Sheer Dumb Luck Part 4
Sheer Dumb Luck
Part Four
By Dreaming of Everything AKA dream_it_all AKA dreams_of_all, betaed by mmouse15
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: M for sex and possible language, plus sexual themes. Warnings for multiple partner scenes and themes, plug-and-play, slash. Updated G1 characters.
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Constructicons, Ratchet/Constructicons. (Yes, all of them.)
Summary: The Constructicons found Ratchet and asked him to repair their sixth gestalt member. He couldn't say no, although he knew he needed to. Forced into an uneasy truce, he's almost starting to get attached...
Sheer Dumb Luck chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Sheer Dumb Luck @ FFnet
Sheer Dumb Luck, Part 4
Ratchet had been working for hours and had hours left to go. He was extremely annoyed.
The Decepticon staring at him wasn’t helping. At least Hook was able to make himself useful with the cleaning, a side effect of being a self-trained ‘medic’-he had at least a vague idea of what things were supposed to look like.
The new Decepticon-Scavenger-was just watching him from across the table, seated in an awkward, crunched-up position, chin resting on his arms, tail clacking rhythmically and restlessly against something-or-other in a steady, ceaseless beat that was driving Ratchet to absolute distraction, and beyond.
-Enough of this. His concentration was waning-he needed a quick break, a chance to refocus. Ratchet leaned back with a sigh, grimacing at the glutinous slime that was dripping off his fingers, a combination of fouling seawater made thick by salt and plankton as the water slowly evaporated; energon; and cleaner, which had reacted oddly with the decomposing plankton-it had never been meant for organic material. Cybertronian scientists had always dismissed the idea of a carbon-based life forms as ridiculous.
Scavenger straightened as well, looking expectant. A table away, Hook looked up and over at the other two.
“The internals need spraying down. I can’t work through this slag.”
Scavenger was on his feet almost before Ratchet finished, the odd spine-like projections circling the back of his head lifting a little higher, like some odd sort of crest-there was a double row of them running down his back, too, and Ratchet assumed they’d shifted positions as well, although he couldn’t see them. It was an odd effect, one Ratchet hadn’t seen before-clearly a Decepticon design innovation; Autobot body patterns were more streamlined, cohesive.
Some faction-impartial part of him liked the look.
“Washracks,” said Hook shortly, setting aside what he’d been working on and striding over. He eyed the body, half-filled with the mucous-like slime, dispassionately. “I’ll take the shoulders.” Scavenger nodded his understanding eagerly.
They lifted Bonecrusher between the two of them, careful to try and keep the thick liquid contained, and headed off down the hall. Ratchet followed them wordlessly, half-listening to Scavenger’s idle chatter. He missed his name the first time Scavenger said it.
“-atchet?”
“Huh?”
“Is… Is there anything else you’re going to need? ’Cause it’ll be my job to find it if there is-”
“-Cleaning solution. Wire, in several gauges. I have a list of engine parts, too. Those are the immediate problems.” He tried not to think about how the mech would go about getting those. Once he’d worked with an Autobot known for his slightly underhanded methods (which was definitely an understatement) and he’d had to do the same then, although he’d drawn a line when he’d asked for metal suitable for armor manufacture and he’d been given a ripped-off stack of armor pieces, still splattered with energon and coolant, with one side painted and the other lined with circulatory vessels.
“Wire’s easy-engine parts are easier-I dunno about cleaner, the organics use something different, right?” He paused, waiting for an answer. None came. “…Did you try asking Mixmaster?”
“They haven’t met,” said Hook, and Ratchet frowned at the hidden implication-nothing he really understood-in the words.
Scavenger shrugged, clearly unhappy-worried-about something, but trying to hide it, or maybe trying not to worry about it at all. “I’ll ask him, then.”
Silence fell, the three slowly making their way through the huge tangled mess of a base-although it wasn't a mess in the sense that it was dirty; actually, it was very clean. More so than the Autobot base, which tended to collect a lot of dust.
Ratchet didn’t even notice that they’d started heading downhill at first, the angle increasing slowly at first and then more swiftly, until the shifting angle slopped some of the liquid in Bonecrusher’s body cavity over Hook’s fingers. Hook flinched slightly, spilling more of the foul substance over himself and the floor, and his disgust was clear, even to Ratchet.
“Sorry,” Scavenger said, feeling slightly guilty. “…Do you want to try and switch sides? So you get the part that’s pointed uphill?” He glanced over at Ratchet, then hastily tacked on a brief explanation, obviously for their 'guest’s' benefit. “I know you like to stay clean. -But we are headed to the washracks anyway, I guess.”
