on the dorsal strut. “Let the bastard feel helpful one more time today.”

…

The crew came out of the aching haze slowly, some returning to stations earlier than others. Ratchet had to admit he didn’t look forward to his turn with the vaccine, now that everyone else had taken it. 

Rung was available for another walk-in. Being one of the only crew that actually came aboard immunized for all of these ancient diseases. According to the sample taken when he joined the crew— never trust volunteer medical records.

“I’m sorry, I still haven’t gotten the door fixed.”

Ratchet waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. Entire crew but Brainstorm has been in berth.”

“Not everybody,” Rung reminded him.

“Yeah, well, maybe Megatron could punch you a new door.”

Rung actually looked like he was contemplating it. 

“I could ask him,” he said. And then hastily corrected, “If he could help in securing assistance for the door. There’s no need to be extreme.”

“I was trying to look on the bright side of giving the patient a shot. He could be out for a few cycles, and it would be easier to take a look around. No luck. That combination of vaccines could put Fort Max out of action and he took it standing up. No change to his schedule.”

“I could see the patient as adverse to vulnerability,” Rung noted. He looked a little queasy. “Ratchet, you’re working in everyone’s best interest, but I think we should consider getting his consent.”

“He can cover his tracks,” Ratchet said. “And I don’t see how we could approach him and reveal his ‘medicine’ is a placebo. How do you think that would go? He wants to take it.”

“He agreed to take it,” Rung said.

“No, he wants to.” Ratchet thought of what else he’d learned lately. “I told the patient he could take plain energon if he wanted, as long as he finishes his ration. To get over the injection fatigue. He didn’t. I added more bitterant to his rations, and he increased the intake.”

“To recover his energy?”

“I didn’t up the dose until after I was certain he’d recovered,” Ratchet said. “The patient wants more ‘Fool’s Energon’ the worse it tastes.”

Rung nodded.

“That’s interesting,” was all he said.

“As far as I could tell, his intake schedule is regular. He’s just taking more per refuel,” Ratchet said. “That’s not needed, could pose an efficiency problem, so I went back to the original bittering dose. I upped the supplement, though, in case that was what he was trying to get at.”

Rung asked him, “But, if the patient isn’t aware of its nutrient content, why would he…?”

“Doesn’t need to know. A lot of people instinctively believe medicine that tastes worse is stronger. A deficiency of some kind can cause a bodily compulsion to correct it. Licking walls, or chewing inedible objects… It sounds like common sense to make a supplement that tastes good, but you’ll have a hard time getting anyone who actually needs it to eat it.”

“Hm! Something I didn’t know,” Rung said. “But it seems plausible to me. An early inhabitant of Cybertron could certainly have died if they’d found a source of empty energy, without any nourishment. What did you think of the patient’s assistance?”

“It was a pain in my aft,” Ratchet said. “I thought turnout would trickle in. It turns out people jump when they’re terrorized.”

“Did anyone report that?”

“No,” Ratchet admitted. “But people tend to move when Megatron shows up.”

“Let’s try to focus on what we saw, and heard,” Rung said. “I think there are many reasons why someone might hurry if they heard they may need protection from redspot. ”

Nobody was interested in growing corrosive tumors inside their armor. That was true. But just as many would blow it off, that hasn’t hit anyone since early colonists in a history text.

“So we caused a lot of suffering for our trouble. And my patient’s so glad to be ‘helpful’ in the middle of it. Rodimus said something, made a remark about Megatron being my heavy, it wasn’t appreciated.”

“Don’t you think that’s profound? That Lord Megatron would take offense to an expression of authority? In context to his early writing, I find that authentic of him. I suggested you try to engage more because you reported he showed interest in medicine. I’m calling this a success.”

Ratchet waved away the premature congratulations. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

“What is ‘going on’, is the patient’s personality,” Rung told him, grinning. “Something a little relevant, wouldn’t you agree?”

…

Ratchet had a decent session with Rung, after that. If it counted. Rung was sure they ‘made good progress’, but by a doctor’s figuring all they’d done was commiserate about their professions. The one dilemma in common between them fell in the bind between preventative and curative medicine.

The patient’s symptoms are severe, there’s a high chance they’ll come and seek care. The patient’s symptoms are managed, they’ll stay out of an office. But then, there were patients that were not well enough to consider care. To actually consider, ‘I need to see a professional,’ was a minimum level of function. Too late for prevention, and in no reach for a cure. Or even a diagnosis.

It was frustrating, Ratchet admitted. You couldn’t make anyone take care of themselves. Rung agreed, but then became annoyingly oblique about it. What would be that world, where care was something inflicted?

When First Aid actually had to give him the shot, it sure felt that way. 

Ugh.

Ratchet stared upward on his berth. He’d known how bad it would be, but to experience it was another thing. He’d had pieces of armor forcibly blown off, he’d been exposed to nearly every damaging source of energy, he’d done his own battlefield amputation, removed shrapnel from his own guts without anesthetic. This wasn’t the worst pain he’d felt, but the whole-body way of it was something special. 

The door chime pierced like a mnemosurgery needle.

Ratchet missed the admittance button from his berthside twice before light made it inside. 

“Ugh! Close that door…!”

A body eclipsed the bright glare before the sudden shoomp of sweet, blessed darkness. Ultra Magnus, Ratchet guessed in agony, optics shuttered tight. Heavy steps. 

But there were two seething red lights overhead when Ratchet could stand to look.

Ratchet groaned. “What do you want? I'm flat on my back.”

“I checked in with every name on the list. The author’s not special.”

Megatron at a low whisper ought to have been illegal.

“I’m not dead yet,” Ratchet told him, in hopes that would be the end of it. He shouldn’t have been so optimistic,

“Are you photosensitive?”

“I’m old,” Ratchet snapped. “I’m in pain.”

“Nothing intended. It doesn’t fit the pattern of… your victims,” Megatron told him, a wry bite in his voice. It scathed the audials. His mind. 

“I’ll have another victim if you don’t frag off,” Ratchet threatened. Only made him laugh, that wrong laugh which never existed. So coarse and small you could slip it under a door. Couldn’t hide the piercing optic glare, though.

Bastard.

Ratchet heard a glass set down by the berthside. He heaved himself up with a groan.

“I heard that you prefer Abraxis Sunrise, ” Megatron said.

So he would go to Swerve’s to torture me, Ratchet thought, but not for himself.

“Do you like me? We’re friendly?” Ratchet snarled in pain. “Or is this some way to get at Optimus, through me? Just rip my head off, if it’s that. You’ll get through.”

Megatron asked him, “Why wouldn’t I like you?”

“Four million years of dictatorship and conquest doesn’t give you a clue?!”

“That’s your reasoning,” Megatron taunted him. “No. You’re resourceful. Good candor, hard to scare. Loyal within reason. Your principles come first. You’re even an accomplished infiltrator, if events on Earth were reported to me correctly.”

Ratchet felt some answering laughter of his own, we’re two animals barking at each other now, “You would have won your war if I hadn’t been there to patch Optimus up, see the damage you leave.”

“And I would have thanked you for being my enabler. You allowed me to punish my enemies more than once,” Megatron said. “But I’m not interested in hurting you further.”

Ratchet heard his clattering hulk against the berth as he found himself flat and supine yet again. It was too much effort to hold himself up to look at his problems head-on.

“Would you like a curly straw,” Megatron asked, “for your drink.”

“I’m going to lose my mind. It’ll be like Toraxxis. I’ll bite you.”

“The Lost Light Internal Legal Affairs Committee will be assembling in a few cycles. I won’t be attending, due to conflict of interest. But I did review the position you submitted. I would like to discuss the context.”

I don’t want to discuss scrap with you, Ratchet thought.

He would like to, he could imagine Rung saying to him. If we’ve determined a Megatron is inevitable, would you prefer the one who ‘likes to discuss?’ Or the one who ‘refuses to discuss?’

“I’ll discuss anything you want,” Ratchet vented out tiredly.

He could imagine that he was feeding something. The fire behind red optics stoked, the tone of voice rose a fraction, “You argued that the precedent to judge Brainstorm’s actions is Drift.”

“You can review the records yourself.”

“I have,” Megatron said. “I don’t believe for an instant that Drift acted for his own purposes.”

Ratchet gritted his dentae against all worlds of pain. “Who gives a rat’s ass what you believe? The sentence is what matters. Drift was exiled for reckless decisions performed in the Autobots’ interest. Do you think an actual Decepticon agent deserves less? What kind of justice is that?”

“I believe it’s worth questioning a precedent, before it’s used,” Megatron said. “Before it has a chance to outlive the circumstances. Colorful turn of phrase, ‘rat’s ass.’”

“Maybe if you weren’t so bent on exterminating all life, you would have picked up vocabulary on Earth,” Ratchet said. “What do you want? To drag what’s done into question?”

“I want to have a discussion with you,” Megatron said. “All you know is that Drift confessed to full responsibility, and Rodimus believed him. Or, had another reason to levy the verdict. You don’t know what this verdict’s actual purpose may be.”

