(no subject)
“I know you didn’t have quite the same education as most people,” Ratchet said once Skywarp’s optics lit up, “so I’m going to start at the beginning and if I go too fast, I want you to stop me so I can explain. It’s very important that you understand exactly what I’m telling you.”
“What happened?” Skywarp asked, looking around. “Where are my otoki?”
“They’re getting their newborn screening tests,” Ratchet said. “Thundercracker is with them. All maridi get these tests before they’re released. They are considerably healthier than you right now.”
Skywarp pulled himself up, unassisted. That was a good sign, if a little disturbing. Skywarp’s powers of recovery were vastly superior to anyone else Ratchet had ever met -but he still had a limit that he refused to respect. “What happened?” he repeated.
“As a spark spins, it transforms energon into energy that a mech’s body uses to power both his hardware and his software. If no energy leaves the spark, then his hardware freezes and his software crashes. If his fuel pump isn’t powered, or its driver is offline, it won’t pump more fuel into his spark chamber. Without energon, the spark will consume itself to keep the body going.” Ratchet fixed Skywarp with his fiercest expression. “That’s bad enough for a healthy person, but when a mech is down to one-eighth of a spark, then you nearly die from feeding your mori too much.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Skywarp said, plucking at a sparangos that had been left on his berth.
“I know you didn’t mean to,” Ratchet said. “That doesn’t change the fact that too much of your energon was filtered for vrefi, not leaving enough in your tanks for you to stay alive, much less help your spark heal. You managed to feed your vrefi right into desanguination. Do you know what that word means? Don’t be ashamed if you don’t, it’s a big one.”
“Um, falling out of bed?” Skywarp guessed.
“It means you didn’t have enough energon in you to stay alive. You fell out of bed because you were dying.”
“Oh.”
Ratchet cycled air through his vents, and weighed his next words carefully, keeping them as simple as possible. He didn’t want yet another misunderstanding. “Now you are only going to feed them from bottles,” he said to the black Seeker, who wasn’t nearly afraid enough. “And you are not filling those bottles yourself. You may carry one in your cockpit only if he goes in full. You are going to let other people feed your mori, or you will not live to see them grow. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Skywarp said, rather mulishly. “You don’t want me to feed my own tenki. I understand.”
“I don’t want you to die.” Ratchet wondered if shaking Skywarp would jostle whatever was broken back into place. “I would prefer you keep all your energon and your clock cycles for yourself, but since that has about the same chance of happening as the sun coming up in the west, I am giving you the absolute maximum you can safely do. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to like me. You just have to do what I say.”
“They should come first,” Skywarp argued. “The mori need it more than I do, they should get it first.”
No wonder Thundercracker was developing a permanent dent between his eyes. Skywarp wasn’t being willfully obtuse to prove his strength -he honestly would happily sacrifice himself for his tenki. That was something he would have learned long ago, and it was beyond Ratchet’s ken to fight against an entire culture. “Do they need it more than they need you?”
Skywarp didn’t say anything, looking down at the sparangos in his hands.
“Between the other two, your nipii will get more than enough nanites and code,” Ratchet said, gently. “But there’s more to geneos than nursing.”
“All I can do is sit and hold them,” Skywarp said, voice thick with impotent rage, hands fisting around the sparangos.
“That’s important too,” Ratchet said. “And it won’t last forever. You’ve lost seven-eighths of your spark, don’t forget, you’ll get better.” Or he’d die, but Ratchet wasn’t going to bet on that. Skywarp was remarkably resilient when it came to things that should have killed him. “I’ll tell Thundercracker,” Ratchet added. Telling Thundercracker was as good as telling Starscream, and between the two of them they’d keep Skywarp from doing anything too stupid. It would be a little unethical, except Skywarp had agreed long ago to involve those two in his medical decisions.
“Okay,” Skywarp said, smoothing the sparangos out.
“Skywarp,” Ratchet said. “Feeding them won’t slow your recovery. Well, it will, but more importantly, it will kill you. Do you understand what I’m saying? If you don’t listen to me, you will die, and after all you’ve survived do you want to be killed by something so easily avoided?”
“Are you still alive?” Ambulon asked as he came in the room. “Are you going to die in the next thirty-five minutes?”
