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During the Autobots brief time on Earth with humans, Ratchet came to appreciate many things about the species. One of them was the scope and variety of their languages, in which one could use many different expressions to convey specific emotions. Even if the exact words and origins didn’t apply to his own species, they still excelled at colorful ways to get a point across.
For example, right now, Ratchet is pissed off.
Bartering with pirates? Seriously?
Rodimus, ever-intrepid co-captain of the Lost Light, had made the announcement that morning that they would rendezvous with an “independent expedition vessel” in the coming hours. He explained that the purpose was to trade supplies and information.
Ratchet doesn’t know what these pirates could possibly have that they can’t just purchase on the next planet the ship stops at. But Ultra Magnus and Megatron made no argument to Rodimus’s announcement. If the Second in Command and the other Co-Captain are in support of this deal, then it must be something substantial, but no one else has been told exactly what they were getting out of it all.
Ratchet will have to ask Drift if he knows anything about it later. Even if Drift is no longer officially Third in Command, he’s still best friends with Rodimus. So he knows a lot more than he probably should.
Either way, High Command may approve of this trade, but that doesn’t mean Ratchet has to be happy about it.
Apparently, part of the deal includes giving these pirates some of their medical supplies, and one of them is already down in his their med-bay right now just - just taking things!
Ratchet knows no one on this ship is stupid enough to let a pirate just roam free, so he doesn’t doubt that someone else on the med team is down there chaperoning. But he also knows he will recharge better tonight if he can keep his own optics on the situation.
That’s all he plans on doing; Just stand in a corner and let his presence be known.
He fully intends to follow through with that plan as the med bay doors slide open. He can hear First Aid speaking with whoever this pirate is, but as he enters the room in full, he can only see his fellow shipmate and medic.
First Aid hears pede steps approaching and turns his gaze towards Ratchet.
“Ah, Ratchet! We were just about to-“
Crash
A box filled with who-knows-what clatters to the floor, and both Ratchet and First Aid whip their heads around to look at the source of the sound.
Standing in the doorframe of a supply closet is a smaller red and gray mech. Obviously, some kind of vehicle frame at first glance, but closer inspection reveals scanners, satellite dishes, and instruments that only a bot built for science would be equipped with. A rover frame. One designed for scientific data collection and exploration of hostile terrain. Vastly more durable than any standard ground-based alt mode, but with the caveat of minimal load-bearing capabilities and little allowance for mass-shifting or complex transformations. The lower half of this mech’s face is covered by a retractable mask, and their blue optics shine wide in disbelief.
“Oh my!” First Aid exclaims. “Are you alright, Caduceus?”
Caduceus
Slag it all, so his optics aren’t playing tricks on him.
Ratchet’s mind cascades back to the grime-speckled memories of the early years of the war. He remembers meeting all the new volunteers of his medical team - shiny young mechs with fresh paint and a fire still burning in their optics, and sees Caduseus among them.
He had read the young rover mech’s file. Caduceus had originally been forged for scientific exploration and field research. Their frame was made extra sturdy in order to counteract the hostile environments that interplanetary traversal demanded, so they were able to venture into places most mechs couldn’t. Rover frames were not common, but also not unheard of, and the build of Caduceus’s frame was nothing out of the ordinary for a mech with such expectations.
But even during their scientific studies, Caduceus had expressed a desire to become versed in medicine and emergency first aid. Their reasoning was that, while they may be able to withstand harsh environments, other bots on their team might not, and they wanted to be prepared to help if the need arose. When Ratchet asked Caduceus why they had chosen to volunteer to be a medic instead of something more exciting like Infantry or SpecOps, the rover mech simply shrugged and said that they’d rather be out protecting lives instead of taking them.
Ratchet remembers thinking how brave it was for a bot to forgo its primary function in order to be what others needed. It was what drew him to Caduceus in the first place. That and the fact that if anyone had the wear withal to show the least qualified greenhorn how to do the job and do it right, it was gonna be Ratchet. Granted, Ratchet made sure all of his recruits were properly trained, but he admits to paying special attention to Caduceus. He spent a lot of time with Caduceus during their training, and he felt the two of them had grown close even after Caduceus moved on from student to certified field medic.
His friends in Autobot high command, like Wheeljack and Ironhide, liked to tease that Caduceus was Ratchet’s little copy; Unrelenting stubbornness fueled by a not-so-subtle place of genuine care and empathy for their fellow mecha, all coalescing into a pointed glare and a gentle touch to anyone they found under their medical supervision.
Ratchet never admitted it out loud, but he was always proud of the comparison.
Before Ratchet knew it, Caduceus was being sent off with their own team. He and Caduceus kept in touch as often as Ratchet was able to, same with any of his friends busy with the war effort, but he knew he’d grown distant from many of his former students and colleagues who weren’t directly stationed with Autobot high command.
