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It had been an almost deceptively calm day in the medibay. Had they not been a mere two days out from a three-week catastrophe of an adventure on involving a planet with a bunch of mech-hungry organics, volcanic explosions, mind-warping viruses, and a massive EMP eruption from the local star that had grounded the Lost Light, Ratchet would have been busy preparing for the next weekly disaster to strike the ship.
As it was, he instead took advantage of the rare downtime to get his section of the medibay in order—even though First Aid had settled in well as the new CMO, and the Lost Light generally had a ridiculous number of medics for its number of crew, Ratchet had found that as much as one could take the mech out of the medibay, it was much harder to take the medic out of the mech, and he had eventually claimed a small corner for his own tools and equipment. Hoses were replaced; fittings refitted; scalpels and screwdrivers sorted by size; bolts sorted by shape; blowtorches sorted by temperature; energon congealers refilled; and his emergency toolbox emptied, cleaned, and restocked.
Which was how he noticed that he was missing one of his favourite wrenches. Not the favourite, of course—he would sooner fail to notice the loss of an arm than the loss of that one—but the smaller wrench with a long handle and anti-slip teeth. Perfect for pushing an injured bot's spark connections into place without excessive force or working on some of the smaller members of the crew.
And a dim memory reared its head, of Ratchet being occupied that very morning reattaching Toaster's heating coils without compromising the spring mechanism, when Swerve had wandered into the medibay. As always, he had been rambling about everything and nothing, but, there had been a moment just before he left—which in hindsight had been after an exceptionally short period of time for Swerve—where he had mentioned something about 'gonna bring this back in a moment'.
Ratchet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending headache before heading off in search of Swerve, and, hopefully, his wrench.
⁂
It took a bit of asking around, but eventually Ratchet found himself heading down one of the rarely used passages near the bottom of the ship until he reached a series of grates not too dissimilar to the boiler that Ten had once lived in—and which had by now been turned into an unofficial memorial for the many losses the Lost Light had witnessed. Except these vents were considerably smaller; meant for maintenance drones, and clearly part of the Lost Light's mostly unused air-circulation systems. It was not a place one would expect to find any bots at all.
Or at least so Ratchet would have thought, until he spotted Cyclonus and Chromedome sitting next to one such grate, each with his own datapad and politely ignoring the other's presence. Above the grate, someone had attached a banner that stated 'mini bar 4 minis' in what Ratchet recognised as Swerve's helplessly messy handwriting.
"Do I even want to ask?" he asked.
"Swerve is a spiteful heightist," Cyclonus replied.
Ratchet did a quick reset of his processor, and then his audials, just to make sure that he was hearing things right. "Come again?"
"Swerve'd heard that Anode was a full-sized mech before her reframing, so he opened a mini-bar for mini-bots, just so he could ban her from it for not being a minibot," Chromedome said. "Apparently he couldn't find a reason Ultra Magnus would accept to keep her out of the regular one."
And now that he had reset his audials, Ratchet could hear faint music and laughter from behind the grate. The most immediate question answered, he stepped over Chromedome's sprawled legs and knocked on the wall in lieu of a better way of getting the inhabitants of the minibar's attention. Scant seconds later, the grate opened and Tailgate poked his head out.
"Oh, hi, Ratchet! Sorry, Swerve said you're only allowed in if you can fit in the vent!" the small bot said, turned, and waved an arm. "Hiiii Cyclonus! Love you!"
"I love you too," Cyclonus replied with what looked surprisingly like a smile, distracting Ratchet long enough that the grate closed again before he could state the reason for his visit.
Another knock later, and this time it was Lug who showed up.
"Come back with a warrant!" she barked, and shut the grate before Ratchet could voice more than a syllable.
He glanced at the other two bots in the passageway, and felt a twinge of pity reach him from Chromedome's field. At least that indicated that he was not the only bot who had been subjected to whatever madness had taken the minibots inside the new bar, and he resigned himself to the fact that he would probably have to keep knocking until someone sensible opened the grate.
"NO SOLICITORS!" Nickel shouted at him with outright glee, slamming the grate so hard that it left a dent in its frame.