“You want to implicate Rodimus.”

“If it’s his plan, I congratulate his cunning foresight. The duplicates weren’t so lucky, encountering the DJD with Drift still aboard,” Megatron reminded him. “Rodimus would have made a good Decepticon.”

That was a laugh. It sent hot nails through his entire immune system.

“Next, you’ll say that it was all part of a brilliant scheme to get Rewind killed, somehow ensuring that the alternate Rewind could take his place, to carry out a sting operation on the DJD which would reveal Brainstorm as a mole, causing him to flee into the past and eliminate you.”

“Not that good a Decepticon,” Megatron admitted, almost warmly. “Besides, Rewind deserves more credit than that. I had a good feeling recovering him.”

“What’s Whirl for making all of that pointless?”

“His actions resulted in immense loss of life,” Megatron said, and added, “but prevented a Functionalist future, death toll unknown. A slap on the wrist is enough.”

Ratchet had no infrasensing with half his features out of commission like this. He was having a conversation with a monster in the dark. The gaze over him was molten, the floor creaked with active posture, the voice… lively in its menace. A far cry from the solemn presence that stood alone for his required shift on the bridge.

“Enough theories of ‘Rodimus, the Mastermind.’ I mean to tell you that Drift lacked the independence required to be responsible for Overlord.”

“How can you be so certain? You weren’t there.”

Megatron said, simply, “Deadlock couldn’t have done it.”

“You had better finish what you mean by that.”

The great ghost shifted by his berthside, and Ratchet could imagine the low-frequency glare to grow cold. The expression chiseled sharply. Another time and place,

“Deadlock was a dedicated Decepticon warrior. A true believer. His strength was entirely ‘something to believe in.’ To control that was to control him.”

Ratchet growled with distaste, “You ruined him. Replaced his life with what it means to be your faithful. ”

“You never could have inspired him, Ratchet. You respect him too much,” Megatron said, as if this was such a small point in his hateful schemes it barely could be remembered. “Deadlock was a masochist. He wanted to suffer. He would endure anything, become anything, for struggle to be meaningful. He was easy to manipulate.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The fire of atrocity banked itself. But the ember that had set it never burned out.

“The cases don’t seem similar now, do they? With nothing there to reward or punish, Brainstorm will decide on his own, ‘I can bargain with fate,’” Megatron said. “‘Drift’, as you know him… he must have accepted another’s bargain, proudly.”

“You can keep your narrative. Neither of us have any actual proof of what Drift was thinking, how far his story goes. But the Legal Affairs Committee is not basing a decision on whether Drift was a tool! It’s Brainstorm who treated lives so callously!”

He had no idea Megatron’s hands were so close to him before the swift, precise motion to move him from a flat to a seated position. Ratchet’s thoughts slammed to a halt by how little the change in position hurt. Ignoring that Megatron likely knew for torture purposes where every pain node was, he could have been an effective orderly.

The silicate glass fit into his hand. By the faint glow of his own optics, Ratchet did see a damned curly straw.

“This is why I like you,” Megatron said, to the helpless one. “Don’t drink it quickly, you’ll regret it.”

Chapter Text

Brainstorm’s hearing was delayed again only shortly afterward. This time, though, no meddling was involved. 

The Lost Light encountered a section of space with non-Euclidean positioning. Objects that entered would unpredictably reverse facing position as they moved along, and while the field generated by quantum engines would weaken that effect— nobody’s organs had been reversed inside of them—it wasn’t eliminated.

Getting out of this predicament was slow going when attempting to go straight could be backwards, to jump somewhere reasonable, like Scarvix, might mean opposite coordinates. Brainstorm could practically be heard gloating from the brig, don’t you wish you had my help? Perceptor was already working on it.

For the time being, things were inconvenient. Ratchet had already taped everything down in his facilities he could, and the whole crew had to use magnetic assistance in case the artificial gravity reversed, due to the switches that controlled it reversing… It was slow for some to walk around the entire length of the Lost Light.

The issue had led medical staff and volunteers to take shifts, covering different sections of the ship. For Ultra Magnus, it was a safety code nightmare. 

Ratchet was squarely in the middle of covering a double shift in his own office when one of his centrifuges decided to about-face right in front of him.

“I’m watching you. Do it again. Surprise me.”

His door slid open. Rewind was facing backwards into the hallway.

Ratchet whistled. 

Rewind swiveled around. “Oh. Sorry. This is awful. So, uh, do you have time for…?”

“No,” Ratchet said.

“Ratchet, it’s pretty important. Um…”

He looked off to the side, down the hallway, condensation forming on his surface. 

“You’re going to want to have time,” he said. “But you have to promise not to laugh.”

Ratchet stood up. “I’ve seen everything. Send them in.”

Rewind’s cranial vents blew a few droplets into the air, where they reversed direction and hit him in the visor. He still waved for his ‘friend’ that it was safe.

The 'friend' was Megatron. Who was as miserable as anyone doing the sticky walk down the hallway, entering doorways carefully, and stood grimly in front of the sedimentation machine. There wasn’t anything visibly wrong with him.

“Yeah? What?”

Megatron stared at him intensely.

“He pointed at me and made me come with him,” Rewind said nervously. 

“‘Made you?’”

“Not like that! More like,” an extremely forceful, you, walk with me, now, motion, “but more convincing. He’s pretty good at it.”

Ratchet didn’t see that Megatron had any complaints about Rewind’s imitation. He was getting it right so far.

“So? What’s his problem? He's generally problematic, so I mean today's.”

“I should just show you,” Rewind said.

He projected it rather than end his mercy streak. 

This happened in one of the lower cargo holds. It was difficult to tell which one, given how much of the layout was reversed. Ratchet could see Skids and Nautica clearly from this angle. But there were more people working, out of frame. 

“Looks good. You should keep going.”

Nautica must have been repairing the maglocks on the cargo storage. It was definitely a problem if half of the system reversed, the contacts came out of alignment, and everything was flung into the wall when the ship changed speed. Ratchet couldn’t see what Skids was doing. Maybe moving cargo out of the way for her.

Rewind was up some access stairs to get a good look. Anomaly spotter, Ratchet supposed.  The audio recorded Rewind’s voice again, and Nautica’s reply.

“How much longer is this going to take?”

“Almost finished. Let’s hope we won’t have to do it again in a minute.”

On camera, the tall rail of shelving reversed, smashing its position into a neighbor.

“Watch out!”

The point of view jolted to the side to dodge a falling strip of lighting, but the tracking was good and Ratchet saw everything that had happened. Skids cleared, but Nautica had been too close. Lead-lined storage released, whipped by the ship’s physics.

A furious mass stormed so quickly into the frame, Ratchet flinched. It was something he had seen before. 

Megatron had caught the immense weight with his bare hands. The roar of his engine wasn’t under strain at all. 

“MOVE!”

The shape that was Nautica wriggled out from under the bridge formed by a body just before the materials crumpled around a single point of resistance, dumping tons down on Megatron.

No one on the scene knew what to say. Rewind mumbled a few choice words behind the camera. Nautica immediately began trying to push weight out of the heap, and Skids joined her hesitantly. A few others on the scene fled, or were too shocked to help. After a few moments, a tremor shook the debris and Megatron’s right arm and helmet emerged from under the midden. He’d pushed an entire pallet of replacement ship plating off with one hand. His question came in a strange, delicate tone.

“Resolved? Target has been neutralized.”

It also didn’t make sense. Megatron seemed to realize it, too.

“Friendlies, secure. The threat is neutralized.”

This was clearly not what he meant to say. The rest was much less comprehensible, as he struggled free on his own. 

“So, that’s what happened,” Rewind said. He cut the recording short very abruptly, as if, “Er, sorry. I’ll release the rest to you if you need it. It’s just a little, um,”

Megatron didn’t indicate with his posture what it was.

“It’s really frustrating for him,” Rewind said. Clearly not happy being selected to be Megatron Translator. “Do you think he hit his head? That was maybe a quarter of the supplies for the whole ship…”

“You could land the ship on his head,” Ratchet said. “But something’s clearly wrong. Megatron, you’re intending to speak complex sentences?”

A curt nod.

“And your speech processing has never lapsed like this before?”

Yes, again.

“And this isn’t a prank.”

“Target acquired,” Megatron threatened.

“You can kill me after I figure it out,” Ratchet told him. “I’ll write you a note.”

That did look to improve the foul mood. Slightly. Megatron asked him, “Itinerary.”

He was likely shortening his communication to preserve what little clarity there was.

Ratchet started removing the tape from pieces of equipment, cautiously. “We’re going to image for any damage, get samples, test, and if I need to, I’ll consult who I can. You’re not special.”

“Thank you,” Megatron said.

Rewind’s pauldrons sagged under the stress of handling all this. “That’s great! Something’s working right. Maybe! Hey, do you still need me? Can I go now?”

“Objective accomplished. Thank you, Rewind,” Megatron said, with great and halting effort to order even those basic words. You could practically see smoke leaking from his seams over it. That was the message he worked hardest to convey.

