Chapter Text
On consideration, Ultra Magnus decided to blame the Sweeps for the completely unnecessary amount of attention his (theoretically) disabled disruptor net was receiving. After all, they had told Cyclonus that Galvatron had one and that Unicron managed to damage Galvatron’s neural structure by abusing it.
Hot Rod and Arcee managed to overhear that, which was bad enough. Having just the three of them make a fuss was annoying already, but then Cyclonus decided Ultra Magnus was not taking the whole thing seriously and told Optimus.
Which was an absolutely underhanded move.
“Humans go on for their whole lives with bullets stuck in them and they’re much more fragile,” he grumbled.
Cyclonus mouthed a horrified “what” at Hot Rod, while Optimus looked at Ultra Magnus with kindness and compassion, and patted his shoulder soothingly, and Ultra Magnus knew he wasn’t going to convince anyone this was really not that big of a deal.
He tried nevertheless.
“It’s deactivated,” he said.
“She activated it anyway,” Cyclonus said. “We’ve been over this. Yes, there’s probably not that many other Quintessons who can do it, but she’s the one who’s interested in you and she will use it again.”
“There are more important things to deal with,” Ultra Magnus replied.
“Not right now,” Optimus said. “Jazz and Springer can keep the military affairs running.”
“I’ll be out of commission for some time,” Ultra Magnus protested. “It’s not just patching a hole in my plating - it takes time to remove it. What if something unexpected happens?”
“I think us being kidnapped counts as something unexpected happening,” Cyclonus pointed out.
“Hot Rod has demonstrated that he can keep a cool head in an emergency,” Optimus added. “I’m sure if another crisis were to happen, he’ll step up again.”
Hot Rod gave Optimus a somewhat concerned look. But before Ultra Magnus could say anything about Hot Rod, Optimus continued. “Perhaps you’d like someone to stay with you while Wheeljack or Perceptor examine the disruptor net?”
Ultra Magnus sighed and said, “I’ll be fine on my own. Really.”
What he really wanted to say was that he’d like Sentinel to be there, which was impossible. Sentinel was dead, and Magnus would never hold his hand. He’d been killed so long ago and yet, suddenly the old wound was there again.
And there weren’t many other bots who’d understand left. Cyclonus never had had a disruptor net installed, same as Mirage. Besides, it was probably better if Cyclonus was around to keep an eye on the Decepticons, not to mention he had been kidnapped by Extempaxia too - he certainly had enough on his plate without Ultra Magnus adding to it. Adding more to it than he already had. Blitzwing… well, to be honest, Ultra Magnus wasn’t sure what would happen if anyone asked Blitzwing for moral support and he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to find out.
Grimlock might understand, but Grimlock was an extreme extrovert, who’d declare that the solution to the problem was a big party. Or worse - a trip to the opera.
“What about Ironhide?” Optimus asked. “He’s about your age, isn’t he?”
Ultra Magnus supposed it was time to give in with some semblance of dignity. “All right,” he said.
It wasn’t that Ironhide’s lived experience was that similar to Ultra Magnus’s - he had been built on a consumer good production line and then placed in a factory as its fire brigade. But since he’d been constructed after Prima’s rebellion and several smaller worker uprisings, he’d been outfitted with a disruptor net. Except in Ironhide’s case, the problem solved itself recently anyway - his new body may have been small and unable to transform, but it also lacked a disruptor net.
“Just how are you going to get rid of it? I don’t suppose you want to stick Magnus in a new body, too?” Ironhide asked.
“Well, it’s basically an additional layer of pain sensors,” Wheeljack said. “Getting rid of them requires rebuilding the whole sensory net. Removing the trigger was a reasonable compromise, before we knew there’s a backdoor - send the right signal and it will still activate.” He paused. “It’s possible it could be recalibrated, but we’re not going to try that.”
Ultra Magnus definitely didn’t like the sound of “recalibrated” in connection with a disruptor net. That sounded like it’d have to be active for it.
“Huh, that’s not what mine was like,” Ironhide said. “Mine was just able to overload my sensors. I guess you got the deluxe variant.”
“Lucky me,” Ultra Magnus said gloomily.
“Recon we’ll have to give the Quints another whooping soon,” Ironhide said, after a moment. “Since they forgot the last one.”
“Do you really think they forgot?” Magnus replied.
“Not completely, but they managed to convince themselves it wasn’t so bad, so they can get into our business and nothing too terrible will happen to them,” Ironhide said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Ultra Magnus said. “The Sweeps think they built Megatron. And that’d mean they’ve been meddling with us for a long long time.”
“The Sweeps?” Ironhide said. “Huh.”
“You know them?” Ultra Magnus asked.
“Knew of them,” Ironhide said. “They were some scientist’s failed pet project. I thought they got melted for scrap.”
“No, they got put into Unicron,” Ultra Magnus replied. “But apparently they’re quite certain Galvatron has an active disruptor net, and that Unicron couldn’t have installed it in him when he reformatted Megatron. Cyclonus agrees with them.”
“We’re listening to That Damned Production Line now?” Ironhide asked and earned a chiding look from Ultra Mangus. “You think they’re right?”
“I don’t know if I trust the Sweeps’ judgment, but Cyclonus is reliable,” Magnus replied.
“All right, we can get started,” Wheeljack said. “Lie down, Magnus. This will take a while - but I’ll have to put you in stasis for the duration.”
Ultra Magnus considered backing out. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being inactive, when something could happen. But he had already agreed to the procedure. Besides, the war was over. Galvatron was licking his wounds, and the Quintessons were probably not going to risk themselves so soon after one attempt of theirs had failed.
There was always a chance of something unpredictable happening, of course. But at the end of the day, if one allowed himself to avoid one unpleasant thing because of the unpredictable, then one would open a door to using it as an excuse over and over again: the unpredictable was exactly that. One could not predict it.
So, he was going to go through with it. His part was the easiest anyway. He was going to be down for maintenance until everything was done.
“All right, Wheeljack,” he said. “Let’s do it.”