Hook didn’t respond, and an uneasy silence fell. Scavenger was clearly on edge in the quiet, trying to keep from moving restlessly-his tail was twitching nervously, sweeping this way and that along the increasingly narrow hallway.
The inevitable happened, and Ratchet wasn’t able to avoid it as it came sweeping at him again-the clanging noise it made, colliding with his hip, was loud in the silence. Scavenger jumped, spikes-probably some sort of magnification device for one sensory system or another-bristling with surprise before dropping back to their default position. Hook made an annoyed hissing noise as his front was drenched with salty, slimy contaminated cleaning solution. Ratchet could understand the distaste-salt itched, and it truly was a foul mixture-and some part of him wanted to warn the Decepticon to make sure he got every last trace of the mixture rinsed out of his joints. Like Hook was an Autobot whose health he was supposed to be watching. Like he was his charge.
“I’m really glad you agreed to help us,” Scavenger said unexpectedly. Ratchet had to work to hide his surprise, even though Scavenger was turned away from him and Hook, who was facing in the right direction, to carry Bonecrusher, had his view almost entirely blocked by Scavenger.
“You threatened to kill me, other Autobots and every human you ran into if I didn’t.” Ratchet was honestly amazed by the sheer presumption in the Decepticon’s statement.
“Oh.” Scavenger didn’t sound particularly convinced.
...And the thing was, Ratchet wasn’t all that convinced, himself. Because he could have found a way to make sure that the gestalt didn’t get helped and didn’t kill anyone. He could have sacrificed himself for the general good. He could have contacted the Prime, like he should have done. His hands were tied, but not all that tightly.
He was, absolutely and inarguably, not doing the right thing. But some part of him was convinced he was anyways.
oOo
Bonecrusher’s almost ruined body was clean. Ratchet wasn’t, anymore. He leaned against the wall and wished, uselessly, for the Autobot washracks-the second thing to be finished when they’d built the base, the only higher priority being the communications room. He made a point to head over to Nevada once every three or four months, largely to use them-although also to check up on the news and make sure everyone was functioning well, and to stave off boredom.
Scavenger looked over at him and frowned. Ratchet scowled back.
“Here, do you want to use the washracks? You’re kind of dirty. ...So’m I. And Hook. He’s definitely going to get clean before he does anything else.”
Ratchet wanted to say no (because Scavenger was a Decepticon) and wanted to say yes (because Scavenger clearly had good intentions, meant the best) and mostly just wanted to get clean.
“-yes. Thank you.” He looked for a minute at the control display next to him-it was a different design than the ones the Autobots used, a reminder of where he was and who he was with, just in case he had forgotten-then selected a program and stepped into the heavy spray that started, the room suddenly loud with the drumming of water against metal. Unwillingly (he didn’t want to relax) he felt his tension start to melt away.
Across the room, the two Decepticons had paused, watching him. “They really do trust too easily,” muttered Hook, meaning the Autobots.
“Well, it’s not like we’re actually going to do anything.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“He did scan you-and he’s not stupid. He’s a medic.”
“There’s a difference between stupidity and naivety. I never accused him of the former.”
“Whatever-naive or not, I like him.”
“You hardly know him.”
“We got a sense off of him, too, when he scanned you and Scrapper, y'know. And I think he wants to like us-he’s helping us.”
“We threatened him to make him help us.”
“You know what I’m talking about. Will you help me with my back?”
Ratchet turned and arched to one side, opening up joins and gaps to let more water run over him, stripping away two month’s worth of internal grit and grime, cleansers starting to work at breaking down built-up oils-the fire station washed all their vehicles regularly, but that only got external dirt, and the dry dust of the Mojave desert always built up faster than it could be washed off.
The two Decepticons were across from him, Scavenger running a brush around the complicated joins where Hook’s two left arms met his body, dripping water and tail held high. His outline was oddly smooth-almost an Autobot design; the sensory extensions had been fully retracted, flush against his body.
And there it was again, their abnormal tendencies to touch each other. Autobots would help each other get at difficult parts to clean, but they wouldn’t do it by...
Scavenger had curled around the other, one of his hands manipulating a brush and the other holding onto one of Hook's wrists, which was one of the two hands Hook was using to brace them against the wall. His third hand was against Scavenger's shoulder, and a fourth was running a cloth around the base of one of his head-spikes.