…

“Sorry, I don’t think I’m much help,” Chromedome apologized almost out of the gate. He didn’t wait for the gun, he was that certain.

But he’d bothered to join Ratchet, who’d called Rung, in a spare conference room with minimal objects that could suddenly and murderously reverse. A sign was posted outside, written on both sides, BAD BRAIN MEETING IN PROGRESS, DON’T!  

“There’s no damage to any components on the imaging,” Ratchet pointed out. “I wouldn’t be asking you to consult if I knew what could be going on in there. I’m a doctor, not a… different kind of doctor.”

“And I’m not the kind that can help you,” Chromedome said. “Not unless Megatron’s suddenly fine with me going in there, and he’s not, and I don’t want to .”

“There still must be something you know. A potential cause. A profile that fits his symptoms. It’s not impact trauma. And no, nothing’s on backward in there.”

The table reversed itself petulantly. Ratchet had to slide Chromedome’s half-empty drink back down its length to him.

Rung finished cleaning his accessory lenses and clipped them carefully to his face, the right-way-out. “We each have valuable knowledge to contribute. Could it be some sort of underlying condition?”

“Not one that I’ve heard of,” Ratchet said. “But I don’t exactly have access to the latest in cyberneural research.”

Air hissed through Chromedome’s venting as he sat down. The chair was bolted down for the time being, leaving him stuck a little too far away and scootless. “If you have a copy of the imaging, I could review it. But I can’t promise I can tell anything specific just from hardware.”

Ratchet traded the data reader off. 

“All right, minds. What could cause a mech’s brain to detach from his mouth? No defect or broken connection to the vocalizer, or language processor.”

“There are a variety of mental conditions that could cause someone to become nonverbal,” Rung said. “Though I don’t see how this situation would relate.”

“You don’t need to understand. Before the incident, he’s talking me into a corner. After? He can barely concatenate a string.”

“That must be difficult for him,” Rung pointed out with unneeded sympathy. “He was composing entire manifestos early in life. By memory. As a slave, in a mine. Hyperlexia, maybe?”

“Built different,” sighed Chromedome. 

Ratchet turned on his heel where he was pacing a shining streak into the floor. The magnetized clamps were making footsteps scrape along. “Sure! Sure, let’s assume he’s too complex to understand! Try it a third time, what do we know?”

“I'm telling you,” Chromedome said. “I guess... I’m used to a different way of being useful. That sounds stupid, huh? Just because it’s invisible brain surgery, doesn’t mean I don’t do brain surgery.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Rung assured him.

Chromedome focused on the information. Taking some from a cyberbrain directly only looked easy.

“I’m not saying that Megatron doesn’t have all the normal drives. Or a better brain. We all start out with practically the same specs for brains. Don’t tell Brainstorm. But the incremental upgrade process— not a protoform taking shape, I mean what keeps you fresh— never stops taking instructions. And the guy has what you call ‘an absolute unit’ of a spark. Big instructions. All the time.”

“Common knowledge is something we know,” Ratchet said, immediately regretting it. “Ugh. No, I’m sorry. I think this is wearing me out.”

“No, I understand. I’ll try and get to it,” Chromedome said, clearly struggling with how Prowl wouldn’t have given a damn. “I wouldn’t want to go in there , but I also wouldn’t want to go for you, Ratchet. You’ve had a lot of time to get all complex and ornery. What I’m seeing on Megatron’s image are overbuilt support systems to handle what he does to his brain. Cold forge or not, using them right had to come from instructions and not the kind you kindle up with. This is maximum effort to force thoughts together. Not something that’s usually hard to do.”

“But not surprising given a difficult life,” Rung pointed out. “A patient's schemata can be complex, and sometimes individual, but could mental ‘effort’ show up on hardware imaging?”

Chromedome’s hand indicated, yes and no?

“Not directly. You’d need at least a cable in for an activity map, and he’s not having it. But there are physical signs a drive is working hard. Open energon valves, temperature… The guy’s got massive heatsinks. Let me see,”

Ratchet waited for it. 

“He’s really compartmentalized,” Chromedome said. “Not sure if that's good for us, or bad for him.”

“Joining Ten’s debate club isn’t good for him. What else?”

“Er,” Chromedome said, reaching scootlessly for his drink.

It was a suggestive type of ‘er,’ short of only the ‘load-bearing um’, defender of dignity everywhere.

The questionable content painted his voice. “His gratification center was recently active. On fire, literally. He triggered emergency cooling.”

Rung smiled to himself, suddenly busy with his own notes.

“Are we talking, ‘have a very nice day’, gratification? Or, ‘intimate overload’, gratification?” Ratchet hated the question even as he asked it.

Chromedome shook his head, fans whirring audibly. “I can’t tell you how he experiences it. Magnitude, if it’s enough to overwhelm his specs, we might be talking… ‘won the Iacon Lottery?’ Seventeen times? ”

“It’s an excellent sign that he feels so strongly about leaping to the rescue,” Rung said.

“An excellent sign of what? Brain damage?”

“You may be right,” Chromedome said, changing the tone. “This is imaging of Megatron right now, in his current state. But however he was before, he was functioning. What I’m looking at is the damage.”

Ratchet felt his pede dig into a floor seam coming to a stop. “His brain was damaged by patting himself on the back? Without causing any actual damage?”

“You’re all idiots,” came from above. 

“Don’t you think that’s harsh,” Rung said leaning up to talk at the ceiling, or a God, or Ravage who had just pressed his head through the overhead panel.

His entire weight thumped gently to the surface of the conference table. 

“Did you read the sign,” Ratchet asked him.

“I did,” Ravage replied. “I don’t care about it.”

“But you do care enough to help,” Rung said brightly.

“Helping you isn’t important. But do you expect me to stand by while Megatron is incapacitated? None of you have the faintest idea about his existence.”

“I happened to see the critical part of that,’” Chromedome said, scrolling to the next page of data. 

“Not history. Existence,” Ravage pointed out. He crossed one paw over the other impatiently. “Its barrel may be gone, and the firing mechanism uninstalled, but the gun of Megatron is alive. It is him. There wouldn’t be much mind left, if you surgically removed all of it.”

Rung took a mild frown at this. “I think he would agree that we are not limited by our altmodes.”

“Existence isn’t a limitation,” said Ravage. “I’m not limited by ‘what I am.’ But it’s basic reality that I’m a quadruped with a long tail.”

This wasn’t any discussion that Ratchet wanted to involve himself in. There were far too many nuances for his taste: who would be called formist, or functionist, or utilitarian, and more. Rung had it handled, anyway. He considered it and had an answer quickly.

“Forgive me. I misunderstood,” he said. “His speech may not be disordered at all, then. It may be the healthy running narrative of his… ‘gun.’ What his mentality is targeting, that’s incredible. That brings his recorded interaction into context. A gun, emotional about a colleague's safety. That knows ‘thank you.’”

“Yes, incredible,” Ratchet sighed. “Now how does that help? Can we begin on the care plan?”

Chromedome was now furious at the imaging results, bringing them close to his visor and then pushing away at arm’s length, twisting at all angles. The idea that Megatron could have such a deeply integrated battle computer, an atypical mnemoscheme, had to have thrown an exception to him. Ratchet waited. Ravage stared at him expectantly, because he was the CMO. Or because that was who Ravage was, in a body that perfectly expressed him.

Rung leaned forward on the table.

“You said that it can’t be trauma, Ratchet. What if it is? ””

“Can we agree on an ‘it?’” Ratchet asked.

“It’s true we don’t have any idea how he functions. But we know the conditions he functioned under. Stressful, traumatic conditions. Probably since he first came online,” Rung said. “If there was a sign of major stress,  Chromedome hasn’t mentioned it and couldn't miss it. It’s one of the most basic emotions next to gratification.”

“So he needed that,” Ratchet thought, amazed at the implications.

“We aren’t re-traumatizing the patient,” warned Rung with a surprising intensity.

Chromedome put his dead end down on the table with a flat shluff.  

“A mind can become dependent on a source of stimulation, like a specific emotion. Or an addiction. I can’t be more precise without ‘going in there,’ but that’s solid theory. It’s something mnemosurgery can’t ‘correct.’” 

“It’s a good thing there’s regular surgery,” Ratchet declared.

…

“This may be able to help you,” Ratchet said, holding a tiny electrode capsule between two fingers. 

Megatron presented a solid wall of doubt. If his mind was a loaded gun, he had to be agnostic to the concept of a magic bullet.

“This is a small assistive implant. It’s adaptive, powered by your own energy, and wouldn’t be distinct from the rest of you. Once it’s accepted, it will even respond to the body’s natural upgrade process. It has no remote communications, no onboard computing. It has no ability to change your mind, it’s a tool entirely within your body’s control.”

It’s a stimulant. The opposite of what you think you’re prescribed. 

“Conflict zone,” Megatron insisted. His cooling system had a deeper noise than most, but the self-disappointed expression counteracted most of the menace. His complexion showed a flush easily. 