The next knock did not make the grate open, but did make Rewind's distinctive voice comment "We're terribly sorry, but the door you have tried to reach is not currently in service, please try again later." to a chorus of wheezed giggles from within.
This time, Ratchet struck the wall with an increasingly impatient fist. "Scrap it, will someone sane answer alre—Minimus?"
Minimus fixed him with a steady glare. "Ratchet, I must inform you that according to the Autobot Code section 52 b part 3 (6) addendum 12 revision 4 concerning free commerce, any Cybertronian who operates a legal establishment may freely declare which clientele said establishment will serve as long as it does not run foul of the Autobot Code sections 12, section 16 (2) ii, and the entirety of amendment subsections 2 through 5, none of which details the matter of entrance size as an invalid discriminator. Therefore, you may not enter," he said, and returned to the minibar while Ratchet's processor was left scrambling to locate the relevant Autobot Code samples.
"That's not—HEY!"
There was a snorting sound to his side, and Chromedome was suddenly very busy inspecting his datapad up close when Ratchet fixed him with a glare that could curdle paint, before hammering at the wall again until—finally—Swerve was the one to open the grate.
"Ratchet, my man, my bot, it's absolutely not that I'm not honoured that you're this desperate to come inside, though I get it because it's really the best place on the ship at the moment to hang out, but you just won't fit through the vent—"
"Swerve, stop, I—"
"—but maybe I can do takeout instead! That'd be a whole new thing, mini-drinks from the mini-bar, served by a mini-bot, in mini-sized cups, but for regular prices! Tell you what, I'll let you have the first one on the house, but you gotta swear you don't let Whirl know—"
"—just want my—"
"—because let me tell ya, I don't trust those claws of his to not break the glasses because he's really bad with tiny glasses when he gets drunk and he told me that's why he can't do watches while he's drunk, but let me just check if we got any to-go lids in here, because I really hadn't counted on this place gettin' more than a few customers!"
"—wrench back..."
But Swerve had already shut the grate again, hardly paying attention to anything but the noise of his mental cash register.
This time, Ratchet did not bother with knocking, and instead kicked at the wall. It might not be as useful as a knock, and did a lot more damage to both the wall and his own systems, but made him feel marginally less homicidal.
"We don't got any to-go lids, Swerve says," Tailgate said the moment the grate opened again.
Clever move from Swerve; sending the bot with the most protective conjux so Ratchet would not do anything rash.
"I don't want a drink!" he snapped before the accursed grate could close again. "Swerve borrowed my wrench, and I want it back!"
"Wrench?" Rewind asked from further inside the duct, and the little omnipresent red light turned away for a moment. "Swerve, does that wrench..."
"We use it for the engex!" Lug shouted.
Tailgate nodded eagerly. "Yeah! The handle's broken, so Swerve's using a wrench to dispense it with! ...Your wrench, I suppose..."
"My wrench. And I want it back."
Ratchet crossed his arms and glared at Tailgate; not at all surprised when the small bot's visor began to spark with anxiety. He was, however, quite surprised when Tailgate puffed himself up despite the sparks, loudly declared that Ratchet could not have the wrench back as long as engex was on the line, and promptly slammed the grate shut.
Ratchet stared at it, hearing his own fans spin faster with his growing rage at the sheer insubordination, and only took the briefest of moments to wonder if this was, perhaps, how Megatron felt all the time. Mentally cursing Primus for ever coming up with the idea of waist-high menaces that could fit inside places no respectable bot could go, he pushed the grate open and shoved his arm as far in as it could go before the sheer bulk and width of his torso prevented him from getting further.
There were loud protests from within the minibar, small limbs flailing as he grabbed for whatever he could, and, when he managed to close his hand around one leg, a cry of "Cyclonus, help! I'm being botnapped!" while several hands pulled at his fingers.
"I'm not getting involved," Cyclonus said without even raising his head.
Someone outright bit Ratchet's hand then, and he released his captive with a grunt of pain, yanking his arm back and only briefly getting it stuck in the grate. The little monsters had actually left toothmarks on the injured digit! Absolutely no respect for anyone, utterly ridiculous that he, Ratchet, once the personal medic to Prime himself, was reduced to being treated as a chew toy by—!
