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It had started when Wheeljack blew up his leg. The idiot had so thoroughly decimated the components of the thing that Ratchet was sure it would take a good four earth moon-cycles to find the pieces to repair it, and told him so. Wheeljack had brushed the news off with his usual cavalier attitude, but as Ratchet deposited him on the berth and ordered him to stay, there had been a flash of panic behind his optics.
And now he was rocking back and forth and nearly whimpering.
It had been three hours.
“Wheeljack, please,” Ratchet said, straightening up. “Is it that hard to sit still?”
“It ain’t the sitting still,” Wheeljack growled, after he’d recovered from a frankly impressive flinch at the sound of Ratchet’s voice.
“Then what is it?” Ratchet put down the tool he’d been attempting to bend back into position. It was no use. He’d have to wait for Optimus and his—ridiculously-- superior grip strength.
“I ain’t used to not having something to work on,” the ex-Wrecker mumbled.
Was that it? Ratchet sighed, stepped toward him. “Do you want something to take apart?”
“I have a. . . I have a grenade I wanna work on in the Jackhammer--”
“Absolutely not, you’re not bringing a grenade in my medibay. Try again.”
Wheeljack put his hands, clenched in fists, down on the sides of the berth. “I don’t have anything else to do that—that I can do sittin’ on this bed!”
“What, do you—do you expect me to give you a bomb to blow your leg up with again?”
Wheeljack settled back against the berth, looking supremely miserable. “No. I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Not knowing how or wanting to deal with Wheeljack’s-- what had Miko called it? Angst?-- Ratchet left it at that.
The next day, Wheeljack had constructed a tiny, Miko-sized hand-blaster from parts of the berth and a cube of energon he’d hidden from Ratchet, given the unholy creation to the child, and let her go free. Ratchet came back to a base covered in scorch marks, cheering from Wheeljack and slightly uneasy cheering from Bulkhead, and the sight of Jack and Raf hiding behind the couch.
Miko whined for hours after Ratchet took the gun.
“Wheeljack,” he’d said, and the ex-Wrecker, who had been sitting and shifting guiltily on the berth as soon as the situation had begun to be handled, looked away pointedly. Ratchet had known a syk addict who had often come to his clinic back before the war—finials for days, expressive as the Pit. If Wheeljack had had any kibble like that, he would be drooping worse than the kid ever had.
“You can’t give Miko guns,” Ratchet said, weary. “I would have thought that was obvious. You just can’t.”
“I-- what do you want me to do with a tiny blaster like that?!”
Ratchet cocked his head, disbelieving. “Perhaps not make it in the first place?”
“Aw, Ratch. It hurts sitting here. You said—how long was it?”
“Four human months,” Ratchet said firmly. “You know this. I have to find the right material to construct new girders, and Optimus still hasn’t come back from wherever he went to find cabling strong enough to hold the new gears in place. And don’t even get me started on how long it’ll take to repair what little of your engergon line structure you have left! The rest I’ll have to build from scratch! And--”
“Okay, doc! All right!” Wheeljack let himself fall back against the bed, huffing. “But I got nothing to do! I ain’t used to that!”
“I can play for you!” Miko piped up, evidently over her fit. “Bulkhead loves it when I play for him, I bet you’ll like it too! You’ll be un-bored in no time, Wheeljack.”
“It’s not the mental boredom, Miko,” Ratchet said, sighing, and turned back to his work. “Wheeljack, I believe, functions so that he must always have something to do with his hands. And I'm sorry, Wheeljack, but I have nothing that I can spare for you to take apart.”
Wheeljack crossed his arms, looked away. “Whatever. Don’t matter.”
The next day Ratchet caught Bulkhead sitting next to the berth and trying to let Wheeljack take his hand apart without being too obvious. Please. The big lug was whistling, or trying to, as he pointedly looked away. Wheeljack didn’t even look up, his hands moving faster and faster on Bulkhead’s arm as Ratchet approached.
“Bulkhead!” Ratchet said sharply, because he knew that Bulkhead, at least, had some amount of fear in him, while Wheeljack was apparently some sort of old chaos god contained in mechanical form sent to this planet solely to torment him, Ratchet.
Bulkhead, sure enough, flinched and would have withdrawn his hand if Wheeljack had not grabbed onto it and glared up at Ratchet both possessively and pleadingly. Ratchet closed his eyes and pleaded to a god non-existent (on this planet anyway) for strength.
“Wheeljack,” he said slowly. “Bulkhead could be called for active duty at any moment. I can’t have you taking apart his arm.”
“I’m recalibrating the targeting systems of his blaster--” Wheeljack began.
“No, because that takes two minutes at worst and you have enough of his arm dissected that I can tell you’ve been doing this for hours.”
“Ratch, c’mon,” Bulkhead tried.
“No, Bulkhead. I appreciate that you just try to let him have whatever he wants, but this is not an outlet Wheeljack can use.” Ratchet tried not to look at how much Wheeljack’s face fell. He hated doing this, knowing how much Wheeljack needed some kind of distraction, but both of the options he’d chosen were not ones he could allow. “Now, come here and let me put your arm back together.”
“I can do it,” Wheeljack snapped, and began replacing wires and clicking plates back into place with perhaps more force than he meant to. Bulkhead winced but kept still.
Ratchet sighed.
It had only been three days.
But perhaps the worst was over. Maybe Wheeljack would find some sort of healthy coping mechanism, and the rest of the time would go smoothly.
Those hopes, more of scattered dashes of wishful thinking really, were shattered as Ratchet entered the medical corner the morn of the fourth day and saw Wheeljack dissecting his own leg.
Primus. What do I have to do? In his mind’s eye, he saw the methods of the doctor he used to work under, before the war. Pharma, when dealing with patients like this, often resorted to binding their hands to the berth sides or disabling the transformation seams in their hands that gave them access to any tools in their fingertips. Ratchet had never liked it. He didn’t like the idea of it now.
But I can’t let him hurt himself.
Post-argument and subsequent awkward repair job, Ratchet sought out Raf.
“Yeah, my sister does that,” was one answer he got from the boy. Another, under further pressing, was “It’s caused by a lot of stuff, but if Wheeljack needs something to do, I can get a stim toy from home and bring it.”
“No need,” Ratchet said, understanding suddenly dawning in his mind. “I will construct one for him myself.”
It took time, but eventually one such item was thought of, built, and presented to the ex-Wrecker.
“What is it?” Wheeljack asked, dangling the rounded cube between two fingertips.
“Something I thought might help you,” Ratchet said, waving a hand and turning away, back to his work. “For your own safety, and my peace of mind.”
Squinting at him, Wheeljack tapped the top of the cube. It unfolded, spreading out into a massive platform of sparking wires and turning gears.
“What is it,” Wheeljack repeated. But his hands twitched above the wiring.
“Entropic gear board. It will continue to wear itself apart unless constantly kept up on and repaired.” Ratchet dared to glance over, to see how Wheeljack was taking this. He was pleasantly to surprised to see the ex-Wrecker already busy over the platform. “I also equipped your berth with tools that I will need to use from time to time.”
Wheeljack grunted, waved a hand in an awkward sort of thanks. Ratchet turned away, and that was the end of that. Wheeljack never said anything, not to Ratchet. But he didn’t try to dissect his own body, or someone else’s, or—Primus forbid—give any more weapons to Miko. Ratchet counted that, at least, as a victory.
And, perhaps, the light that had gone on in Wheeljack’s eyes as he saw the board. That was enough of a victory for Ratchet, as well.