Within the conflict zone, there are hazards, Ratchet thought. He was asking about the stage of conflict: what was wrong with his body. Ratchet weighed whether or not to lie, and how much.

“Based on your symptoms and history, we— your care team— believe you have become dysregulated,” Ratchet told him.

“I am tracking targets,” Megatron insisted sharply.

“Not your conscious decisions, your functioning,” Ratchet replied, on a guess. His plea deal was based on self-regulation. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. If we have it right, this implant should help your language and reasoning cores communicate correctly. If not, it’s harmless and we pull it out with an electromagnet.”

“You have a lock. The target of my target. Suppression is my objective,” Megatron argued.

Ratchet sighed. 

“Casus Belli,” Megatron insisted. “Not proschemata.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand your poetry,” Ratchet told him. 

Megatron scowled, leaned forward to rip the data reader out of Ratchet’s hands. His expression only soured more deeply after pressing the controls. 

“Don’t break that!”

It was thrown aside after a few bitter kliks. Ratchet yelled to retrieve it before it decided to put all its lettering backwards. In his hands, he could see it was deformed by a furious grip, and there’d been no success typing out what Megatron meant. Ratchet’s annoyance at the damage waned next to a swift worry— if he’s becoming stressed, why isn’t he regaining function?

Ravage likely had insight from Soundwave, a telepath. If he was right that what happened was like a gun going off, that usually destroys a target. Megatron aimed and fired at something. Ratchet stopped himself before his mind spun its tires to shreds. 

Megatron found the marking stylus used to indicate which leg for amputation. He ripped it free of the tape and began scrawling on the wall, pressing so deeply the tip left dents. His huge body shook with the effort to steady his hands that were never installed for fine details.

He was drawing a diagram. He placed it in space, first: a plane suggested by three lines. A location emerged quickly. This was the site of the accident, implied by the crudely drawn shelving. The objects on the shelves, however, were all in perspective. He differentiated ammunition crates from repair materials and other supplies. Even while rushing to make his point, Megatron expressed that he’d counted them. 

In the crush zone, once he’d established the threat, Megatron drew a tiny Nautica. He wrestled with simplification and imperfection of a person instead of a thing so harshly the stylus began to crack in his grip. But the likeness was there, including her visor and propellers. As if for emphasis he slashed a circle around her— this!

“She hasn’t shown up here, so I assume she’s fine,” Ratchet answered, shocked.

Megatron’s glare could pierce titanium a meter thick. He circled a larger area. The entire situation?! What about it?!

Ratchet cleared his intake. ‘It doesn’t matter how it happened’ won’t work with you, does it? The warlord has problems with why he’s suffered this consequence.

He explained, “We don’t know how the situation relates to the symptoms. All we know from imaging and tests is that communication between different dedicated processing areas is low, even if their activity is high. It’s not as if you can avoid an emergency situation in the future, to correct what’s happening now. It’s obviously an underlying issue.”

Squeak, went the stylus. The ‘whole situation’ was destroyed in a furious question.

“Don’t give me scrap! Your health isn’t always something you can ‘control,’” Ratchet scolded him. “Fine, retreat! Next time, you’ll win! You’ll get it right. You won’t have a neurological condition! You won’t make the ‘mistake’ again? We both know that’s not what will happen.”

Megatron’s form rose so high in his office, he nearly scraped the ceiling. I dare you, tensed in every piston and torque belt.

“Someone was at risk, and more than concerned, or fearful, you became excited. I can think of two reasons someone might be,” Ratchet told him. “Either you enjoyed how she could have been crushed, or rushing to defend felt so good, you think it set you off.”

The helm tilted up there. You can’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Ratchet fumed.

“The gratification center is a core drive in any cyberbrain and there’s liquid nitrogen all over yours. Does basic compassion equal fifty refuels? A hundred? There are combat drugs that kick less. You’ll do it again.”

Just like you’ll drink more of something that hurts you, but Ratchet held up a more direct method in his steady hands, “Can I shoot you in the head, or am I going to wait another million years for you to get over yourself?”

Megatron clenched a fist so tightly his articulation creaked. His engine growled sharp as a curse. 

But he relaxed. If anyone could call it that. The energy in the room never vanished. It became limber. You aren’t my enemy, posture said. I like you. Good discussion. Good candor. It’s not surrender if I agree. 

“Itinerary,” Megatron requested. Suddenly, he was looking forward to this.

“It’s simple. It’s loaded into a punch; the punch is calibrated to deliver the implant. We have your hardware scan, so we know where to put it. You come out of recharge and with luck the problem’s resolved.”

“The target is sighted,” Megatron insisted. “It's awake.”

Ratchet took a guess. “You’ll want to be in recharge. Trust me or don’t, the implant’s going deep.”

“I am watching my six,” Megatron said tiredly. Even half a cycle was too long to wait for him this way. When Ratchet had returned to start this entire argument, he’d caught the patient unsticking everything with tape, inspecting it, and then putting it back. Now it was impossible to tell what had been turned backwards by a space anomaly, and what was just a war criminal.

“Fine,” Ratchet said. “We could try this right now.”

Megatron nodded forward. The motion by itself spoke the word, immediately. The scramble to prepare on either side was awkward enough that neither party paused longer than they had to. Ratchet, to find the correct punch and make sure it hadn’t been turned wrong-way-out somehow. Megatron, to sit down in such a way that would not topple him over should the seat reverse. Level enough to work, Ratchet watched as Megatron reached upward to remove his helm.

He’d been imaged, so Ratchet had a good idea of what he’d find. Still, the look of Megatron’s articulated crest struck him as strange. It was hard to decide if ‘this was the infamous man,’ or if, ‘this must be the man unknown to the infamy.’

Some of each, Ratchet assumed as he fit the subsurface punch carefully to the insertion point, at the precise angle. Megatron could collect himself now and remain extremely still. 

No sedatives were an option. Megatron didn’t question why, or that any step was missing.

“This is going to hurt. It’s medical precision. But it’s still a headshot.”

“Execute,” Megatron ordered.

Ratchet pulled the trigger.

In an instant the punch pushed a channel through living metal. It pierced the cyberbrain to the correct depth. The implant was shot to the bottom, installed, and released. The channel retracted and the wound closed with a tiny entry seam. Deep energon smearing the punch's disposable lance was the only other evidence. 

And the noise Megatron made. That had to be painful enough for anyone else to pass out. Ratchet worried he’d missed as those engines revved darkly.

Then they stopped. Internal argument died. Even Megatron’s crest went slack. He stared forward into space, processing.

His frame creaked with relief. 

“And? Did it work? Are we done here?”

Megatron fit his helm back over all vulnerability. Soft clicking held it in place. The motions were calm and deliberate, almost too mundane to notice. But something about the finality of it wrote theses, and epics, and tragedies. 

All right, Ratchet thought to himself. I did just administer something that replaces the motivating stress of ‘eons of conquest.’ 

Megatron was delighted to tell him, “You should have led with the bullet.”

Chapter Text

“Do you believe a mech can change?”

Rung answered him, “I must.”

“A therapist that can’t change their patients would be useless,” Ratchet agreed. 

He’d been persuaded to use the annoying berth this time. It still felt uncomfortably exposed.

“No, I don’t change anyone. The desire to change must be in the patient to begin with. I only help explore the possibilities.”

Annoying clean office. Annoying imminent meeting. Annoying Brainstorm. Annoying final decisions.

“And what do you consider someone’s ‘possibilities?’”

“That’s a good question. We all contain multitudes,” Rung answered. “An easy example would be… there is this desire you have. If you already embodied the desire, you’d take it for granted. Reaching for it is a potential for change.”

“Unlike a more conventional transformation. Can only change into what you’re not, not what you ‘are.’”

“In some ways. In other ways, hm...” Rung lingered on his point. “To want something, it can’t be inconceivable to you. That can be frightening; to navigate the world, we must have a tiny bit of everything. Or most things. Many people fear not only change for the worse, but that it’s already happened. Or that becoming unrecognizable, was never ‘from without.’ We were slightly this way all along.”

“A murderer piece,” Ratchet supposed.

“I was thinking, more of a ‘plaid lover’ piece.”

“You… don’t like plaid? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’d never heard of it before visiting ‘Scotland.’”

Rung assured him, “I’m neutral to plaid, but I don’t understand it. I should be more straightforward. Is Megatron still weighing on your conscience?”

Ratchet shifted his aching shoulder on the raised berth. “I’ll ignore that massive leap of logic. Why shouldn’t he weigh on every conscience aboard?”

“Should he, though?”

Ratchet stared in incredulity. The tiny models and free time swirled around him.

“Yes!” 

Rung had no business writing anything down. This was self-evident. 

“I don’t know if there’s anything larger than ourselves pressing a finger to this, ‘this is what you ‘should’ believe,'” he said. 

“You know what I mean. We’ve all had plenty of time to think about the situation, you tell me if you’ve had a single aft on this seat say to you, we should forget the past.”

“I do think we should make decisions for the good of all, but you’re not ruled by mob authority.”