Ratchet paused, and let his fans work to cool his head. He was overreacting—he was up against minibots, who spent their days living in a world meant for mechs twice their height, and as a result tended to react more harshly than other bots to defend themselves against things like 'getting stepped on' and 'picked up without consent'. Wrench or not, the problem was that he had decided to make a grab for his wrench, without truly knowing what he was reaching into, and if the room within the vent was as small as he suspected, he was probably lucky that he had not lost the whole hand.
No, he had acted rashly and forgotten the very first rule of warfare: Always survey the area before launching an assault.
Concentrating, he projected his holomatter avatar, shrinking it as much as he was capable of. There was only so small he could go, however, before his holomatter generators started throwing up errors about input quality, and attempting to push it much beyond that started giving him a headache as the feed grew increasingly pixelated. Still, it left him with an avatar no bigger than half of his finger; easily small enough to fit into the vent and hopefully avoid being noticed.
The duct itself was much as could be expected. Two faint depressions at the bottom for a drone to follow, and a few colourful lines of paint along the top where one or more of the minibots had bumped against it. A complete lack of dust along the edges, which spoke of Minimus' presence. And, at the end of the duct, a larger plenum that served as the minibar proper.
Despite sticking close to the wall to avoid being spotted, and only having the heavily pixelated feed to see through, Ratchet had to admit that he was somewhat impressed at the ingenuity on display. Sheets of cloth had been hung on the walls, lending colour and warmth to the steel plenum. The single half-full engex dispenser—with his wrench attached to the tap—stood in the corner on top of an old box, glasses stacked neatly on the floor near it. A piece of vinyl had been spread over the metal floor, marking an open space where Lug, Tailgate, and Swerve were currently going through a series of extremely elaborate high-fives to celebrate their victory over Ratchet. Someone had dragged in a stack of large, broken datapads and attached them together to make a mini-bot sized armchair where Minimus was sipping his drink. More boxes were used as tables, and along the back wall, Nickel and Rewind were deep in a discussion while lounging on top of...
"Is that Brainstorm's briefcase?!?" Ratchet bellowed before he remembered he was supposed to be stealthy.
Three sets of optics and three visors immediately snapped to him, and Ratchet had the sudden and uncomfortable realisation that he had literally walked into the proverbial lions' den. And also that one of those minibots had already bitten him once.
There was a brief cry of "Get him!", and then several pairs of hands tried to grab him all at once. There was the noise of metal-on-metal when three heads banged together, and Ratchet ran through Tailgate's legs towards the dispenser high up on its box. A red hand slammed down in front of him to stop him, but it was flat enough that all it took was a single jump to get onto it.
Lug shrieked, shaking her hand wildly to get him off, and Ratchet winced as everything pixelated even further from the speed when he was catapulted through the air, only for his flight to end abruptly when he slammed into a solid surface. Scrambling upright and forward, narrowly avoiding another pair of grabbing hands in the process, he realised that he had been flung at the box with the engex dispenser, and felt the rush of victory being close at hand. All he had to do was enlarge his avatar, grab the wrench, and get past the minibots to retrieve his prize!
That was, until a glass came slamming down on top of him, cutting off his escape.
"I got him!" Minimus said, holding down the glass hard enough that Ratchet could barely budge it despite putting as much force behind his pushing as his holomatter generator could manage at this size.
Rewind lowered his head to the glass, one hand already at his headcam. "Good work! Now, let me just get the wavelength right for this..."
The resulting burst of light promptly cancelled out the hard light avatar, and left Ratchet staggering back with a pounding headache and a feeling of having had the Matrix stabbed straight into his visual cortex. He reset his optics twice, and cycled them for good measure until he was certain that the lingering sense of pixelation was a temporary psychosomatic response from his processor.
So now he had a headache, aching optics, a bitten hand, and no wrench. It was time to start employing the dirty tricks...
"Mag—Minimus!" he yelled, and pounded at the wall near the grate. "You can't tell me that you've approved that bar! It can't possibly live up to the minimum of safety standards!"
"Joke's on you! We got a fire exi—mphh!" Lug started to shout back, only for her voice to be muffled under the thud of what had to be several bots tackling her to keep her from saying too much.
