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By the time the worst of Grimlock’s welds set, Ratchet had mostly run out of steam. He’d held back with the others. Maybe a snipe or two with the frontliners and a stern word for Optimus, but it was different with the Dinobots. While Swoop and Snarl were blameless, Slag would only have reopened his wounds trying to start a fight, and Sludge… Yelling at Sludge would’ve not only been wildly unproductive but would have also made Ratchet feel like a bully.
And then there was Grimlock, who had refused to be fixed until the others were taken care of. Not only the Dinobots, but all of the Autobots. He had managed to be after even Optimus, mostly by virtue of slinking off to make himself scarce.
Wheeljack had taken his own turn disappearing as soon as Optimus was repaired. A smart move, since the moment Grimlock took a seat on the medberth, Ratchet’s thin patience snapped, and suddenly running the medscanner took a backseat to cursing a blue streak that echoed off the medbay ceiling at its worst. He partly wished that Wheeljack had stuck around--parts of it were relevant to him as well.
It was hard work, fixing this team time and time again, trying to be a voice of reason in the constant chaos. It was hard work that felt like it meant nothing when he had to sit back and watch bots like Grimlock put them all at risk. It was like Cliffjumper had grown twenty feet and gotten reinforced armor and ditched his remaining self-control circuitry.
Ratchet told him that, and a lot more, and Grimlock took it all without arguing. His visor dimmed but did not turn off, the only sign that he was still awake aside from the way he shifted when Ratchet paused his rant to prompt him to turn. Grimlock hadn’t spoken since sending the other Dinobots back to the barracks with a terse order to rest.
“What in the Pit were you thinking?” Ratchet muttered as he rummaged beneath Grimlock’s chassis plating. Now that he wasn’t actively bleeding, there was a persistent error message on the medscanner regarding some pinched fuel lines.
It took a dinobot to hurt a dinobot, apparently.
“Me Grimlock want to be strong leader.”
Ratchet found the crimp, and paused. He hadn’t expected an answer.
“Optimus is in charge around here,” he said finally. “You need to remember that.”
Grimlock’s engine rumbled, gears grinding together beneath Ratchet’s fingers. He yanked his hands free and smacked the first patch of uninjured plating he saw.
“Stop that! You’re gonna hurt yourself and you’re gonna hurt me, too.” Grimlock quieted. Ratchet sighed, settled his nerves. “I didn’t spend two joors fixing you up just to have you undo it.”
“Me Grimlock sorry,” Grimlock said a klik later, after Ratchet had gotten his hands back into the jumbled mess of Grimlock’s internals.
He could feel the weight of Grimlock looking at him and valiantly ignored it. If Grimlock wanted to talk all of a sudden, Grimlock could start the conversation. He found the first set of tangled fuel lines and set about easing them straight once again. He had to realign an indented section of plating that sat right along a transformation seam before he did anything else, or risk it crushing those lines again the moment Grimlock went into battle.
“Is him Optimus… good leader?”
“One of the best,” Ratchet answered without hesitation. “He would take a hit for any one of us. He’s saved my plating more times than I can count.”
“Him Optimus get slagged for us Dinobots.”
Ratchet did look at him then. Grimlock’s visor had brightened slightly. He recognized the uncertain tilt of Grimlock’s helm, and the lingering frustration and fear of the day finally faded.
“He did,” Ratchet said, nodding.
Grimlock nodded too.
Ratchet fumbled to hide his shock at the sudden brush of a field against his own. He’d forgotten that Wheeljack had done tune-ups a few cycles ago, before all the fuss about the meteor. It was still new for all of them, still difficult for Ratchet to get used to thinking about the bots they’d made walking around broadcasting their feelings. Wheeljack had confided in him before he’d done it that he wasn’t going to ask Optimus for permission. He hadn’t stopped there--Wheeljack had rambled about additional processor upgrades, dialect patches, memory storage. At the time they’d argued about it, a short and tense spat held in the storage room where nobody would overhear. Ratchet had said some choice things that amounted to several pointed fingers and a stubborn refusal to help, reminding Wheeljack of the last time he had gotten creative, and Wheeljack had winced, had said, “That’s what I’m trying to fix , Ratchet. They’re part of the team now. They oughta feel like it.”
Sometimes Ratchet struggled with recognizing that he was acting like a glitch. Sitting here, feeling the keyed-up rush of Grimlock’s field, he felt guilt tighten around his spark. Denying that the Dinobots deserved what the rest of the Autobots took for granted felt wrong when he was face-to-face with proof of it. Maybe things would have been different if he hadn’t fought Wheeljack so hard on all of this. It wasn’t like nobody listened to Wheeljack, but Ratchet’s opinion mattered to their group. His opinion mattered to Optimus. Optimus, who had needed to be convinced not to disassemble the Dinobots, and who had earlier today brushed off Grimlock’s apology as if he had heard nothing. As if it hadn’t mattered that Grimlock, the embodiment of brash self-confidence, had not only admitted to his fault but apologized for it.
Ratchet shook himself out of it, his guilt not receding but mixing now with a simmering frustration. As the sole medic in their army, he had a duty of care that he had not been fulfilling.
He set his EM output to a soothing frequency. Grimlock slowly relaxed, visor dimming again as Ratchet went back to work. He took more care now, the kinked cables and wires smoothed as he followed the indicator lights on the medscanner.
They weren’t beyond hope. Grimlock and the Dinobots hadn’t left, in the end, and he had exchanged more civil words with Grimlock today than he likely ever had.
“Why you Ratchet and him Wheeljack build us Dinobots?”
Ratchet kept working as he thought. ‘ Because Optimus let us ’ didn’t seem like an appropriate answer. The excitement on the Ark had been palpable that week. Wheeljack never met a project he couldn’t take to a whole new level.
“We needed more warriors,” he said as he anchored a loose cable more firmly into its joint. “It’s a difficult job, keeping everyone safe.”
Grimlock hummed his agreement, and Ratchet realized that there was nothing left for him to fix. He would have to get Grimlock in for regular tune-ups, if this was the state that two battles left him in, but that might not be as difficult as he’d imagined.
“You’re all set,” Ratchet said, latching Grimlock’s armor in place. “Try not to transform for a day or two. Gives your systems time to adjust to the fixes.
“Me Grimlock no transform,” Grimlock agreed. He was so much bigger than Ratchet, even sitting on the medberth.
Ratchet turned to clean his hands, aware that Grimlock lingered behind him. When he turned back Grimlock was still seated, his visor bright again.
“You Ratchet help us Dinobots.”
His spark went tight again. He would do better. “It’s my job.”
That seemed to satisfy Grimlock. He stood at last, lumbered to the doorway before he paused again. “You Ratchet good creator,” he added.
And then Ratchet was alone.
He stared at the pile of tools in the sink for several kliks.
Creator. Huh.
He'd have to get used to that.