“If it was up to me, I,” Ratchet groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t care anymore. Nothing I think about this matters.”

“Nothing?”

“Don’t reverse it on me. I can stand up to interrogation,” Ratchet snapped.

Rung had seen practically every Autobot at one point, so ‘Ratchet’ wasn’t special. It peeled his paint, the voice that hung in those words. 

“Without Ratchet of Vaporex, we wouldn’t know many people we care for today. And more we’ve never met. I’m sure what he thinks matters at least a little.”

“I’m old. There’s no ‘Ratchet of Vaporex,’” Ratchet said. “There’s a series of commitments, survival situations, battles, and mistakes. So tell me if anybody really changes, shrink. Why should I extend the benefit of the doubt this time?”

“You’d like to believe in people less? That’s a goal for you, a way you’d change yourself?”

Ratchet’s helm hit the back of the berth with a hollow clunk. The lights in here hurt.

“No, it isn’t,” Ratchet admitted.

Rung left him with that bothersome truth for a while. If anyone’s changing, it’s not you, or it’s not that. You sum of the optimistic options, you. All you’ll do is make the same complaints forever.

“I think you’re someone who benefits from structure,” Rung said. “I can’t print you a formula for how someone may change, however.”

“I could ask Chromedome for that,” Ratchet pointed out.

“You can’t,” Rung told him. “Certain colleagues of mine may never admit it, but shadowplay has never been effective. Memories may be edited, access to processing centers may be modified, but that ‘change’ is only slamming a gate down the middle of a crowded pen.”

“Do you have any other handy metaphors? When one door closes, another opens, something like that?”

“Are you afraid of the answer if you must belittle me, first?”

“Just tell me how to think about this before I go more insane.”

Rung laid… something out for him.

“You’re right that there are multiple personas you hold. All of them have different lives, to some extent. You have an investment in all of them, even the ones that have ended in the past. We all have a relationship with ourselves, that way. There are some that we even choose to cut off. Or it's decided for us.”

What a way to roughly double the billions of potential ‘lives’ lost in war. The living ones, as well as the dead.

“Are you really telling me that the one I choose to fuel and polish and care for, is ‘Ratchet’, and who cares about those other sorry hangers-on?”

“No! Possibly. In a sense?” Rung knew this was an inadequate answer. “It unfortunately isn’t always up to us. What’s rewarded, has the most resources, or compels us, invests to see us grow… you wouldn’t need my profession if that was always in your control.”

“So? That’s just life.”

“What would life be like if what you needed to survive at a time was wrapped up in one very specific Ratchet, who was critical to others? And to follow their interests, who that Ratchet was became ‘up to them?’”

Ratchet couldn’t believe the condescension! “Are you trying to tell me, oh, Megatron’s a victim of circumstance, he was everything to all those people,”

“No, I’m not,” Rung said. “Striking out his politically convenient persona of then, in favor of one politically convenient today… it’s intensely violent, and sincere, and still a calculated move for a narrative. ”

Ratchet thought about it. 

“It’s that garbage I take issue with. Narrative, political optics, what people might tell themselves in the future… give me real people with a problem I can solve.”

“One version of Megatron might agree with you.”

“Then he should make up his mind! Because stories don't wind up in my medbay, giving me grief!”

“A rhetorical device walks into the low bar set for him,” Rung considered with amusement. “He says, ‘ouch.’”

“They’re still finding pieces of that meta-bomb around here once in a while. Another Brainstorm fiasco, too.”

Rung must have been satisfied with his spark-wringing session. “We’ll know what’s next when we make a landing,” he said. “But I think we’ve settled it now, about Megatron. You were right, there was a physical condition at large.  And whatever bet you have with Optimus about the bitter, unethical rations, something much stronger is enforcing security here. That I can see.”

Ratchet’s spinal cables crackled with static as he moved off the reclining berth. “You’re going to tell me whether or not I want to know.”

“I only want to hear if you agree,” Rung said, a little sheepishly. “I don’t see ‘a narrative’ around here very much. But I do notice Ratchet of Vaporex from time to time. Which one do you think will compel change?”

The ship pitched sharply. The floor magnetism had been turned off a cycle ago, tossing Ratchet through the door that slid open on proximity.

“Oh no— Are you all right?! What was that?”

“Turbulence.” Ratchet pried himself off of the opposite hallway wall, and reset his arm manually where he’d almost changed forms in a panic. The floor sloped under his shifting weight, before he staggered back to Rung’s, “your door.”

“It’s all right, you’re not responsible for my door,” Rung replied, the words exiting his vocalizer halfway after he’d realized how ridiculous they were. Of course I’m not responsible for accidents of the universe! But someone is, stop being therapeutic!

“Your door’s working, ” Ratchet said, quickly. “Did you get anyone to fix it?”

“No. It fell off my list again.”

Ratchet’s fingers ran down the access panel, feeling the seams. “You build those model kits. You must have tools in there. Hurry, I need to get in here before there's a new crisis.”

“What? Why? Is that a priority? I—”

“Shut your trap and give me a screwdriver, anything!”

Rung staggered over to the open door and handed over an awl obediently. It was intended for stippling fine details. But it was at least hard enough to skate a file.

Ratchet fit it into the panel seam, where the control met the wall. It was already loose. “Didn’t we just have a reminder? ‘Nothing wrong’ can be a symptom. When you know it shouldn’t be the case, it usually is one.”

Below the average field of view the facade was held in place only by dents. Made by hand, as were the grip marks scoring deep into electromagnetic contacts. 

But everything was working perfectly again. Since half the door’s mechanism inside had been mirrored, everything bent out of alignment was now correct. 

“Go through everything you have for what’s been stolen,” Ratchet told the psychologist. Rung’s oral hatch gaped as he measured the massive fingerprints with his own.

…

Ratchet reached the bridge of the Lost Light later than he ought to have, but earlier than he wanted. In theory, in an emergency it was a priority to be someplace useful. But actually arriving there meant learning how serious it was, and running out of time to mentally curse out whoever could be responsible with no repercussions.

“Whoa! It’s cool, I didn’t call for medical attention,” Rodimus blurted out, nearly jumping out of his chair. He didn’t look comfortable sitting down in the situation anyway.

“Someone’s going to need some if what I think happened, did,” Ratchet told him. Nothing was ‘cool’ here by any standard. The forward screen spiraled in a vertigo-inducing freefall towards the sun-baked crust of Scarvix.

“Upon entering orbit, steering power was lost,” Ultra Magnus said grimly, bending over roughly four stations by himself in his huge armor.

“I’ve done all the emergency protocols this time. Brainstorm, he was responsible for calculating how much juice we had left…!”

No mastermind Rodimus today. He had to be telling the truth, or else he’d try to keep a little more composure. Sometimes he could be impulsive, and sometimes too tired for his age, but when he had nothing to hide he really had nothing to hide. This actually had happened despite his best efforts.

Ratchet braced himself as he crossed the gap between the door and the telemetry station. It had been closer to go here than return to the medbay, and it was First Aid’s shift anyway, but this was certainly everyone’s problem and it was strangely quiet on the way up the ship, “Emergency protocols? Are you sure!?”

“Yes, I did them! Me! Every one. Before Mags was here.”

“There’s no alarm going off on other decks! There’s been nothing on the intercom!”

Rodimus cursed at about the same time Magnus moved towards the exit. The intercom button on his chair clicked in vain before he resorted to personal communications, “HEY. HI? NAUTICA? YOU BUSY? GREAT, COULD YOU. YEAH. COULD YOU CHECK IF THE KINETIC DAMPENER IS FACING THE RIGHT WAY? WE’RE GONNA,”

Ratchet thought, I’m hearing a lot about Nautica lately. She’s good at what she does, but are we running low on engineering staff? That’s not normally something I worry about—

Megatron arrived on the bridge as Magnus fit himself out. The two of them narrowly dodged one another. It was proof of their mutual combat skill, and the generous width of the door.

“We’re hurtling to our deaths,” Ratchet announced.

“Is that all,” Megatron muttered, bemused. 

The ship shuddered around them.

“Engage the manual,” was the man’s next order.

Rodimus handed over the seat, take it! Be my guest! He threw up his arms, from the control sticks already present it seemed like he’d tried that. Not one of his best days! “Manual WHAT? WHAT IS WORKING THAT CAN BE MANUAL?”

Ratchet watched the man honestly consider—

“Good question,” Megatron said. He turned off the artificial gravity.

Ratchet fell backwards and slid across the floor, just like every other unsecured object in over 240 cubic kilometers of the Lost Light’s interior. His aft bumped into… Hosehead.

“Sorry, I was hiding back here,” Hosehead told him, terrified. “I was looking for some shanix I dropped on the floor when it happened.”

“Just don’t cause trouble,” Ratchet told him, scraping forward against inertia with his arms. He saw Rodimus dangle from the back of his chair, legs kicking in thin air. 

“Whoah- WHOAH, okay, we’re facing a new way now…!”