No, that wasn’t normal. Cybertronians weren’t tactile. Most-all-would not consider physical contact comforting. A fair number, perhaps the nominal majority, didn’t even like to touch during interface, limiting contact to data exchange and energy field manipulation. These two-not mechs Ratchet saw getting along, didn’t see cooperating well, even as gestalt members-were clearly enjoying just the act of touch. It wasn’t even particularly sexualized. Or out-of-the-ordinary, for them. And Ratchet was positive that it wasn’t some sort of bizarre cultural difference between Autobots and Decepticons.
On the other hand, if the spikes covering Scavenger were tactical sensors, partly or fully, it would probably be remarkably nice for the ’Con to have someone running their fingers over them. It was possible that Ratchet was missing something, even though he was pretty positive that Scavenger wasn’t showing any signs of arousal, or of being concentrated on anything other than getting Hook’s joints as clean as possible.
Why did it matter that the Decepticon gestalt was all touchy-feely, anyways? Ratchet turned forcefully away, looking around the rest of the room for a brush.
Hah, there. There was a stool, too. Good-he needed to tweak the alignment of a wire in his foot, anyways, and that would be much easier sitting down. He was pretty sure a pebble had ended up wedged in there.
And yes, there was-not really a problem. It was easy to work it out with the help of a stiff wire brush. With that little niggling problem gone Ratchet traded the brush for a softer one and started working on his knee joints, carefully dulling the tactical feedback he was getting from the area.
He was jolted out of his peaceful state, nerves and concentration shattered, by the sudden appearance of a hand on his shoulder, grip firm, metal against metal unexpected enough to trigger his battle programming, little though it was: his engine raced to life, sensors flared, and his weapons sprang out. If he’d been Ironhide, built for (forceful) peacekeeping and heavily modified for war, the mech who’d surprised him by coming up behind him-Scavenger-would have ended up dead instead of unexpectedly pinned, blade at his throat. Ratchet caught the noise of the sudden transformation of Hook’s cannons before he realized, fully, what he’d done. He froze. The noise of Hook’s weapon prepping was copied, magnified a thousand fold, by the automated defense systems activating. Probably a third mech in a security center or control room, he thought.
“I just wanted to see if you needed some help!”
Ratchet took a careful step back, backing away from the Decepticon a little, so they weren’t pressed against each other, expecting to be shot for the unexpected movement. Nothing changed, so he risked speaking. “I was-surprised. I’m not used to physical contact.” From Decepticons. While he was in their base, probably technically their prisoner, repairing their almost-dead gestalt-member. And using their washracks.
Surprisingly, amazingly, the wall-mounted cannons were withdrawn, a full minute after he finished speaking. Every second felt like an eternity. Hook stepped forward instead, all four arms at his side but the upper set still transformed into cannons, matching the one mounted on his shoulder. Scavenger, possibly acting on some unheard cue, produced his own set of nasty-looking weapons. Ratchet didn’t move, didn’t so much as twitch.
“You realize what it looks like, to have you-an Autobot, an enemy combatant forced into providing help-attack one of us?” That was Hook, his voice low and dangerous.
“I did surprise him...”
“You are very lucky Scavenger isn’t harmed, or dead. If he had been offlined, you would be joining him, slowly.” It was impossible to ignore that Hook-that both of them, but especially Hook-were Decepticons, the way he halfway had been. Decepticons, eternal enemies and intrinsic opposites of the Autobots, dangerous and cold, impossible to trust-and if you were stupid enough to try to, it inevitably came back to burn you.
Hook strode forward, his lower set of arms reaching out to grab Ratchet’s wrists in a crushing grip, one cannon rising to point at his head, barely a centimeter away, and the other cannon folding back into a hand so the Decepticon could rest two delicate fingers against the surface of Ratchet’s left optic, so lightly that there was no sensation of touch, or of pressure.
“It would be very, very easy to drag your intentions out of you. Settle once and for all any doubt I hold when it comes to whether or not you’re planning to double-cross us. You’d be begging for me to get into your systems within an hour-or I could simply cripple you so badly with pain that you don’t have the concentration to keep me out, and take the data. And maybe I don’t have the skill to drag Autobot secrets out of you, but something like your thoughts when it comes to us? That would be easy, wouldn’t it.”
