Work Text:
All in all, the day started out more or less as usual. Ratchet's recharge cycle was rudely interrupted by the alarm informing him his shift was about to start, and he had spent what little downtime he'd had slumped over his desk in the back of the medibay.
If Ratchet ever got his hands on Starscream, he was going to kill him. Slowly. He reset his vocalizer before it could emit the groan that was gathering just behind his speakers, and glared at the five occupied berths.
Something wasn't right.
Ratchet stood up, somewhat stiffly, and looked at the medibay again, squashing the little tendril of panic starting to well up from his internals. No, he'd counted correctly. There were only four mechs present - Slingshot (the presence of one or more Aerialbots clustered around the berth didn't count), Ironhide, Cliffjumper, and Jazz. None of them were moving, which was as it should be, given the presence of the neural buffers.
The empty berth, with its disconnected wires inexplicably not setting off any alarms, had belonged to Sunstreaker. Attempting to convince himself that he knew perfectly well nothing was wrong, Ratchet activated his comm. "Don't make me come and get you," he growled.
"Sunny's asleep," came the blithe reply.
"We don't sleep," Ratchet returned. "Get your brother back here."
"Okay, recharging," said Sideswipe. "You know he does better in his quarters than the medibay."
"Not the point," Ratchet said, and the bickering continued. It was, after all, a perfectly normal morning.
It became a slightly less normal morning with reports of a Decepticon incursion the day after a fairly major and pitched battle resulting in five injured Autobots and an equal if not greater number of damaged Decepticons.
Ratchet, not being part of the response team this time, prepared the medibay for potential incoming casualties. Since the Protectobots were to remain in the general vicinity of the Ark as well, First Aid came through the doors to help.
"Get Slingshot ready," Ratchet said, already disconnecting Jazz's neural buffer.
"Got it," First Aid said, somehow undauntedly cheerful. Ratchet glared at the back of his protege's head and concluded it must be a combination of youth and sufficient recharge time.
"Hey, doc," Sideswipe said from the door, and Ratchet startled badly enough to pull the neural buffer out too quickly.
"Ow," Jazz muttered.
"What do you want, Sideswipe?"
"Just giving you my love for patching me up," Sideswipe said. He was ridiculously cheerful too, come to think of it.
"Don't you mean for putting your brother back together?" Ratchet said, turning back to Jazz. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Little off," Jazz said. "Mostly okay."
"Hold still for a minute," Ratchet said, and checked Jazz over a final time. While he was distracted, Sideswipe meandered over to the other side of Jazz's berth.
"Nah," he said. "I'm expressing my undying gratitude for welding me together after the Seekers take me apart."
"Oh, get out of here," Ratchet said, reaching over Jazz to cuff Sideswipe lightly upside the head. "And don't come back here in more than one piece."
Sideswipe accepted the slap with good grace, and then danced backwards to avoid a possible second strike. "See you soon," he said, and exited the medibay.
"Kids," Jazz said, and Ratchet snorted.
"Please. You're not that much older than he is."
With Jazz and the Aerialbots out of the medibay, focus shifted to Ironhide and Cliffjumper. The former could probably also be sent out to finish his recuperation, if it weren't for the fact that Ratchet suspected he'd attach himself to the response team somehow. Better to just let him sleep it off. Cliffjumper, on the other hand, had launched himself directly at Devastator. While he'd been exactly the distraction Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had needed to break the combiner apart, he'd paid a heavy price for his actions.
"No, you stay right there," Ratchet said, just as Cliffjumper opened his optics.
"Where's the bus that ran me over?" the minibot griped. "I want to smash it into scrap."
"The bus's name is Devastator and you guys did a pretty good job of that already." Ratchet ran scans of the affected areas. "I'm going to let your self-repair systems do a little more work before sanding down the welds."
"Or you could just let me leave," Cliffjumper said.
"I see you've retained your sense of humor," Ratchet told him.
"You let Sunstreaker leave." Cliffjumper wasn't about to let it go, apparently.
"Let is not exactly the word I would use," Ratchet muttered under his breath, and raised his voice. "Sunstreaker wasn't as badly injured as you are."
"Oh, you're saying I can't take care of myself," Cliffjumper spit out, and Ratchet was about to start snapping back when he saw the gleam of amusement in the other mech's eyes.
"Don't give me a reason to start throwing things," he joked, and Cliffjumper chuckled.
"Ratchet?" First Aid called, and Ratchet went to see what he wanted.
There was a call for a second response team to go support the first, and the Protectobots had been drafted to replace Superion.
"It was my call," First Aid explained. "I'm still not sure of Slingshot." He looked worried, despite having made the decision; given the choice, First Aid would rather avoid the fighting. Pacifism was an odd trait for a Cybertronian, much less part of a gestalt, and Ratchet wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed that First Aid was willing to lay it aside so that an injured comrade wouldn't have to fight.
"Good luck," Ratchet said in response. "I'll see you when you get back."
First Aid ducked out of the door, where Ratchet could see his brothers waiting. A query to Teletraan-I got him the answer that the Insecticons were wreaking some sort of havoc, backed up by Soundwave and Menasor. Ratchet would have laughed at the presence of the Stunticon gestalt - the Aerialbots were likely more than a little ticked off that they weren't on the field to face it - if it had been a less dangerous opponent.