Ratchet could feel the grin spreading over his own face. A fire exit that they did not want him to know about? Meant a fire exit that was most likely big enough for him. Cackling low to himself, he headed back down the passage, bringing up a private comm line as he did. "Hello, Blaster? I need a favour."
"... D'you think we should move?" Chromedome asked behind him.
Cyclonus made a non-committal noise. "Hm. And miss out on the entertainment?"
⁂
In hindsight, what would be more than suitable as an emergency fire exit for a minibot, turned out to be a cramped crawlspace for a regular-sized mech. Still, if Blaster's blueprint over the labyrinthine air-circulation system was accurate, this particular duct would lead straight to the minibar's plenum. Taking the final bend in the duct, he spotted light seeping in around the orange sheet hung across the 'fire exit', and Ratchet slowed his approach to stay as quiet as possible for the final stretch, picking up snippets of conversation as he inched closer.
"—planning something! I just know it!" Tailgate's voice was tinged with panic.
There was the sound of engex being poured, and Ratchet realised with a grin that the duct he was in was meeting up with the corner where the dispenser was standing. If he stayed stealthy enough, he might just be able to sneakily liberate his wrench without any of the minibots noticing.
"He doesn't stand a chance of fitting through the grate, and the ducts are a complete maze," Rewind said, accompanied by the hollow bonks of someone trying to do a comforting pat on kibble. "No one except us know how to get here through the ducts."
"Uh," said Minimus.
Swerve's grin was audible in his voice. "Yeah! Ain't no reason to worry! Best old Ratchet the Hatchet can do's stick his arm in again, and we already know how to deal with that!"
"Uhm..," said Minimus.
"... Except Minimus' hesitant stammering probably means that he's meticulously mapped out all the ducts and uploaded the schematics to the ship's main computer, and now Ratchet could be on his way here," Rewind added after a moment's silence.
"Mhm," said Minimus.
"We're doomed!" Tailgate wailed, and even from his hiding spot an arm's length behind the sheet, Ratchet could hear the sparks.
"What're we gonna do!?" Lug asked, frantic footsteps picking up. "I'm too pretty to die!"
There was the sharp noise of glass clinking against glass before Nickel cut in over the panicked babble before it could spread past two bots: "Calm down! First thing we gotta do is get rid of the evidence! Swerve, you get the engex dispenser back to your place! Rewind, you're in charge of the briefcase! Minimus will handle transport of Drift's sword, while Tailgate—"
Ratchet, having gotten all the way to the sheet itself and been planning on how to best get hold of his wrench without being noticed, immediately ripped down the sheet with one hand, trying to stand in the process and slamming his back against the top of the duct with an echoing clang. "You took my conjux's sword?!?"
The minibots shrieked with the shock, and glasses of engex went flying as they all threw themselves towards the main grate, t-cogs clicking and plates shifting. And then all six, some partially transformed, all reached the duct that could, at an optimistic estimate, only accommodate two.
Ratchet winced at the screams from cogs and voices alike, and the horrifying crunch of metal.
⁂
"You know what we should make? A medibay for minibots," Lug said, ignoring the laser-scalpel mere inches from her face.
Nickel—right arm and shell stuck together with Tailgate's mostly-transformed altmode, ooh'ed. "I know where we can get tools for that!"
"And I know where we could set it up!" Swerve said, shifting and getting a kick from Minimus stuck in his kibble. "There's this real small space three floors below my bar, probably meant for maintenance, but the entrance is really tiny so we'd fit right in! We could sneak in a couple of berths, and some cupboards, maybe a couple of welding torches..."
"Did ya get any footage of the minibar, Rewind?" Tailgate asked, apparently not caring that he was currently upside-down and had his head stuck inside his chest cavity. "You could show it at the next horror-themed movie night!"
"Already compiling as we speak—I should have the rough cut ready in a day or two!"
Smiling to himself, Ratchet deliberately tuned out the conversation and instead focused on untangling Rewind's plates and internal components from Lug's, cheerfully leveraging his newly recovered wrench's long handle to peel minibot-pieces apart. He strongly suspected that he soon would find himself missing said wrench again, and most likely several other pieces of equipment.
Perhaps he could convince Drift to help him out with the recovery next time...