Hook paused. Ratchet didn’t have anything to say. He’d given in to his ridiculous urges to almost-trust the Decepticons, to help them, and this was just the natural consequence of that. He’d be tortured to death, or just to the edge of it, the Decepticons would be satisfied that he wasn’t-hadn’t-been trying to kill Scavenger, or Bonecrusher, or any of them, and that he’d never planned to turn them in, or tried to, for whatever reason. And their injured sixth would remain in stasis until his spark failed or the Decepticons found another medic-
“But I won’t,” Hook said quietly, stepping away. His fingers glided over Ratchet’s hands as he let go, and Ratchet’s vision sparked momentarily as he tapped the optic his fingers had been resting against, firmly but almost painlessly.
The Autobot stiffened with shock, just barely managing to keep from snapping around to stare at the mech who’d stepped back behind him. That made no sense-unless they preferred to have the information handed to them, for whatever reason.
“No. I won’t.”
“Won’t what?” That was Scavenger, but even Hook looked almost confused.
“I’m not going to let you bully me into giving up information-not after I’ve provided a reasonable reason for my actions. Is a little jumpiness really all that unbelievable? Considering the circumstances.”
“Um, Ratchet, I’d really like it if you didn’t try to talk Hook into putting his fingers through your optic-”
“You almost killed Scavenger...!”
“But I didn’t. Not a scratch on him-maybe some superficial damage to the wall, but I didn’t even manage any cosmetic damage. Cosmetic. And I’m already helping you repair a damaged teammate, as things are! Which you would realize if you were thinking anything through-”
“It’s not ‘helping’ if you’re being forced to-”
“Oh, please. We both know that you had to be desperate to confront me at all because there were-are-too many ways things could go wrong for you-if I’d called for Optimus Prime during our first ‘meeting’ you probably could have killed me and escaped, but how long could you have stayed hidden? And that wouldn’t do anything for Bonecrusher. Carrying through with your threat and killing humans would leave an obvious trail and make the Autobots even more furious. If I had radioed for my team sometime after I agreed to help you, there’s a chance you would have escaped, but less of one. And even worse odds if I’d done it after my first visit here, because at that point I knew where at least one of your entrances is. True, you’ve set your base up like a slagging maze, but you need all six of you-even the completely disabled one hovering at the point of offlining permanently-to get out clean of any situation. At any point I could have sabotaged Bonecrusher while I was working on him-it would be remarkably easy. You’d probably-doubtlessly-try to kill me, but it would be more than a fair trade-off-grounding a Decepticon gestalt in exchange for my own life? Ordinarily, it’s not even worth thinking about. If I decided to get inventive, I could probably work out something crippling that would only activate once you combined, taking out the whole nest at once.
“But I haven’t. I don’t know why, but I haven’t.”
“Why?” Scavenger asked.
“I told you, I don’t know why.”
There was a long pause.
“Because...
“Because I’d never thought that I’d see Jazz die, but he did anyways. Or Wheeljack-he died of treachery, a traitor in the ranks. I had a pair of twins under my care once-I couldn’t save one when he came in after a battle, even worse off than Bonecrusher was, and the other died two weeks later-he just didn’t have the will to live, anymore, so he wandered off on his own along the borderline until he ran into a Decepticon patrol-he didn’t fight back…” Ratchet trailed off. “-And even if I’m not sure I can trust it, the scans I read off of you, Hook, and off Scrapper say you’ve got no plans to go after humans, or even Autobots, if it was just the six of you, all functional. So I’ve got no real reason not to help you…”
Ratchet waited, and resisted the urge to turn away: there were still two sets of weapons trained on him, and he knew better than to move unless he was told to. He settled for glaring balefully at the far wall instead.
There were the sounds of transformation, and Ratchet looked at Scrapper, and then twisted around to look at Hook, surprised: they’d both retracted their weapons systems.
“We still have work to do today,” Hook said loftily, turning away.
“Are you going to keep us working for days again?” Scavenger paused. “-Like that one time when we were working on that bridge?” He sounded-peeved, but resignedly so, familiarly. Like it had been an issue for so long that now it was almost a joke.
Hook snorted. “You’ll never let me hear the end of it-That was at the beginning! I’ve learned your limits for going without recharge or refuel-”
Ratchet stared at the two mechs, now lifting Bonecrusher’s body between them, not entirely sure what had just happened. He was uncomfortably aware of his confessions to the Decepticons, but they’d just-accepted his reasoning, moved on, even after he’d almost killed one of them-
“Are you coming?” Hook called back after him, sounding irritated, but...not. Like it really didn’t matter, because he knew better.
Belatedly, Ratchet started after them.