It felt like a lifetime ago when Ratchet heard that Caduceus was reported Missing In Action after a raid on some offworld Autobot base. At the time, Ratchet had assumed the worst. Those stories rarely had a happy ending, so Ratchet mourned him. And then he simply got back to work. It hurt, but that’s what had to be done in order not to succumb to the grief of losing yet another comrade.
Somehow, it hurt worse when, years later, Ratchet saw Caduceus’s face on a wanted poster.
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
CADUCEUS OF IBEX
DESERTION, FRAUD, PIRACY
All this time, Caduceus had been alive. They’d been alive but had abandoned everything Ratchet thought was important to them.
There, Ratchet and all the other medics were fighting every day to keep this war from claiming one more life, and then there was Caduceus, galavanting around the galaxy with a host of criminals without a care for all the ones they had abandoned.
Because he did feel abandoned. It was an unspoken thing amongst Autobot army medics that no matter what, you all stick together. Because no one else had the responsibility of saving lives in a place meant to take them.
Caduceus had abandoned him. They’d abandoned all of them.
And now?
Here they are again.
Not just a face on a poster this time, but right here, standing in Ratchet’s med bay with a confused First Aid swinging his gaze between the two of them.
Eventually, Ratchet snaps out of his stupor
“Absolutely not!” He bellows
First Aid flinches at his outburst, but Caduceus snaps back to reality with their heckles up and ready to face the storm of Ratchet’s anger.
First Aid tries to placate him
“Ratchet, it’s-“
But Ratchet persists.
“I want them out of my med bay!” He says to First Aid, pointing at Caduceus
“That’s not your call to make, Doctor.”
Both Ratchet and First Aid swing their heads around to look at them. Caduceus’s stance has relaxed ever so slightly. They put on an air of nonchalance, meant to make Ratchet think they aren’t affected by seeing him. If Ratchet hadn’t witnessed Caduceus freeze up the same as he did when their optics first locked, he might have been easier to fool.
But Ratchet did see them.
“You’re Captain made a deal with my Captain,” the rover mech continues, “and part of it includes supplying my crew with a list of items that your own medical team approved of.”
Ratchet takes a few long strides farther into the room, meaning to fill up the space. Make it so everyone knows that this is his territory, and he will protect it.
“That doesn’t mean I have to approve of your presence here, pirate. Give the list to First Aid and get out.” He demands
Caduceus just scoffs
“You aren’t in charge of this ship, and you certainly aren’t in charge of me anymore. Why do you even care what I do?” They ask, casually picking up the items they dropped and placing them back in a box.
“I care because I can’t trust a bot like you.”
In the ensuing silence, Ratchet hears First Aid sneak out of the room, but his eyes stay locked on Caduceus.
Finally, Caduceus speaks
“You don’t trust me? Fine. Watch my every move if it makes you feel better, but I’m staying until I know I have everything that was promised to us. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll be gone before you know it.”
At that, Caduceus shoulders their way passed him and picks up a datapad, purposefully keeping their attention on anything but Ratchet.
He knows he should just keep his mouth shut. Let Caduceus do what they need to do and leave as soon as possible. But the rage inside Ratchet’s spark demands answers.
In hope of a response from the rover, Ratchet pokes a wound.
“Of course your solution is to just run away again.”
Caduceus doesn’t take the bait.
They pointedly keep their gaze down towards the datapad in their hands.
“I don’t want to get into this right now, Ratchet.”
Forget poking a wound. Ratchet needs to hit where it hurts if he wants any results.
“Too bad! You abandoned your duty, and I want to know why. I never took you for a coward, Caduceus, but you sure proved me wrong.”
Caduceus slams the datapad down on a countertop. Their spinal strut is stiff, and their field temporarily flares as they turn to fully face him.
“I literally wasn’t built for that life,” Caduceus says through gritted denta, “and everyone knew it.”
Arms now crossed, Ratchet scoffs and rolls his eyes at the excuse. Usually, such a show of disdain was enough to intimidate a bot into silence.
Apparently, not for Caduceus. Ratchet can’t see their whole faceplate from behind their mask, but the narrowing of Caduceus’s optics tells Ratchet that he is being shot with a scowl right back.
“Do you know what they said about me, my ‘fellow Autobots’?” Caduceus asks, “They called me the Angel of Death. No matter how many bots I kept alive in the field, it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t bring them home.”
Ratchet glares at them. The ‘Angel of Death’ comment gives him pause - he never heard anyone refer to Caduceus as that when he was still tutoring the younger bot. But he can’t let up now that he’s actually getting something out of the rover mech.
