Work Text:
[Cybertron, outskirts of Praxus]
“Don’t tell me you seriously suggested this!”
Ratchet had never thought it necessary to rein in his irritation, whatever the reason, but now his vocoder rasped at the higher frequencies, struggling to cope with both his emotions and the surrounding din. They were pinned down on the battlefield. Optimus lay prone, his chassis braced against the parapet, returning fire with deliberate focus and astonishing precision, barely finding the time to cool his blaster coils between volleys.
“I doubt we’ll find a safer option regardless,” Prime replied over the commlink — calm incarnate, as always — though his audials kept twitching, compensating for the thunder of explosions.
The medic rolled his optics irritably and turned his attention back to the operating field. At times it genuinely infuriated him how composed their leader could remain. Even now, when Ratchet himself had both servos buried up to the wrists beneath the armor of Optimus’s thigh, torn open by someone’s well-placed shot.
“A frontline field hospital is the worst place in the world for a growing sparkling,” he said stubbornly, lowering his voice slightly as he leaned toward Optimus’s shoulder.
“I agree completely. But a hospital always has a reliable, well-trained unit capable of protecting both patients and medics. He’ll be perfectly safe there until — and if — we’re able to send him to one of the Cybertronian colonies. Off-planet.”
Growling in frustration for a few seconds, Ratchet reset the dislodged fuel-convector connectors and activated his welder, trying at least to patch up the outer armor plating. He was still a little angry that Optimus had taken the hit while pulling the sparkling out of danger. Of course, he wouldn’t have done anything differently. When the Autobots had become locked in a prolonged clash with the Decepticons, Optimus had been searching for a good firing position in one of the half-ruined buildings — and instead had found a sparkling, huddled in terror.
After receiving Optimus’s message with a brief account of what had happened, Ratchet had nearly burned out his tires racing to the Prime’s temporary position. Prime had a bad habit of downplaying his injuries. And seeing a living, active sparkling in times like these was about as likely as witnessing Primus manifest in the flesh.
The one they had been talking about didn’t react at all to the medic’s irritated voice or growling engine. The sparkling was a tiny grounder, barely reaching Ratchet’s chestplate; an emaciated protoform beneath light armor that had been torn down to bare metal, still only half-hardened. Once, the plating had probably been bright yellow, but now, worn and dulled by fuel starvation, it looked more like dusty sand-gray. Without making a single sound, the child had curled into an impossibly tight ball, optics squeezed shut, hiding between Optimus’s lower legs, gripping his heavy tires in a death-tight hold.
“I’m going to have to assign someone as his guardian,” Ratchet muttered, snapping the upper armor plate back into place. He disconnected the patch cord and gave Optimus a light pat on the back. “Be careful with that leg, it’s only a temporary fix. I’ll sort it out properly once we get back to the medbay.”
“Understood. Thank you, my friend,” Optimus replied, calm gratitude carried in every glyph. “I’ve asked Ironhide and his squad to flank from the right and flush the snipers out. They’ll buy us some time.”
“Yeah, and scorch their afts again. I’m serious, we’re almost out of red paint.”
Optimus reconfigured one of his guns back into a servo and lifted himself above the parapet to assess the situation. Ironhide was dutifully feeding in status updates on their advance, but Optimus could see even without them that the density of the fire pinning them down had noticeably decreased.
“All right, how do we do this?” Ratchet magnetized a sterilization box to his backpack and shook out his hands, trying to rid them of the thin film of energon.
He was accustomed to trusting Optimus implicitly under battlefield conditions. He knew Prime would always choose the safest route available, and that he would never abandon anyone he had taken it upon himself to protect.
“You’ll carry the sparkling. I’ll cover you,” Prime said, carefully rolling onto his side so as not to shift his legs, and met the medic’s optics. “I’m sending you the optimal evacuation route via commlink.”
Still on his knees, Ratchet shifted closer and reached for the sparkling, rubbing his fingers over the thin armor of the little one’s shoulder.
“We’re leaving,” the medic told him firmly. “It’s dangerous here. And since you won’t be able to keep up on foot, I’ll carry you.”
The small mech gave a sharp shudder and looked up at him with optics that were exhausted yet piercingly blue, his grip tightening on Optimus’s wheels. Prime rose a little higher, carefully moving his injured thigh, clearly at a loss.
“If you let go of his tire for even a second, the Big Guy will come with us,” Ratchet promised with a crooked grin. Without further warning, he scooped the sparkling up off the ground, prompting an indignant chirp from the vocoder. “That’s it, little spark. I’ve got you…”
Optimus straightened quickly, coming up onto his knees. Whining in terror, the sparkling pressed his faceplate against Ratchet’s windshield, and the medic tightened the electromagnetic field, trying to soothe the trembling child. The first thing that truly surprised him was the weight — or rather, the lack of it. The sparkling was barely there in his well-worn arms, and far colder than he should have been for his size. In Optimus’s optics flickered that familiar expression of worry and guilt; he reached out to stroke the sparkling’s back in reassurance, then looked up at Ratchet.
“You set the pace, my friend.”
The medic gave a brief nod in reply. They waited for a break in the frenzied barrage that had pinned them in place, and then — exercising the utmost caution — set out.
…It was deep night when movement woke him.
During recharge Ratchet often let a servo hang over the edge of the platform, but now the wheel set into his elbow was slowly turning on its own. He rumbled heavily as his engine came online, flexed his fingers. From beneath the platform came the uneven hitch of someone else’s ventilation. A dim, unstable EM-field brushed against him, prompting him to activate his optics at once.
“Why aren’t you in recharge?” Ratchet rasped, turning his servo palm-up toward the sparkling.