--End chapter 4--
Part Four
By Dreaming of Everything AKA dream_it_all AKA dreams_of_all, betaed by mmouse15
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: M for sex and possible language, plus sexual themes. Warnings for multiple partner scenes and themes, plug-and-play, slash. Updated G1 characters.
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Constructicons, Ratchet/Constructicons. (Yes, all of them.)
Summary: The Constructicons found Ratchet and asked him to repair their sixth gestalt member. He couldn't say no, although he knew he needed to. Forced into an uneasy truce, he's almost starting to get attached...
Sheer Dumb Luck chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Sheer Dumb Luck @ FFnet
Sheer Dumb Luck, Part 4
Ratchet had been working for hours and had hours left to go. He was extremely annoyed.
The Decepticon staring at him wasn’t helping. At least Hook was able to make himself useful with the cleaning, a side effect of being a self-trained ‘medic’-he had at least a vague idea of what things were supposed to look like.
The new Decepticon-Scavenger-was just watching him from across the table, seated in an awkward, crunched-up position, chin resting on his arms, tail clacking rhythmically and restlessly against something-or-other in a steady, ceaseless beat that was driving Ratchet to absolute distraction, and beyond.
-Enough of this. His concentration was waning-he needed a quick break, a chance to refocus. Ratchet leaned back with a sigh, grimacing at the glutinous slime that was dripping off his fingers, a combination of fouling seawater made thick by salt and plankton as the water slowly evaporated; energon; and cleaner, which had reacted oddly with the decomposing plankton-it had never been meant for organic material. Cybertronian scientists had always dismissed the idea of a carbon-based life forms as ridiculous.
Scavenger straightened as well, looking expectant. A table away, Hook looked up and over at the other two.
“The internals need spraying down. I can’t work through this slag.”
Scavenger was on his feet almost before Ratchet finished, the odd spine-like projections circling the back of his head lifting a little higher, like some odd sort of crest-there was a double row of them running down his back, too, and Ratchet assumed they’d shifted positions as well, although he couldn’t see them. It was an odd effect, one Ratchet hadn’t seen before-clearly a Decepticon design innovation; Autobot body patterns were more streamlined, cohesive.
Some faction-impartial part of him liked the look.
“Washracks,” said Hook shortly, setting aside what he’d been working on and striding over. He eyed the body, half-filled with the mucous-like slime, dispassionately. “I’ll take the shoulders.” Scavenger nodded his understanding eagerly.
They lifted Bonecrusher between the two of them, careful to try and keep the thick liquid contained, and headed off down the hall. Ratchet followed them wordlessly, half-listening to Scavenger’s idle chatter. He missed his name the first time Scavenger said it.
“-atchet?”
“Huh?”
“Is… Is there anything else you’re going to need? ’Cause it’ll be my job to find it if there is-”
“-Cleaning solution. Wire, in several gauges. I have a list of engine parts, too. Those are the immediate problems.” He tried not to think about how the mech would go about getting those. Once he’d worked with an Autobot known for his slightly underhanded methods (which was definitely an understatement) and he’d had to do the same then, although he’d drawn a line when he’d asked for metal suitable for armor manufacture and he’d been given a ripped-off stack of armor pieces, still splattered with energon and coolant, with one side painted and the other lined with circulatory vessels.
“Wire’s easy-engine parts are easier-I dunno about cleaner, the organics use something different, right?” He paused, waiting for an answer. None came. “…Did you try asking Mixmaster?”
“They haven’t met,” said Hook, and Ratchet frowned at the hidden implication-nothing he really understood-in the words.
Scavenger shrugged, clearly unhappy-worried-about something, but trying to hide it, or maybe trying not to worry about it at all. “I’ll ask him, then.”
Silence fell, the three slowly making their way through the huge tangled mess of a base-although it wasn't a mess in the sense that it was dirty; actually, it was very clean. More so than the Autobot base, which tended to collect a lot of dust.
Ratchet didn’t even notice that they’d started heading downhill at first, the angle increasing slowly at first and then more swiftly, until the shifting angle slopped some of the liquid in Bonecrusher’s body cavity over Hook’s fingers. Hook flinched slightly, spilling more of the foul substance over himself and the floor, and his disgust was clear, even to Ratchet.
“Sorry,” Scavenger said, feeling slightly guilty. “…Do you want to try and switch sides? So you get the part that’s pointed uphill?” He glanced over at Ratchet, then hastily tacked on a brief explanation, obviously for their 'guest’s' benefit. “I know you like to stay clean. -But we are headed to the washracks anyway, I guess.”