He chooses to focus on what he knows, and Ratchet knows that feeling Caduceus is talking about - the feeling of helplessness when you realize you can’t save someone. But that never stopped him. He had thought that Caduceus was the same. He saw so much of himself in the kid back during the war. Nothing ever seemed to stop the rover mech from diving headfirst into danger in order to do the right thing.
“That’s the reality of war, kid, especially for a medic. You lose people no matter how hard you try.”
“You don’t get to tell me what my experience in the war was!” Caduceus suddenly shouts. “You weren’t sent into every nightmarish terrain to try and do the impossible! To try and save mechs that every other medic had to write off as a lost cause for the greater good of the mechs that were easier to save. You all knew I couldn’t transport the injured, and you still-“
Ratchet suddenly sees red.
“Don’t you dare insinuate that the other medics and I didn’t care about every bot on the battlefield! You were the one who volunteered to become a medic despite your alt mode.”
“Despite my alt mode?!”
Ratchet pauses.
Scrap, did he really just say that? Some functionalist garbage he thought he’d purged from his inner processor millennia ago?
Ratchet never supported the old system, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t benefit from it back before everything went up in smoke. He was forged a medic, after all. He'd never wanted to be anything else, so it was easy for him with his alt mode to receive the education to become one. Over the centuries following, he had made efforts to unlearn any lingering functionalist ideology, and a part of him is mad at himself for letting an old-fashioned and damaging jeer like that slip out.
“That’s not what I meant.” Ratchet tries to explain, but Caduceus isn’t having it.
“No, I think it is!” Caduceus yells, “Because guess what, Ratchet, it’s exactly what everyone else meant. You know, in the beginning, I was proud of my alt mode as a medic. I could go places no one else could, and help mechs that were in situations that otherwise seemed hopeless. Even if I couldn’t get them out, I was still there! But that’s not what anyone else saw.”
Something bitter then washes over Caduceus’s EM field. A suffocating kind of pain that causes Ratchet’s breath to hitch for the brief moment it brushes up against him.
Caduceus, however, doesn’t even flinch. They seem used to it, at home in it.
“All they saw was a mech with tiny wheels and no carrying capacity. The Angel of Death, coming to tell them this was it, they weren’t going home. And they hated me for it. My alt mode wasn’t a blessing anymore; it was a curse. While you and all the other medics were thanked and looked on with awe, I was sneered at and told that it was my fault that their friends were dead. Primus sake, Ratchet, I put a gun in my mouth because I started to believe them, and I couldn’t live with that guilt anymore!”
The crack in Caduceus’s voice at the end hits Ratchet right in the spark.
He stands there silent for a moment while Caduceus catches their breath from the sudden outburst of emotion. As the silence lingers, Ratchet manages to turn his processor back on and collect his thoughts.
Everything about what Caduceus had just said was wrong. It just had to be. Caduceus was his promising pupil who abandoned the Autobots on a whim. How could any of what they just said have happened, and Ratchet not know about it? His own student, his fellow medic, his friend. How could he not have known?
“You-…Why didn’t you ever tell me about any of this? If it was as bad as you’re saying, why didn’t you ever ask for help?”
Caduceus, who up until now had been a stubborn pillar of defiance, shrinks in on themself ever so slightly.
“I tried. It was just… It was never the right time, or you were too busy, or when you weren’t, I would start to say something, but then you’d put your hand on my shoulder and tell me not to worry. That I was a good field medic and had potential to become a really good doctor one day, and that would be enough to get me through it all for a little while.”
Something deep within Ratchet lurches at that.
“Caduceus, I-“
Suddenly, a blue alt mode speeds into the med bay, quickly transforming into the root mode of a small femme. She runs up to Caduceus and puts her hands on their shoulders.
Ratchet remembers briefly seeing her with the pirate captain when they first boarded the Lost Light to negotiate.
The look on her face is a mixture of relief and worry, as if she came in fearing the worst, and upon seeing the rover mech functioning, is still waiting for something bad to happen.
“Are you okay? What happened?” She asks, frantically scanning Caduceus’s frame.
“I’m fine, Switchup.” they mumble, “What are you doing here?”
The femme, Switchup, turns her big, worried orange optics to look at Caduceus’s face.
“The bond, I could feel your emotions through our bond. I hadn’t felt your pain like that since…since you…”
Caduceus cups Switchup’s face and gently brings her forehelm to rest against theirs. Switchup takes a deep breath and blinks her optics, slowly coming down from the panic of her frantic entrance.
“I promised you I’d never do that again,” Caduceus says as they pull their helm away to look Switchup in the eyes, “I just had some bad memories come up. I’m sorry I scared you.”
Switchup’s wide optics now turn towards Ratchet, and suddenly, all the love and concern on her face is replaced by resentment and anger.
“Is this one of the bots you told me about?” She seethes.