“I’m fine,” Skywarp said, not looking up from his tiny black kori. The twin sucked at the bottle, optics never leaving Skywarp’s face. Like all his other tenki, this one had bright blue optics, the color rapidly becoming Skywarp’s favorite.
“He’s been behaving,” Thundercracker confirmed with a grin. He was greasing the big one’s joints. One day, Skywarp would allow Ratchet to install synovial fluid reservoirs in his tenki, so that they would be strong and properly formed, not prone to blocking and oddly-shaped like Skywarp’s own. But the maridi were far too small still, too small to be put under for surgery and also there was no place for the reservoirs to fit.
Ambulon gave a disbelieving snort. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” he said. “You have a visitor. Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”
“About what?” Skywarp wiped Twin’s face with the sparangos, and cradled the moros upright. Twin thunked his head against his trefos’ shoulder in what Thundercracker referred to as “headbutts of love.”
“I’m not picky,” Ambulon said as he turned to let the visitor know that Skywarp was ready. Then he left them, as the visitor came in.
“Congratulations on not dying,” Slipstream said wryly, coming straight to Skywarp and embracing him one-handed, the other hand holding a bag. “How are you doing?”
Skywarp hugged her back. “I have five mori and a cube of non-reactive energon,” he said. “I have everything I ever wanted.”
Slipstream leaned back, arm still around him, brows raised. “Really?” she asked, optics piercing right through his helm.
“No,” he said quietly, “but … not now.”
She nodded, and pulled him close again. “I won’t make you,” she whispered to him, as she had said so many times before, “but when you’re ready, I’ll listen.”
“I’ll tell you,” he promised, “Later.” Later, when the ache in his spark didn’t rise up and overwhelm him at the very thought. Later, when the burn had cooled to something that could be described in mere words.
Slipstream squeezed him gently one last time, then sat on the bed next to Skywarp’s legs. “This is one of them?” she asked, offering a finger to the twin.
“No, we stole one from the nursery to keep ours company.” Skywarp grinned, and held the moros out to her. “Do you want to hold him?”
Slipstream set the bag down and took the nipio in both hands, as delicately as a sacred relic. “Oh, Skywarp, he’s perfect.”
“That one has a surprise twin, he’s in the cradle now,” Skywarp told her. “And TC has the big one.”
“He Who Is A Precocious Academy Student,” Thundercracker put in.
“Why are you calling him that?”
“Because he chugs until he throws up and passes out.” Thundercracker handed the silver and gold nipio to Skywarp. The vrefos was still all green, and he cuddled against Skywarp’s chest without a word of protest, watching Slipstream cradle his nosokos. “And He Who Has Yet To Cry is in my cockpit, but he should be waking up soon.”
“They’re adorable,” Slipstream said. “You’re so lucky.”
“I know,” Skywarp said, smiling.
“They could have looked like you,” Slipstream continued. “I brought you a present.” She toed the bag with her foot.
“Open it, TC? My hands are kinda full.”
Thundercracker, wary of gifts given to Skywarp after long experience, picked up the bag. He opened it, and poorly hid his wince as he reached in.
There was no explosion of paint, though, and he lifted out five little pendants, magnetized to stick to metal. They were stylized Seekers, inscribed with glyphs from the Book of Primus. Thundercracker, for onces silent on the subject of religion, handed them to Skywarp.
Skywarp found one that said, “widespread wings protect,” and placed it on the chest of the vrefos he held.
“I heard you had five,” Slipstream said. “Does my nosokos have him?”
“He’s still under observation,” Thundercracker said.
“But he’s doing good!” Skywarp added, handing one of the magnets to Slipstream. It said “and with knowledge, is safety.” She placed it on the chest of the tenkos, and Twin hugged her arm.
One of the magnets said, “shadows protect,” and he saved that for his tiniest, blind son. The other two he handed to Thundercracker.
Thundercracker didn’t need to ask which was for which. On the red one he placed “the stillness of joy, of sorrow,” and he saved the one that said “trust in Primus, update your antivirus,” for the surprise infant in his cockpit.
“So you’re waiting for him to be ready to go home? Also there’s more in the bag.”
“Oh no,” Thundercracker said, tentatively reaching into the bag again. “He’ll be here until he can eat on his own, we can’t stay that long. They’ll need the bed.” The bag also held a foil-wrapped package.
