Work Text:
Several months later
-
Ratchet had been stationned on a backwater planet - commonly called V-563 - with a considerably little crew. He was the only medic present. Their sole role in this part of the galaxy was to determine if the energon deposits of this planet and its surrounding moons were safe for transformation into potable energon.
They had been working for barely 4 days when they received an universal Autobot transmission – meaning that every Autobot with a functional comm received it – that every single commanding officer and medic were to come back at base in the next 36 hours. It had came directly from Optimus.
It had left everyone quite confused. Nothing had ever needed every single commander and medic to be regrouped. Ratchet and the only commander that had accompanied the little expedition – a bot named Nova - made their goodbyes for the foreseeable future. They had no way of knowing how long this unique situation would take. The second-in-command would supervise.
They left with one of the two ships that had taken them there, the commander piloting the ship while Ratchet chose to read a datapad about processor damages, their effects and their most effective cure. He remembered most of it, but it never hurt to refresh his memory.
Suddenly, there was a sharp sting in his neck’s left main cable. His limbs immediately started feeling heavier, his mind getting foggier. It took the last of his strength and awareness to lift his left arm – feeling what had stung him. Metallic. Sharp. Cylindrical.
A syringe.
He tried to shout to alert Nova, but his vocal box had already offlined. In the last light of his consciousness, he heard a low voice in his audial.
“Someone is going to be thrilled to see you.”
-
He was woken up by shouting overlapping voices. It was really, really loud. It felt like waking up to an army of Bumblebees who could speak, not only bleep. It was atrocious.
He grunted.
The voices stopped at once.
He was on a comfortable surface. It smelt good. Deeply masculine, with a touch of freshness meaning it had been washed recently.
He had yet to process those thoughts, his processor still fogged, his optics still closed.
He tried to move his arms. They were sluggish and took a slag lot of effort to move.
Why was that ?
At once, he opened his optics. He was looking at a ceiling he didn’t remember ever seeing. It was plain grey, but with sophisticated graphics.
He had a bad feeling.
It took him some time, but when he finally got himself to be sitting on what he now knew to be a berth, his optics recalibrated several times, the movement making him even more dazed.
When he finally could see, he froze. Mind and frame.
Merely 5 steps away was someone facing what looked like a window – but that Ratchet knew was only a screen - , leaning on the window sill, looking at the openness of the universe shown on it.
Grey paint, oversized frame, overly sharp limbs.
Ratchet was starting to be filled with something he hadn’t felt in a very long time for himself – fear.
He looked around him – it was a standard berthroom, with a desk to his left, filled with piled datapads, a door to his right and something that looked weirdly like a very big cube of energon being left on the left side of the berth.
Megatron still hadn’t moved.
Ratchet checked his systems – all were functional, except for his comm system. He should have known.
“Once I can trust that you won’t call the Autobots to your rescue, your comm’s system will be restored.” Megatron hadn’t turned around to speak.
His voice. It hadn’t had any intonation, but just...hearing it. Really hearing it. Not through a hologram, not through a buzzing audio, not through Optimus’ recordings. It rendered Ratchet speechless. It had been so long.
He shook himself. He was acting as a New spark, for Primus’ sake.
“Why ?”
Megatron turned around – his red optics analysing - and tilted his helm slightly.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Ratchet scoffed.
“Why-“He hissed. ”-did you take me ? You know I won’t join your ranks. Why bother ? Are you finally going to offline me ?”
Ratchet was talking with more confidence than he was actually feeling. He didn’t actually believe Megatron wanted him offline - he already would have been if that was the case - but he couldn’t help wondering.
Megatron looked at him piercingly for a long moment.
“This ought to be a long conversation, you better sit comfortably.”
Ratchet frowned and did not shift, only waiting for Megatron to continue.
Megatron started to pace right to left.
“Are you familiar with Alpha Trion’s main domain of research ?”
What ?
“What does Alpha Trion have to-“
“Ratchet.”
Ratchet paused. Megatron had stopped walking and now looked at him seriously.
“Humor me. Please.”
He looked so much like D-16 right at that moment that it hurt.
Only then did Ratchet really process the question asked. He slowly started talking.
“He was mainly working with the electromagnetic wavelengths emanating from sparks, if I recall correctly.”
Megatron nodded appreciatively.
“He did. More precisely, he was working on the mixed wavelengths of conjunxed sparks, amongst other spark related studies.”
Ratchet didn't like the sound of that.
Megatron continued speaking.
“Alpha Trion decoded the different wavelengths that determined if a bot was conjunxed or not. Not long after, he fabricated a machine capable of detecting conjunxed bots. Optimus is aware of that research, he even participated in it.”
Ratchet hadn’t known that. Megatron waited a few seconds for Ratchet to absorb that information.
“A few years ago, a spy of mine informed me that Optimus had been doing some unknown research – even hiding it from his most high-ranking officers. After that, all the spies I sent never came back. Except for one.” Megatron paused. “ He brought me images of what looked like a copy of Alpha Trion’s machine, except that some parts were modified, upgraded. Some time after, Optimus brought out an unupgraded prototype while we were fighting on Turnite. Using a diversion, he had the time to scan me.”
Megatron stopped talking, looking at Ratchet, gauging his reaction, trying to see if he understood where he was going with this. Ratchet did. This was a nightmare.
“He knows I’m conjunxed, what he has yet to know is to whom.”
Ratchet took his time processing all this new information. After a short while, he looked up sharply.
“That upgraded machine can detect who the scanned bot's conjunx is, doesn’t it ?”
Megatron smiled. A little thing, almost imperceptible hadn’t Ratchet known him on a personal level.
“There’s the sharp processor I fell in love with.”