Hook didn’t respond, and an uneasy silence fell. Scavenger was clearly on edge in the quiet, trying to keep from moving restlessly-his tail was twitching nervously, sweeping this way and that along the increasingly narrow hallway.
The inevitable happened, and Ratchet wasn’t able to avoid it as it came sweeping at him again-the clanging noise it made, colliding with his hip, was loud in the silence. Scavenger jumped, spikes-probably some sort of magnification device for one sensory system or another-bristling with surprise before dropping back to their default position. Hook made an annoyed hissing noise as his front was drenched with salty, slimy contaminated cleaning solution. Ratchet could understand the distaste-salt itched, and it truly was a foul mixture-and some part of him wanted to warn the Decepticon to make sure he got every last trace of the mixture rinsed out of his joints. Like Hook was an Autobot whose health he was supposed to be watching. Like he was his charge.
“I’m really glad you agreed to help us,” Scavenger said unexpectedly. Ratchet had to work to hide his surprise, even though Scavenger was turned away from him and Hook, who was facing in the right direction, to carry Bonecrusher, had his view almost entirely blocked by Scavenger.
“You threatened to kill me, other Autobots and every human you ran into if I didn’t.” Ratchet was honestly amazed by the sheer presumption in the Decepticon’s statement.
“Oh.” Scavenger didn’t sound particularly convinced.
...And the thing was, Ratchet wasn’t all that convinced, himself. Because he could have found a way to make sure that the gestalt didn’t get helped and didn’t kill anyone. He could have sacrificed himself for the general good. He could have contacted the Prime, like he should have done. His hands were tied, but not all that tightly.
He was, absolutely and inarguably, not doing the right thing. But some part of him was convinced he was anyways.
oOo
Bonecrusher’s almost ruined body was clean. Ratchet wasn’t, anymore. He leaned against the wall and wished, uselessly, for the Autobot washracks-the second thing to be finished when they’d built the base, the only higher priority being the communications room. He made a point to head over to Nevada once every three or four months, largely to use them-although also to check up on the news and make sure everyone was functioning well, and to stave off boredom.
Scavenger looked over at him and frowned. Ratchet scowled back.
“Here, do you want to use the washracks? You’re kind of dirty. ...So’m I. And Hook. He’s definitely going to get clean before he does anything else.”
Ratchet wanted to say no (because Scavenger was a Decepticon) and wanted to say yes (because Scavenger clearly had good intentions, meant the best) and mostly just wanted to get clean.
“-yes. Thank you.” He looked for a minute at the control display next to him-it was a different design than the ones the Autobots used, a reminder of where he was and who he was with, just in case he had forgotten-then selected a program and stepped into the heavy spray that started, the room suddenly loud with the drumming of water against metal. Unwillingly (he didn’t want to relax) he felt his tension start to melt away.
Across the room, the two Decepticons had paused, watching him. “They really do trust too easily,” muttered Hook, meaning the Autobots.
“Well, it’s not like we’re actually going to do anything.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“He did scan you-and he’s not stupid. He’s a medic.”
“There’s a difference between stupidity and naivety. I never accused him of the former.”
“Whatever-naive or not, I like him.”
“You hardly know him.”
“We got a sense off of him, too, when he scanned you and Scrapper, y'know. And I think he wants to like us-he’s helping us.”
“We threatened him to make him help us.”
“You know what I’m talking about. Will you help me with my back?”
Ratchet turned and arched to one side, opening up joins and gaps to let more water run over him, stripping away two month’s worth of internal grit and grime, cleansers starting to work at breaking down built-up oils-the fire station washed all their vehicles regularly, but that only got external dirt, and the dry dust of the Mojave desert always built up faster than it could be washed off.
The two Decepticons were across from him, Scavenger running a brush around the complicated joins where Hook’s two left arms met his body, dripping water and tail held high. His outline was oddly smooth-almost an Autobot design; the sensory extensions had been fully retracted, flush against his body.
And there it was again, their abnormal tendencies to touch each other. Autobots would help each other get at difficult parts to clean, but they wouldn’t do it by...
Scavenger had curled around the other, one of his hands manipulating a brush and the other holding onto one of Hook's wrists, which was one of the two hands Hook was using to brace them against the wall. His third hand was against Scavenger's shoulder, and a fourth was running a cloth around the base of one of his head-spikes.