Megatron kicked a foothold into the floor. A strip of emergency lighting fizzled out. Bracing with one arm, he kept contact with the controls. The ship was now hitting maximum air resistance with all surface area exposed. Lift changed the angle of descent and also caused a screaming noise. Hosehead helped.

The Lost Light flipped over completely, in time with Rodimus hitting the ceiling. Ratchet was holding onto something that hadn’t been dusted at this angle for over a vorn.

“Don’t fight me,” Megatron mumbled to himself, his answer to the ship's wobble was to engage the weapons system. He barely noticed he was upside-down.

He couldn’t actually be this detached from reality, Ratchet thought. If that was true, the war would have ended long ago. Why does Megatron intentionally choose to be in these situations?

Because this wasn’t new, Ratchet thought. He was watching the man. He saw Megatron's face. His expression. In these moments where nothing ‘could’ be looking at him, he wasn’t different at all.

You’re not special. Don't fight me. You say these things holding a man at gunpoint. But who, who is here? Megatron fired two salvos of proton missiles, the first to roll the ship over and the second to cancel that inertia. A warlord's answer to 'no alerions.' 

Rodimus tumbled down the wall and lurched himself upward again. “We’re backwards. We have no brakes and we’re backwards!”

“We have forward propulsion,” Megatron informed him, after literally ‘throwing her into reverse.’

Some Ratchet from two million years ago pulled himself aside. He could blame Rung’s conversation for it, but only himself for the situation. Why are you on the same ship as a madman that restored Shockwave’s hands? Fought his way out of the bowels of Trypticon? Who’d willingly install a spacebridge inside his own body?

Why did you put him on a stimulant?! His personality's too dangerous to stimulate!

It was laughing at him, in perfect doomsday form. Ratchet! Optimus' pathetic attempt to control me was doomed to fail. Now I have the reason he survived: you. I'm stronger now. I'm in control.

But the ship was slowing. The inertia’s pull faded. Megatron was in control, and he wasn't letting them crash. He had no elevators to change the pitch, but threw open cargo bay doors. Hopefully everything had been secured again. 

The Lost Light made land contact. Her hull gently scraped the planet. Skated across the surface, caught one final whisper of lift before planting aft-first at the end of a gouge in bare earth six hundred miles long.

Fifty miles outside the planetary capital. 

Ratchet leaned on the telemetry console for his life, but he managed to pat Hosehead on the man’s way out. 

“Was that so bad,” asked Megatron as he helped Rodimus up. Someone he’d once alienated, held hostage, nearly murdered. 

“Guess not,” said one of the most gullible bots in existence. Or one of the most forgiving, if you flew it upside-down and backwards.

Chapter Text

Later,

What decisions were made, were made.

What goodbyes were almost said, came close.

What goodbye was said, was never mentioned to anyone.

…

Ratchet had intended to slip out a shuttlebay during liftoff. It would be quiet. The engines would mask his departure. And no one would be missing him during the procedure.

The last person he wanted to see stood in his way. Megatron blocked entry to the lone shuttle with his body. A tired, long ventilation strained Ratchet’s existence. It was his own fault. He had been thinking too much about the loose ends, before he heard the decision that set his plans.

“I’m leaving,” Ratchet declared. He had no exotic brain excuse to be terrible with words.

“I know,” Megatron said.

“I’ll return,” Ratchet said, if it would clear the problem away.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Megatron said.

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can,” Megatron said. “I commend your conviction, though.”

Ratchet accused him. “You drink enough sedatives to drop a dinobot every cycle.”

He’d prepared an opaque formula for First Aid to continue administering in his absence, making it a double-blind lie. Anyone would have to be actually blind to believe it. Nothing about Megatron looked sedated. Nothing about him sounded sedated. A tiny piece inserted into his cranium was constantly delivering the opposite of sedation and Megatron hadn’t questioned that. Or noticed it as anything but normal.

“I would have reasoned with you,” Megatron said. 

“You’re holding me up,” Ratchet accused, stuck meters away in a hangar bay.

“I’ve delayed the launch today. I wanted to speak.”

Ratchet felt his vocalizer crack through furious static. “Why? Why, when you have the luxury of doing anything with your reprieve from execution, do you ‘want to speak’ with me? What depends on that? Do I even want to know?”

Megatron said, unmoving from his position, “It could be my last opportunity to do so.”

“How did you even learn I was leaving,” Ratchet asked him. There was no escaping this, someone even worse at ‘goodbye.’

“You aren’t as careful as you think,” Megatron said to him. “You keep your schedule clear. You’ve been training First Aid to succeed you. You’ve been seeing Rung.”

“What a master course in tactics. You can read a calendar.”

“You’ve been hesitating to do this for months. I decided to help you. Recusing myself from Brainstorm’s hearing increased his chances.”

“You manipulated the decision.”

“It’s only math. Five votes, half of all possible outcomes will result in his pardon. Four votes, more than half. There can be a tie,” Megatron said. “You can’t stand hypocrisy. You’d leave.”

Ratchet hated how absolutely founded in reason that was. The showmanship of ‘Rodimus, the passionate’ and ‘Megatron, the reasonable,’ was only that. People agreed to ignore their logic circuits because that story was easy. You didn’t have to think about how politics had put a self-destructive madman in charge.

“You have a special way of showing how eager you are to get rid of me.”

“I’m not,” Megatron said. “I want to make amends.”

“You’re lying,” Ratchet said, sneering above his engine.

Megatron’s surprise was almost convincing. “I am?”

“Do you seriously think that I wouldn’t notice self-harm? If you engineered a way to delay your death, you haven’t been living. You volunteer for an agonizing injection or surgery without anesthetic. A chance to be a hero thrills you, not for its own sake but because you can attack ‘Lord Megatron.’ You wear that insignia like you’re desecrating your own corpse. You’re surrounded by people who hate you personally. The prison guard who beat you. A captain forced to share a seat with his own murderer. The ultimate lawman, and you’re the most infamous criminal in history. You sent yourself to hell.”

Megatron asked him, modeling this grotesque note of sorrow, “Is your hate personal?”

But he didn’t admit it. The bastard would never admit it. 

“I hate that you drink poison and expect someone else to die,” Ratchet spat forward.

“So no one else has to die,” Megatron said.

“They’ll be hurt. Everyone on board, and more. Since when do you care about bystanders?”

Megatron nodded in ‘understanding.’ Everything that mattered clashed upon his armor and failed. This was only ‘an interesting discussion’ for him.

“There’s no way to convince you my intentions are sincere?”

“None,” Ratchet confirmed. “You’re a sadist. It doesn’t matter if your newest target is yourself.”

“Then I could say anything,” Megatron supposed. He then arranged the most outrageous series of words that ever had the misfortune to be stuck in sequence. “I looked up to you when I was very young.”

It made no sense.

“Is that hard to believe? You were famous once. You mocked me before, when I told you that I wanted to become a medic.”

“I’m having a hard time understanding how you fragged up so completely,” Ratchet told him straight. “All of that rising against limitations and you happened to miss ‘doctor’, skipped straight to ‘architect of genocide.”

Megatron only looked to agree with him.

“If you asked me then, what is power, I would have answered, healing the sick. I smuggled the first edition of my work out on the armor of corpses. There was nothing else I could do,” Megatron said. “Ratchet of Vaporex was well known in darkness. Foremen complained how compliance with your universal minimum of care would slow production. This was how I heard of ‘The Senate’— why I believed there were people among the upper castes who could value our welfare.”

“Don’t make your revolution about me!”

“It wasn’t. I imagined a two-pronged attack: from below and from beside. I thought, here is a mech that has every advantage and chooses to inconvenience the system. He’s retained for the use of his hands. So was I. I knew stratification must then be a lie. Every layer is the same, the only difference is how close that layer is to the core. How many lavish bids will be made to soothe those in striking range, and how few for those who aren’t.”

“Please, you stopped caring about ideology long ago.”

Megatron, again, agreed.

“I reasoned there’s a gap between theory and praxis. But there doesn’t need to be,” he said. “For example, you would numb the pain circuits of your worst enemy before surgery. You would perform your best work on one you hated most. After everything I had done to the universe itself, you still believed that you could accomplish through healing the sick. And you healed. You never compromised.”

“You really will say anything, huh? Bumblebee’s nothing to you? Optimus? Tell me I'm 'special!'”

“You are. In your specific place. A friend of mine lived for over a year after losing his legs. I fantasized that if the world recognized the truth, he could be saved. Millions of years later, the ally I imagined repaired my own legs. Call it trite, but I felt my spark remember. I have no idea if this is a medical phenomenon. It's profound.”

“It’s too late.”

“For me,” Megatron said. “Not for Drift. If even I could believe in you, then this should be a simple mission. Bring him home.”

“This ship is not your home,” said Ratchet.

“It's what he desires most,” Megatron said. “Now that you know that, failure is almost impossible.”

At last, he stopped orating, motivating, manipulating. Beheading all he had been. Megatron stepped aside. The shuttle was already prepared and cleared for launch. The Lost Light’s propulsion was warming up. It could have been more disturbing that Megatron had estimated accurately how long his torture would take, than if he had an accomplice listening in.