“That’s for Skywarp,” Slipstream said. “When do you get sprung then? Are the others ready to go?”
“Tell her.” Thundercracker traded the package for the vrefos on Skywarp’s lap. “Tell her why we’re not going home yet.”
Skywarp ducked his head and wished he was holding one of the mori still. “I had a, what do you call it two days ago, a seizure, and fell out of bed.”
Slipstream looked at him, and in that moment it was easy to see that she and Starscream shared a enkyos. “Why do I get the feeling that as horrible as that is, you’re hiding something worse?”
“Tell her what caused the seizure,” Thundercracker said, because he could be a real jerk sometimes.
“Ratchet said I fed them too much?”
“Skywarp.” Slipstream reached behind and slapped him up the back of the head, then pulled him forward for another hug. “What were you thinking? Primus invented bottles for a reason!”
“I didn’t realize I was that low!” Skywarp protested. Slipstream’s grip was tight on his shoulders, and between them Twin was squirming.
"Well, listen to Ratchet from now on." Slipstream let him go, optics dim. "And don't even think about feeding them anymore. Nursing yourself to death is a mortal sin, you know."
Skywarp looked down at his hands, but didn't say anything. He hadn't known...but he'd suspected that maybe feeding them himself wouldn't be the most logical thing.
"Really?" Thundercracker asked. "I haven't kept up on the masterlist. How long has that been offensive to Primus? It seems quite specific."
Slipstream looked at him, away from Skywarp, and Skywarp felt less like flinging himself to the floor and begging her forgiveness. Partly because she was one of his few friends -and partly because this was all too much like trying to explain to Starscream.
"It falls under killing oneself by not asking for help," she said. "That's been on the list for a very long time. Primus granted us intelligence to be used." She shifted Twin on her lap. “Now open your present,” she ordered, lecture done with.
Skywarp carefully peeled away the wrapping. He’d known it would be a video game from the shape, but he was still surprised to see The Plating Of Six Technoanimals inside. Had that game come out already?
“Now since you’re going to be sitting on your aft and not feeding mori, I expect you to be a decent challenge by the time they’re baptized,” she said. “I’m sure you can play it while they sleep on you.”
“I’ll find the time,” he said with a grin.
“Good. Just because you’re a geneos doesn’t mean you have to give up everything.” Slipstream leaned forward and hugged him again. She kept doing that, and it wasn’t like Skywarp had come back from the dead or anything.
Well, he’d almost died, when the avegi were detaching and again after he fed them too much. He’d almost left behind his precious mori and followed the other four to the Well. He’d almost died twice in two deca-cycles, less. And he didn’t want to die, oh he very much wanted to live.
Thundercracker’s hand was trembling on his back, except it wasn’t shaking, Skywarp was. He couldn’t leave his miracles, his saviors, not when he hadn’t paid them back yet. He needed to live, to take care of them, he couldn’t leave them!
“Easy, easy,” Thundercracker murmured in his audial. “We’re not going anywhere.”
But that wasn’t what Skywarp was afraid of.
Skywarp handed the red nipios to Thundercracker. “They’re coming soon, right?”
“Yes,” Thundercracker said, plugging the red nipios in the rolling cradle. Three other cradles sat next to it, each with a nipios recharging inside. They were so strong now, ready to go home as soon as Skywarp was, and Skywarp refused to leave at least before seeing his last moros.
Skywarp fidgeted, and reached for his cube. He could drink without getting sick again finally, and he was so used to the irradiated taste of antiemetics he almost missed them. Almost. This energon was normal, though Ratchet would send him home with supplements to add three times a day.
Home but not home. He was going back to Starscream and Thundercracker’s place, where there was a nursery all set up, where it was quiet. Ratchet was letting him go under strict orders to take it easy that were the next thing to bedrest, with Thundercracker assigned to take care of four vrefi. Home but not home, where he’d lived the last few paracycles, where Megatron might come, where he couldn’t accidentally run into Megatron.
Home, and home for his otoki, and help he knew he so desperately needed, and everything he could want except Megatron. “How soon?”
“I don’t know,” Thundercracker said, peeking out the door. “Skywarp, before you see him, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“You’re madly in love with my tail fins and want me to run away with you?”
Thundercracker shook his head and sat down in the chair he’d been living in for the past two deca-cycles. “No, but you know how strong we say he is?”