No, that wasn’t normal. Cybertronians weren’t tactile. Most-all-would not consider physical contact comforting. A fair number, perhaps the nominal majority, didn’t even like to touch during interface, limiting contact to data exchange and energy field manipulation. These two-not mechs Ratchet saw getting along, didn’t see cooperating well, even as gestalt members-were clearly enjoying just the act of touch. It wasn’t even particularly sexualized. Or out-of-the-ordinary, for them. And Ratchet was positive that it wasn’t some sort of bizarre cultural difference between Autobots and Decepticons.
On the other hand, if the spikes covering Scavenger were tactical sensors, partly or fully, it would probably be remarkably nice for the ’Con to have someone running their fingers over them. It was possible that Ratchet was missing something, even though he was pretty positive that Scavenger wasn’t showing any signs of arousal, or of being concentrated on anything other than getting Hook’s joints as clean as possible.
Why did it matter that the Decepticon gestalt was all touchy-feely, anyways? Ratchet turned forcefully away, looking around the rest of the room for a brush.
Hah, there. There was a stool, too. Good-he needed to tweak the alignment of a wire in his foot, anyways, and that would be much easier sitting down. He was pretty sure a pebble had ended up wedged in there.
And yes, there was-not really a problem. It was easy to work it out with the help of a stiff wire brush. With that little niggling problem gone Ratchet traded the brush for a softer one and started working on his knee joints, carefully dulling the tactical feedback he was getting from the area.
He was jolted out of his peaceful state, nerves and concentration shattered, by the sudden appearance of a hand on his shoulder, grip firm, metal against metal unexpected enough to trigger his battle programming, little though it was: his engine raced to life, sensors flared, and his weapons sprang out. If he’d been Ironhide, built for (forceful) peacekeeping and heavily modified for war, the mech who’d surprised him by coming up behind him-Scavenger-would have ended up dead instead of unexpectedly pinned, blade at his throat. Ratchet caught the noise of the sudden transformation of Hook’s cannons before he realized, fully, what he’d done. He froze. The noise of Hook’s weapon prepping was copied, magnified a thousand fold, by the automated defense systems activating. Probably a third mech in a security center or control room, he thought.
“I just wanted to see if you needed some help!”
Ratchet took a careful step back, backing away from the Decepticon a little, so they weren’t pressed against each other, expecting to be shot for the unexpected movement. Nothing changed, so he risked speaking. “I was-surprised. I’m not used to physical contact.” From Decepticons. While he was in their base, probably technically their prisoner, repairing their almost-dead gestalt-member. And using their washracks.
Surprisingly, amazingly, the wall-mounted cannons were withdrawn, a full minute after he finished speaking. Every second felt like an eternity. Hook stepped forward instead, all four arms at his side but the upper set still transformed into cannons, matching the one mounted on his shoulder. Scavenger, possibly acting on some unheard cue, produced his own set of nasty-looking weapons. Ratchet didn’t move, didn’t so much as twitch.
“You realize what it looks like, to have you-an Autobot, an enemy combatant forced into providing help-attack one of us?” That was Hook, his voice low and dangerous.
“I did surprise him...”
“You are very lucky Scavenger isn’t harmed, or dead. If he had been offlined, you would be joining him, slowly.” It was impossible to ignore that Hook-that both of them, but especially Hook-were Decepticons, the way he halfway had been. Decepticons, eternal enemies and intrinsic opposites of the Autobots, dangerous and cold, impossible to trust-and if you were stupid enough to try to, it inevitably came back to burn you.
Hook strode forward, his lower set of arms reaching out to grab Ratchet’s wrists in a crushing grip, one cannon rising to point at his head, barely a centimeter away, and the other cannon folding back into a hand so the Decepticon could rest two delicate fingers against the surface of Ratchet’s left optic, so lightly that there was no sensation of touch, or of pressure.
“It would be very, very easy to drag your intentions out of you. Settle once and for all any doubt I hold when it comes to whether or not you’re planning to double-cross us. You’d be begging for me to get into your systems within an hour-or I could simply cripple you so badly with pain that you don’t have the concentration to keep me out, and take the data. And maybe I don’t have the skill to drag Autobot secrets out of you, but something like your thoughts when it comes to us? That would be easy, wouldn’t it.”