When I leave, I’ll be taking his attempt to vandalize himself with me, Ratchet thought. He pulled it together specifically for me. It’s probably fiction. But he made sure I heard it. Drift must have told the bastard about me, years ago. He knows what would get to me.

And if it’s the genuine truth, I’m carrying that weight.

One co-Captain of the Lost Light touched Ratchet on the pauldron as he had to pass. It was the slightest, most hesitant gesture of reassurance.

“I won’t say ‘goodbye’ to you,” Ratchet said.

“Smart man. Good luck.”

“Don’t believe in luck.”

“I wish you every advantage, then.”

Ratchet thought about it on the threshold. Solid gold or a box of rocks, it’s heavy. The weight’s real. Actions are real. ‘Praxis,’ to Megatron. ‘Practice’, to a doctor. 

“You took Toward Peace from Rung’s office,” Ratchet said against the noise.

“It’s my book,” Megatron confessed.

“It’s the only evidence you’ve cared about another person.”

Megatron said, “I want to keep it. No more cuts.”

That was impossible. The man’s touch gave him away, the thing he didn’t know he was manipulating. He believed he was capable of such fine control only when sedated. The experience of ripping a man in half must have cut 'care' from how he saw himself. Then or now, Megatron excised the thing he ‘could not be.’ 

He brutalized that severed piece for failing him. He gave up too quickly. Megatron could be a surgeon with these hands.

The fool just couldn’t recognize himself.

“Good luck, yourself,” Ratchet said.

Megatron stood away for the boarding ramp to close, his voice rising to be heard over the engines. “For what?”

Ratched shouted at him before the door was sealed. “Studying medicine!”

Chapter Text

STILL LATER,

What happened next, did.

…

He said,

“I’m not afraid of the DJD. I am, however, afraid of rediscovering what I’m capable of. I’m afraid that if I go out there and fight— really fight— I won’t be able to stop. Ever. Because I won’t want to.

Every day it’s a battle, Ratchet. Every hour. Every second. A battle between me, and the real me— and I wish I knew which was which.”

The false Megatron and the real Megatron? As if lying about himself wasn’t as ‘real’ a Megatron behavior as they got. I said,

“So either way, it’s about you. Quelle surprise.”

He said,

“It’s not about me. It’s about everyone else.”

And I doubted him,

“Right.”

He said,

“If I step outside, that’s just the beginning— the first of a thousand battlefields. If I don’t keep myself in check, the war could reignite— and if it did, it would make what’s gone before seem trivial by comparison. 

I’d surrender completely to my darker impulses— because I’d have to. If I were to avoid another day like this one— another day of being torn in two— I’d have to.

I don’t give a damn if Fool’s Energon has sapped my strength or dulled my mind— I would not be stopped.”

He knew I would believe in the idea of ‘a real Megatron.’ It didn’t matter which one of those I thought was ‘real.’ 

He noticed I had some reason to doubt him that wasn’t easily explained. I’ve never scheduled time with Rung, Megatron said it himself, I kept my time open. It’s how he knew I’d be leaving.

The only way he would have known I’d spoken with Rung would be if he broke into the office more than once.

But I don’t need to decipher Megatron’s bullshit, he-thinks-I-know-he-thinks. We live in reality. Reality has autopsies. And lies about ‘always open’ doors. It has broken doors.

Only one half of the contact needed to be bent out of shape to break a door’s electromagnetic seal. When Megatron used his strength he forgot he was capable of fine control. He bent it back into shape imperfectly. Touch it again, and it would snap: deformed by his fingerprints.

Returning, he’d need to bend the paired contact in the opposite direction. Otherwise, his handiwork would align and the way would hold shut. The destruction was in mirror image and when one half reversed the machine was whole again.

So I told him half the truth.

“Megatron…

There’s no such thing as Fool’s Energon.

It’s a placebo.”

And I told him half a lie.

“It’s unfiltered energon. Unfiltered, untreated. Tastes disgusting, but it doesn’t do anything.”

Because I didn’t want him to know I tried to help. I didn’t want any part in his made-up conflict, who’s the fake Megatron.

He said,

“But it weakened me.”

I told him,

“Did it? Or did you just convince yourself that it did?”

I told him how this happened.

“I spoke to Optimus after we left Cybertron— I wanted to know exactly what I was administering. He quoted my own med report back at me: he said Shockwave did such damage to your internals that administering a real chemo-sedative would constitute unlawful punishment. 

‘Fool’s Energon’ was intended as an early warning system: if you ever refused to take it, we’d know you were having second thoughts about… well, everything.”

That conversation was real. Optimus quoted my report. One section of my report. One section on the ‘possible risks.’ I didn’t actually give a flying frag if there was lingering exotic damage to Megatron’s internal systems, I said it was possible. Conventionally, all the hardware that’s here in three dimensions is healthy.

I just didn’t want him to get off easy. To be taking a drug that would dull his understanding of what he’d done.

It wouldn’t stop him anyway. He was damn right about that.

He asked,

“Why now? Why tell me now?”

I gave him the bad news,

“Because when you fought Whirl and Perceptor— and Tailgate; I heard about that— you held back. 

That wasn’t the Fool’s Energon— that was you. You’ve always been in control. 

Even if you haven’t realized it.”

I never had a good bedside manner. 

“So tell me,”

He’s the real thing too.

“Why should today be any different?”

…

It wasn’t.

Megatron weaponized a horror he’d prepared in secret. 

It changed everything in one move.

It had the potential to obliterate an entire world.

He nearly destroyed himself.

But he survived.

Ratchet had seen that sequence of events a dozen times before.

…

But Megatron could have let himself die for dropping the facade. He could have refused to return with Rodimus. He could have chosen to suffer a completely unique agony. 

He instead chose the agony that billions had already felt. That everyone here had felt, and was feeling. If a member of the crew didn’t feel for Ravage, Skids died, too. 

No pain, great vengeful pain, humble decent pain, could be enough to change the world. That wasn’t the point.

It was enough pain for Ratchet of Vaporex to change his mind.

…

He wasn’t disappointed. Without a fictional handicap or a self-negating narrative, Megatron accomplished more for the Anti-Vocational League in a few centuries than he had for the Decepticons in a million years.

He did it compassionately.

He did it effectively.

He did it sensibly.

He did do it with an immense number of guns. That hadn’t changed.

But when a fascist regime would like to shut down all of your hospitals, they didn’t stop at ‘please.’

So Ratchet could accept that. Optimus would have, too. It annoyed Megatron that for his efforts, he hadn’t yet achieved victory in that universe, which left that alternate world’s Functionalists to be pesty for the rest of reality, too. But Megatron was never satisfied. And he had to confront how this was the natural outcome of caring more about the people, than returning some insatiable punishment.

What bothered Ratchet most was how much of a waste the war had been. One more life on top, that barely deserved to be there.

It was tiring. Felt like sand grinding below your intake. Same as the start of this mess, seeing the big bastard himself fit and healthy.

All the horror, worst years of his life, they needed this Megatron from right now. He was trapped as the goddamn battery. An egotistical battery— coming home from a reality defined by whether he’d lived or died.

…

He died anyway.

He let it happen.

He'd never be allowed to reach ‘the future,’ Ratchet knew.

Megatron left him one thing, a datapad with a single file. It was titled, Toward Peace, and its date of publication was original. Ratchet had no idea how he had found a copy days away from his own execution.

The original text was eclipsed by a dedication. First, For Terminus. Then, Ratchet of Vaporex. Then, Bumblebee of Iacon. Then, Orion Pax.

What followed was a list of names so long that to read them was to trail off into static where characters lost their meaning. The living and the dead mingled together and there was no ‘narrative’ left at all.

Ratchet ignored the uproar when he dedicated his next paper, for Megatron of Tarn. The world could get over itself. The man was the first identified case of what became known as complex traumatic aphasia. The condition where it’s been so bad, for so long, you can’t explain yourself.

…

And eventually, Ratchet of Vaporex died, too. He was survived by his conjunx, Drift, who had discovered him offline in their residence. The cause was determined to be age-related burnout. 

It was a sudden turn to grief for Drift. Ratchet had not expected he’d die. He kept no secrets. He had plans to attend a conference in the near future. But he’d never been seen by another doctor.

…

That Ratchet.

Chapter Text

The other Ratchet was in another time and place, but still in his office aboard the Lost Light. It was a real pain to think of himself as ‘the other Ratchet’, knowing some different version of him was out there experiencing the consequences of his life.

But what did Optimus die for, anyway. Freedom, or something?

No, he wasn’t going to split wires over who the ‘other’ Ratchet was. The real thing’s the real thing. 

He was in his own office as a patient, that was the problem. And First Aid had to be sleeping off a hangover. It was as empty in here as when he’d been preparing to leave, and the lights were set down to half-bright. His backstrut ached from sitting to wait. He could have been working.

The door opened and it was about time to begin his appointment with Dr. Megatron.