There was no answer — only the same thin, wheezing ventilation from below the platform. Then slender fingers touched the medic’s palm, and the wheel finally stilled.
“Bad simulation?” the medic whispered when no answer came. The fingers tightened in silent confirmation, his sensitive sensors flaring with a rush of tactile data. Ratchet winced, still half-asleep, and drew his servo upward. “Come on. You’re not recharging — and you’re not letting me either…”
The sparkling followed reluctantly, still clinging to the hand that held his wrist, and straightened up beside the platform. In the darkness of the compartment, his optics were two pale spots of blue light.
“Are you angry with me?” The voice sounded as tired as he looked.
“I am,” Ratchet answered honestly. “But not at you.”
It was the simple truth — being angry with him was impossible. The sparkling had charmed practically everyone in the hospital. He was small and quiet, but friendly and considerate. He didn’t get under the elders’ servos, yet he was always nearby whenever something interesting was happening. When Optimus came by to check on the hospital, the little one followed him everywhere, as though afraid to lose sight of his rescuer even for a moment. And despite how endearing the sight was — enough to soften even the most battle-hardened sparks — Ratchet couldn’t stop the dull, directionless anger he felt toward the circumstances that had brought them all to this point.
His armor was gradually returning to a bright yellow, and his movements were growing calmer, smoother. Watching over him wasn’t difficult; he rarely gave any real cause for concern, but since he was still regaining his strength, Ratchet worried all the same. Fortunately, the sparkling always chose the medic’s company whenever his overly energetic neighbor deprived him of peace.
“Cliff’s going to come looking for you,” Ratchet said with a faint smirk.
“I left him a message,” the spark replied, tapping his fingers along the edge of the platform.
“Thought of everything, didn’t you?” the medic’s optics narrowed in amusement. Then his expression softened, and he gently rubbed the hydraulics beneath his ward’s shoulder armor. “Up you go… I’m sure you don’t feel like telling me about your simulation, but you need to recharge. And so do I.”
Letting him go, Ratchet rolled onto his side to make room. The sparkling hesitated for a moment, then — moving with an unfair amount of agility — clambered up onto the platform and curled into a tight ball beneath the medic’s arm, which came protectively over his shoulder and chassis.
“Thank you, sire…”
Ratchet twitched his audials, weary and hollow, at the address. Still, he drew the little one closer and replied quietly:
“I’m not your sire, Bee. You know that.”
“I know,” he whispered, pressing his faceplate against the medic’s heavy shoulder guard and letting the steady, powerful pulses of another’s Spark warm his small frame. “My sire left me the moment things became truly dangerous. You and Optimus saved me. So… the two of you…”
Ratchet snorted softly through his ventilation and shut down his optics.
“Get some recharge. I’m not discussing this right now. Tomorrow’s going to be a long shift.”
“I got your message in the middle of a procedure, so I had to swing by the office to pick up the report, and you know what I…?”
The door slid shut behind him, and only then did Ratchet look up from his datapad. He froze mid-motion, trying to decide whether his optics had finally shorted out after so many tense hours under the medbay’s shadowless lights.
The conference room was empty — save for Optimus, who was staring back at him from the far side of the enormous table, looking faintly confused and just a little guilty. Leaning low over the tabletop, Prime had his helm propped against a clenched fist and had clearly been absorbed in the datapad before him until moments ago. Draped loosely over his broad shoulders were a pair of very familiar yellow-and-black servos.
Ratchet managed to lock his vocoder just as it creaked in a doomed attempt to break into laughter. Optimus offered a faint smile without moving and remarked quietly,
“This is not funny, my friend.”
Primary ventilation followed the vocoder into lockdown; the secondary system wheezed softly as he carefully vented excess pressure. Waving the datapad aside, Ratchet braced his palms against his knees and spent a few seconds trying to get his frame back under control. His faceplate actually ached from the effort of holding the grin back.
“Oh, you are very wrong,” he said, finally straightening and stepping closer, still smiling. “I should call the officer corps in here right now for a scheduled briefing. Prowl, in particular, deserves to see this.”
“Only if you’re prepared to repair his overheated processor afterward.”
Ratchet let out a skeptical hum and cautiously peeked over Prime’s shoulder. Squeezed into the narrow gap between the chair and Optimus’s back, Bumblebee had dropped his helm onto the Prime’s back armor and, judging by the soft pulses of his engine, had slipped into hibernation.
“He still tires quickly,” Optimus observed, remaining perfectly still.
“That will pass with time,” Ratchet replied. “He just needs rest and a steady supply of energon.”
Reaching out, Ratchet gently ruffled the sparkling’s helm before taking a seat at the table. Optimus watched him with a calm expression, as if weighing something carefully. After a brief pause, he spoke quietly:
“Did you know he calls you ‘sire’?”
“As he does to you, actually,” Ratchet said, placing both servos on the tabletop and nervously intertwining his fingers. “I asked him not to, but…”
Prime sensed the silent, yet sharp conflict within medic. He stayed quiet a moment longer, then let the electromagnetic field extend to Ratchet, offering understanding and gratitude. Letting it in without resistance, Ratchet struggled to stabilize his ventilation.
“Despite the tragic sequence of events,” Optimus began slowly, “that brought Bumblebee and the other sparklings here, I am truly glad they are with us.”
“At least here they are under protection,” Ratchet said, dropping his shoulders in an attempt to release some tension. “You made the right call.”
Optimus parted his mouth to speak, but at that moment the little servos wrapped tightly around his neck. Ratchet didn’t see what Bumblebee had done behind his back, yet Prime’s faceplate softened, and he finished quietly:
“They are safe, my friend. And they serve as a constant reminder of what we fight for.”