Hook paused. Ratchet didn’t have anything to say. He’d given in to his ridiculous urges to almost-trust the Decepticons, to help them, and this was just the natural consequence of that. He’d be tortured to death, or just to the edge of it, the Decepticons would be satisfied that he wasn’t-hadn’t-been trying to kill Scavenger, or Bonecrusher, or any of them, and that he’d never planned to turn them in, or tried to, for whatever reason. And their injured sixth would remain in stasis until his spark failed or the Decepticons found another medic-
“But I won’t,” Hook said quietly, stepping away. His fingers glided over Ratchet’s hands as he let go, and Ratchet’s vision sparked momentarily as he tapped the optic his fingers had been resting against, firmly but almost painlessly.
The Autobot stiffened with shock, just barely managing to keep from snapping around to stare at the mech who’d stepped back behind him. That made no sense-unless they preferred to have the information handed to them, for whatever reason.
“No. I won’t.”
“Won’t what?” That was Scavenger, but even Hook looked almost confused.
“I’m not going to let you bully me into giving up information-not after I’ve provided a reasonable reason for my actions. Is a little jumpiness really all that unbelievable? Considering the circumstances.”
“Um, Ratchet, I’d really like it if you didn’t try to talk Hook into putting his fingers through your optic-”
“You almost killed Scavenger...!”
“But I didn’t. Not a scratch on him-maybe some superficial damage to the wall, but I didn’t even manage any cosmetic damage. Cosmetic. And I’m already helping you repair a damaged teammate, as things are! Which you would realize if you were thinking anything through-”
“It’s not ‘helping’ if you’re being forced to-”
“Oh, please. We both know that you had to be desperate to confront me at all because there were-are-too many ways things could go wrong for you-if I’d called for Optimus Prime during our first ‘meeting’ you probably could have killed me and escaped, but how long could you have stayed hidden? And that wouldn’t do anything for Bonecrusher. Carrying through with your threat and killing humans would leave an obvious trail and make the Autobots even more furious. If I had radioed for my team sometime after I agreed to help you, there’s a chance you would have escaped, but less of one. And even worse odds if I’d done it after my first visit here, because at that point I knew where at least one of your entrances is. True, you’ve set your base up like a slagging maze, but you need all six of you-even the completely disabled one hovering at the point of offlining permanently-to get out clean of any situation. At any point I could have sabotaged Bonecrusher while I was working on him-it would be remarkably easy. You’d probably-doubtlessly-try to kill me, but it would be more than a fair trade-off-grounding a Decepticon gestalt in exchange for my own life? Ordinarily, it’s not even worth thinking about. If I decided to get inventive, I could probably work out something crippling that would only activate once you combined, taking out the whole nest at once.
“But I haven’t. I don’t know why, but I haven’t.”
“Why?” Scavenger asked.
“I told you, I don’t know why.”
There was a long pause.
“Because...
“Because I’d never thought that I’d see Jazz die, but he did anyways. Or Wheeljack-he died of treachery, a traitor in the ranks. I had a pair of twins under my care once-I couldn’t save one when he came in after a battle, even worse off than Bonecrusher was, and the other died two weeks later-he just didn’t have the will to live, anymore, so he wandered off on his own along the borderline until he ran into a Decepticon patrol-he didn’t fight back…” Ratchet trailed off. “-And even if I’m not sure I can trust it, the scans I read off of you, Hook, and off Scrapper say you’ve got no plans to go after humans, or even Autobots, if it was just the six of you, all functional. So I’ve got no real reason not to help you…”
Ratchet waited, and resisted the urge to turn away: there were still two sets of weapons trained on him, and he knew better than to move unless he was told to. He settled for glaring balefully at the far wall instead.
There were the sounds of transformation, and Ratchet looked at Scrapper, and then twisted around to look at Hook, surprised: they’d both retracted their weapons systems.
“We still have work to do today,” Hook said loftily, turning away.
“Are you going to keep us working for days again?” Scavenger paused. “-Like that one time when we were working on that bridge?” He sounded-peeved, but resignedly so, familiarly. Like it had been an issue for so long that now it was almost a joke.
Hook snorted. “You’ll never let me hear the end of it-That was at the beginning! I’ve learned your limits for going without recharge or refuel-”
Ratchet stared at the two mechs, now lifting Bonecrusher’s body between them, not entirely sure what had just happened. He was uncomfortably aware of his confessions to the Decepticons, but they’d just-accepted his reasoning, moved on, even after he’d almost killed one of them-
“Are you coming?” Hook called back after him, sounding irritated, but...not. Like it really didn’t matter, because he knew better.
Belatedly, Ratchet started after them.
--End chapter 4--