Skywarp nodded.
“We mean strong for his size. And he is very, very small.” Thundercracker cupped his hands together. “Barely bigger than a scraplet.”
“But alive and fighting,” Skywarp said. He was hiding worry, but not the same worry as Thundercracker. He’d seen tiny mori before, weak mori, mori that hadn’t quite coalesced right. Whatever his otokos looked like, however he was damaged, Skywarp would love him just as much as his perfectly-formed adelfi. He only hoped that the moros wouldn’t die like so many others he had seen.
“Alive and fighting,” Thundercracker agreed. “He’s down to just one monitor, and he still has a feeding intake, but he’ll be hooked up to some wires.”
“I’ll be careful,” Skywarp promised. “And he’s blind, too?”
Thundercracker nodded. “Ratchet says not to worry about it until he’s bigger. The hardware’s all there, but the signal’s not transmitting.”
“I know,” Skywarp said. “Where is he?”
“Very soon.” Thundercracker stood up and paced. “I’m going to go get some energon, do you want some?” he asked.
“I’m good, thanks,” Skywarp said, and Thundercracker left.
He came back far too quickly to have made it to the dispenser and back, empty handed, with a carefully blank expression not even Starscream could have read. Starscream himself followed, limping a little.
“What happened to you?” Skywarp asked as Starscream took a seat and his sieziegos hovered behind him.
“Remember how you agreed to let him have a protoform donation?” Starscream asked, as his cockpit clicked open. The glass lifted with a hiss of hydraulics and Skywarp heard nothing else, all his attention focused on the bundle Thundercracker lifted out gently and placed in his lap.
With shaking fingers, Skywarp unwrapped the warming sparganos and the sparangos inside. He was a tiny thing, too tiny to believe. Skywarp slid his fingers under him, carefully avoiding the wire that emerged from his chassis to the monitor attached to his thigh, even more careful around the fresh weld where he’d received a protoform transfusion. “Hey, little,” he said, before his vocalizer quit and he had to reset it. “Hey, little one. How ya doing?” He lifted the nipios up to his face.
Even though his eyes were dark, Skywarp could feel the nipios inspecting him. It was an unnerving stare, and not just because there was no light spilling out. No, the nipios regarded him seriously, judging him with a maturity beyond his few days.
Or so it felt to Skywarp, who wanted nothing more than to be judged worthy to keep this fragile spark -all five of them, of course, but this one had one foot in the Well. He brought the moros closer and nestled him under his chin, cradled safe.
For a long time, nobody spoke. Skywarp moved to cover him with the warming sparganos, and Thundercracker jumped up to do it, looking to Skywarp for approval. Starscream stood and made his way over by the other cradles, reading the monitors of each one in turn.
Skywarp spread his hand over his son’s wings and shuttered his optics. He could feel tiny fans whirring, a small pump thumping away, fast but steady. He could almost feel the spinning of his spark, under tiny cables tensing, tiny gears fitting together.
His otokos was alive. Gloriously, firmly, strongly alive. Everything else was doable. All five of his kori were alive.
Skywarp broadcast a prayer, thanksgiving and gratitude from the spark, simple in its honesty and pure in its wordless simplicity. The nipios shifted and flailed, nuzzling deeper into Skywarp’s collar. So tiny, still fragile, but at least Skywarp got to hold him once, stroke over his wings with a gentle finger. His wings were the size of Skywarp’s fingers. No, he would stay, and Skywarp would thank Primus and Ratchet for every minute he spent in the hospital, instead of sending him home to die “in love.”
Eventually, eventually, after an age of Skywarp memorizing his slight weight and soft angles, Starscream laid a hand on Skywarp’s leg. Skywarp didn’t acknowledge him, dreading the moment he had to hand him over. It would have to be soon, from the blinking of the little yellow light reflected on Skywarp’s lap. The nipios needed a defrag and a debug.
“Open,” Starscream ordered, tapping on Skywarp’s cockpit. “He needs to be plugged in. Unless you want me to do it?”
“I can do it,” Skywarp said. He popped open his cockpit and lined it with the sparangos. The nipios was so damn small, small enough that Skywarp wouldn’t walk without additional padding, and he grabbed Skywarp’s finger with a grip too easy to break.
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