Medictron.

What a concept. 

Ratchet thought, I’m holding back my best aneurysm. As the man entered the room he fully inhabited it. He very clearly knew what everything was for, and what he was looking at. Former signs of tentative curiosity were a warning that Megatron doesn’t dabble or make empty threats.

Events had been so fraught, and the ‘lap of honor’ so precious, Drift had been grateful, and Ratchet had absolutely everything on his mind— now Megatron was isolated. Centuries had passed in the Functionalist universe and save a few new scratches, Megatron showed no evidence of that time. Or evidence of a ‘bad’ time.

“You look good,” Ratchet said, offhand.

“You’re dying,” Megatron said. 

Never mind, Ratchet thought. I was wrong to be friendly.

“We’re all dying eventually. Even if you’ve gotten unbelievably lucky,” Ratchet said. 

“No,” Megatron said. “I mean that you are actively dying.”

“That’s news to me,” Ratchet said, keeping his aft safely planted where it was.

“I am telling you the news now!” Megatron snarled at him, up there. Ah, he must have kept taking his supplements in the other universe. From this position it was easier to see how in between support cross beams, the floor panels bent slightly under his density. 

Ratchet decided to pay close attention, then. No Senate existed anymore to hold Megatron accountable for his actions. Or no Senate that knew who he was.

“What makes you think I’m dying? You haven’t run any tests. You haven’t imaged anything. I don’t have any symptoms.”

“Yes, you do,” said Megatron.

“I’m old,” was Ratchet's differential diagnosis.

Megatron leaned over him with a scowl. “No, you’re not.”

“I came online over twelve million years ago,” Ratchet shot back. That’s old!

“The Ratchet from the Functionalist universe lived to be two hundred and thirty-five million years old.”

Why don’t you go for a more believable lie, Ratchet thought. Say twenty million. Or go for broke, why not make it a flat billion years? What’s the point of—

“What?” was what made it out of him, as Ratchet tried to fathom how anyone could live that long. And how Megatron could possibly know that.

You’re trying to figure out how I could know that, said Megatron’s face. His mouth began on his favorite activity: putting words in any order he wanted. 

“Although I was never ‘born’ in that reality, you already had been. Your actions were largely the same. You advised the Senate. You were a friend to Pax. You started your clinic in Rodion,” Megatron said. “You were discovered. Your sympathy for the early Anti-Vocation League was exposed. You were subjected to empurata, and when that didn’t stop you, you were claimed as the council’s property and fully converted. Still too willful, you were taken to the Institute for study. The AVL considered you a martyr to avenge. Pax, too.”

“And? So? What?”

“We raided the Institute together. We found you,” Megatron told him. “They had you hooked up to a machine designed to overclock you. They couldn’t replicate your interface with your hands, Ratchet. And as those aren’t your original hands, you know your precision is not only a matter of hardware.”

“I’m not special,” Ratchet spat back in his face.

“I think you’ll agree that the whole concept of ‘a point-one-percenter’ is flawed. The humans would call it eugenicist. Functionalists had elapsed you for the equivalent of two hundred million years and still couldn’t explain how you remained stable.”

Ratchet scoffed at him. “When did you bother the humans?”

“That Earth was the site of a few decisive victories. You’re right about their cursewords. Very visceral, obscene.” 

“So another sorry bastard had it worse. I don’t see what that means for me.”

Megatron straightened himself to his full grimacing menace. The room was proportionally smaller for him, it was only a long, heavy stride to the control panel. Megatron found the overhead lights and slowly brightened the room.

Ratchet dimmed his optics to compensate.

Megatron shut the lights off entirely.

“Stop that. We should have left you behind.”

“I’m holding a card, Ratchet. You’re going to read it for me.”

In the dark. Fine. Ratchet opened his aperture carefully, straining to keep still and prevent blurred vision. Slowly, the outline of the card did appear. The writing was large enough to make out, ‘You have,’

You have Miners’ Disease, the card said in a flash that burned the entire length of his neural net. Shimmering static made it all the way to his hands, twitching to strain his joints. He used one of those better-than-average earth words. Probably ‘motherfucker?’

“Photosensitivity is one of the most obvious symptoms,” Megatron explained, as if he hadn’t just sprayed a man with fresh napalm. Or the light switch. Ratchet had to listen to him keep going, “But you also sit with the characteristic hunch, with non-structural pain in load-bearing joints. And we all noticed last night, you hold up to high grade uncommonly well.”

“My eyes are going, I’m old, and I can drink,” Ratchet said. “I’ve never heard of this ‘Miners' Disease.’”

“That’s because I described the pathology,” Megatron said. “Though I didn’t name it. Everyone who worked under Nova Point saw someone succumb. It’s already taken your hands.”

Ratchet told him, “It was form fatigue”

“We both know you didn’t suffer a repetitive stress injury. But that was the best guess you had, with the knowledge available to you.”

“You weren’t here when I replaced my hands,” Ratchet said.

Megatron was looking now in Ratchet’s nicely organized drawers with his wrecking slabs of hands, about to rummage it all out of order. He wasn’t even facing his ‘patient’ when he asked, “Tell me if this describes your original hands. The first symptom is pins-and-needles. Stiffness. Then poorly responsive joints. A burning sensation, fading to numbness. Eventually, complete paralysis— gradual component death. That would be more noticeable for you. Your hands are painted. ”

Those were the exact symptoms, in the order they’d progressed.

“How did I catch a fragging mining disease,” Ratchet asked, feeling his current hands tense.

“From your profession, like a miner,” Megatron said. “Miners’ Disease is a metabolic-nervous disorder that results from extended contact with free energon. You were fist-deep in corpses every day of the war that mattered.”

It was pointless to defend himself, I always wash my hands. Megatron was there. It was like that. 

“After centuries of exposure, the cybernerves burn out from surplus voltage. But the body’s acclimated. It’s impossible to work constantly. Without their dirty local power source, they’re necrotizing. Overfueling is common among those with this condition: self-medication, in futility.”

“And this can kill,” Ratchet asked, understanding already it was possible, “after the point of contact has been amputated?”

“By the time you’d have to amputate, it’s already spread. It’s altered your metabolism—ceasing exposure doesn’t stop progression. Eventually, what meters power to the spark will decay. Innermost energon will sustain you briefly before you smother. There won’t be time to get you on life support.”

“Are you sure this can’t be explained by overwork?”

“In the mines? It often was. But we knew. Stand up.”

Ratchet didn’t do it on command. He did it because he couldn’t sit still anymore. Megatron continued to mess with his supplies. He’d get through with it faster if he didn’t have that damn gun on! “I’m going to need some real proof before I believe this. For all I know— and I don’t know why— you could have invented a ‘bathed in blood’ disease,”

It happened too quickly. Megatron turned. His target was in arms’ reach. There was one precise motion. A lancet pierced deep into the axillary gap. 

Ratchet staggered backward, left hand reaching to the wound. He felt the entry point, wincing. Minimal leakage, “You— you stabbed me!”

The look that met him was proud. Indomitable and satisfied. In this arena he would never have to hold back.

"You lied to me," Megatron reminded him fondly. Having inflicted... medicine?

Ratchet realized his backstrut no longer ached. Or it was… the neurocables that followed it. 

“The dorsal meter’s gone. Power’s restored to the area. Are you convinced? You'll explode if I take out the ventral, too.”

Ratchet shoved panic down in the hole where it could rust, and only Drift could guess an impossible force that could do a thing about it. I can’t warn ‘the other Ratchet.’

“You could have done something besides stab me,” Ratchet complained, as Megatron reached for what he needed to treat the friendly assault. 

“This way required the least faith,” Megatron said. 

“I knew I liked you for some reason.”

“Good. Because if you intend to give Drift a happy forever, I’ll need to rewire your nervous system. You’ll hate me again soon.”

Ratchet was about to say something else. Something like, I’m glad I was ordered to save your life. Something harder than, I’m sorry that I lied to you. Something outrageous like, I think I’m forgetting someone. They had something to do with this. I can’t explain it.

Fortunately, there wasn’t a free joor without some fresh nonsense on the Lost Light. Velocity burst in first, “Hey! We— in the reservoir— we found,”

She ate one klik processing. She had to be seeing Megatron extracting a long sterile lancet from under the Reinstated-Chief-Medical-Officer’s arm. He was using forceps, as his hands were too large to pluck his own object of assault.

“Actually great, that takes care of the next thing,” she blurted out, staring at Megatron, and then the door, and then, “Okay! Okay, bring him in! Hurry!”

Hound nearly knocked her over with a rolling worktable. It had to have been taken up from the hold, and it was oil-soaked and filthy. Something about the latest quantum hop threw debris in the reservoir; the first call-for-hands memo in this new reality had asked for help fishing it all out,

The table had been used for disentangling waste cables from,

Megatron dropped the forceps on the floor. “Ravage!?”

Ratchet shelved his own mortality. The immobile mass had a tail!

Velocity moved out of the way before declaring hopefully, “We think he’s alive!”