Ratchet says nothing. He feels pinned to the spot by the aggressive protectiveness emanating from Switchup. He can only assume the “bots” she is referring to are the soldiers Caduceus had just told him about. Given what he knows now, he can’t blame her.
“No,” Caduceus says, “Ratchet was my teacher. He doesn’t blame me for that stuff. Only for leaving.”
“He shouldn’t!” She spits at Ratchet before returning her gaze to Caduceus, expression softening again. “You’re a great medic, and you deserve to be happy. It’s not your fault the Autobots couldn’t see that.”
“I know, Switch. You’ve told me plenty of times.”
“Because it’s true. You should know by now that I’m always right.”
That earns a chuckle from Caduceus.
Ratchet realizes that this is the first time he’s heard it in millennia.
The two stand in each other's arms for another moment. Ratchet almost feels like an intruder in his own med bay.
As he looks at them, Ratchet tries to reconcile the mech before him with the young bot he had trained millions of years ago. So much has changed since then. They both have changed.
A part of Ratchet still feels betrayed by Caduceus for deserting the Autobots - he’d feel that way about any bot who had left them. He used to think it was nothing but cowardice that would lead someone to abandon and reject the cause they had pledged themselves to.
But now, as he looks at Caduceus in the embrace of who he can only assume is their sparkmate, he doubts the rover would even still be functioning if they had stayed.
Ratchet has seen more bots dead from a headshot than he could ever hope to count, but only a few of them were ever caused by a soldier’s own blaster. Their own hands that ended up pulling the trigger.
His mind can’t help but conjure the image of Caduceus’s cold, graying frame in their place, and he shudders.
The slight shift in plating seems to remind Caduceus that Ratchet is, in fact, still standing there, and slowly they pull away from Switchup.
“Go tell the rest of the crew that I’m almost done here. I’ll come find you soon.”
Switchup looks as if she wants to argue. But something in Caduceus’s gaze must be enough to cause her to relent.
“Promise?” She asks
“Promise,” Caduceus assures
Switchup gently knocks her helm into Caduceus’s again before stepping away from them. Before she leaves, she shoots one more glare at Ratchet, then walks out of the med bay.
Ratchet watches her go, then looks back at Caduceus. Caduceus stares right back.
There are a million questions to ask, a million things he wants to know.
Who said those things to you, back when we were all supposed to be helping each other get through the horrors of war? Did it get bad after we lost touch, or were you suffering even while I was supposed to be taking care of you? Why didn’t your commanding officer, your fellow medics, anyone, intervene? Do you still think about pulling that trigger?
It’s almost too much.
“Is what she said true?” Ratchet lands on
Caduceus cocks their head to the side, obviously confused by Ratchet's admittedly vague question
“How do you mean?” They ask, guardedly
“You’re still a medic?” Ratchet asks, “Still doing what I taught you?”
Beneath that second part, beneath what sounds like a simple question between a former student and their old teacher, lies the deeper meaning of what Ratchet really wants to know.
Because Ratchet didn’t just teach Caduceus words from textbooks and anatomical diagrams and all the stuff Ratchet learned at an academy.
Caduceus, stubborn as the forge makes ‘em, undeniably had the skill and determination to become a medic. And with the unrelenting grit and compassion Ratchet had poured into the rover’s tutelage, Caduceus had become someone whose stubborn determination to save lives was on par with his own.
Ratchet wants to know. Was all the hatred they faced enough to turn Caduceus away from helping those they care about? Is Caduceus still diving headfirst into the impossible to help someone because they know it just might be possible for them? Did all the trauma snuff out that fire, or is Caduceus still just as strong and compassionate as Ratchet hopes they are?
He throws all of this into a simple question and hurls it into the open, hoping that he and the bot before him still connect on a level deeper than words can express.
And Caduceus, even after all these years, catches it.
Ratchet sees understanding dawn in Caduceus’s optics, and he could shout in relief if he wasn’t more in control of himself. And just to drive the point home, the familiar uptick of their cheek plates tells Ratchet that the Caduceus knows exactly what he means.
“Heh, I doubt my medical certification is still seen as legitimate, but..yeah, I am. Despite it all.”
“And you’re…happy?”
Caduceus takes a deep breath and smiles. Even though Ratchet can’t see their whole face, he knows that they smile.
“Happier than I’ve ever been.”
Ratchet thinks about where he is in life right now, and where he thought he’d be. He’s honestly surprised he survived. He’s sure a lot of his crewmates are.
But he’s glad they are all alive, Autobots and former Decepticons alike. He’s glad that he gets to be alive with them.
Being a soldier defined so many of them for so long, but it doesn’t have to anymore.
“I guess that’s all any of us can hope for. I’m…glad you have that now. Despite it all.”
“Thanks, Ratchet.”