In his preparations for the inevitable wave of incoming casualties, Ratchet entirely missed the slithering sound in the vents above him.
The casualties, when they got there, were fewer than Ratchet would have expected, considering the Insecticons' vicious nature and Menasor being Menasor. The worst of it was Sideswipe edging gingerly into the medibay carrying his own leg. It was rather humorous, in a way, what with the obvious attempt to hop inconspicuously.
"That's two pieces," Ratchet growled.
"Technically it's still attached," Sideswipe said, which was sort of true. Some of the wires hadn't been quite severed.
"Sit down," Ratchet said. Sideswipe wasn't about to bleed out, and he didn't want to take his hands out of First Aid's chest cavity until he was finished.
"If you insist," Sideswipe said, and more or less collapsed on an open berth. Ratchet reevaluated Sideswipe's condition and extricated himself from First Aid as quickly as he could.
There was internal damage hidden beneath more or less intact plating, consistent with the Insecticons' tendency to eat anything they could get near their mouths, and Sideswipe's motor relays had been compromised. It wasn't life-threatening any more than the severed leg was; it just looked nasty.
"This does not count as one piece," Ratchet said, disconnecting Sideswipe's pain receptors and hooking up a neural buffer. He was sorely tempted to hit the mech in front of him with his own (mostly) severed leg, but he didn't think it would impart any sort of lesson.
Sideswipe pointed at himself. "One," he said, very deliberately, and held up the single digit.
"Oh, go to sleep already." Aside from First Aid and Sideswipe, the injured mechs had superficial damage only, and Ratchet was relieved to be able to put all of his concentration into the red frontliner.
"You said we don't sleep," Sideswipe said, and passed out.
"That's cheating," Ratchet told him. "That is not how you're supposed to get the last word."
* * *
Red Alert eyed the security monitors, looking for the source of his unease, but there was nothing to be seen. Undeterred, he turned his attention to the external camera feeds. The last few members of both response teams were on their way back inside the Ark, uninjured and smiling - at least, Smokescreen and Inferno were smiling. Huffer was scowling at both of them.
The field sensor network was up and running properly, its motion detectors lighting up as organic life forms scurried around and through it. Teletraan-I was designed to discard those particular signals, but Red Alert shunted them to another feed to analyze any emerging patterns. So far, he was ready to declare the non-sentient organics irrational and erratic.
"Then again, the sentient organics aren't much better," he murmured, rechecking the external network. There seemed to be more snakes and fewer birds than usual, but nothing that would account for the jittery feeling running through his processor. For a moment he tried to distract himself by idly wondering how many animals the Ark could support, if they got inside and started breeding, and running a vague simulation on the same. He concluded that the Ark could host quite the ecosystem and also that there weren't enough filters on any of the external access points.
Most of the access points could be refitted with more effective screening devices - some of which might even make it harder for Soundwaves distressing cassettes to sneak in and out - by Autobots currently restricted to light duty due to injuries sustained over the past few days. Red Alert himself could handle the rest. He composed a quick memo, tagged it as External Security (Non-Sentient Organic), and sent it off to Prime and Prowl.
The nagging feeling returned, making his hands itch. Red Alert laced his fingers together and tried to chase down the source, but it remained stubbornly elusive.
"Fried logic circuits acting up again," he said softly. It happened once in a while, courtesy of the Negavator incident, but sometimes he was able to identify paranoia as paranoia before it became critical. Sometimes it passed on its own.
"Hey, Inferno," he sent through the radio before he could stop himself, and then rationalized that a perimeter check probably wouldn't hurt.
"What's up?" Inferno asked, turning to face the closest camera.
"Would you and Smokescreen run a quick perimeter sweep? Something seems off."
"Are you sure?" Inferno asked. Now that Red Alert got a good look at him, both he and Smokescreen were clearly exhausted.
"Never mind, I'll take care of it," he said. "You guys come on inside." He did not add the phrase where it's probably safe, despite an almost physical urge.
"No, no, we got this," Inferno said. Smokescreen gave him a look of displeasure that quickly faded into resignation. "Usual terms," Inferno added.
"You got it," Red Alert agreed. The usual terms were that if Inferno didn't find anything suspicious and Red Alert still couldn't let it go, he'd have his logic circuits examined. So far it had worked out fairly well; they'd kept Ravage out once and Laserbeak twice, and caught repeat malfunctions in Red Alert's logic circuits early enough to correct them several times.
What made Red Alert so uneasy this time was that his logic circuits hadn't gone haywire for so long that the problem seemed to have corrected itself, and if that was the case, there really was something to worry about. He rechecked the internal monitors, but all reported activity was within normal parameters.
"Nothing out here, buddy," Inferno said, interrupting Red Alert's train of thought.
"Okay," Red Alert said, trying to let it go. "Thanks, Inferno. Smokescreen." He apparently wasn't successful in convincing the other mechs, because Inferno showed up in his office a few minutes later.
"Come on," he said, interrupting a thorough analysis of the sounds of the Ark. The feeling of wrongness seemed to be centered on the audio recordings, but he couldn't pinpoint it.
"What?" Red Alert tried not to be defensive, but Inferno just raised an optic ridge.
"You know the rules, Red," he said, and tugged Red Alert out of his chair. Smokescreen slid into it, blocking him from taking it back.
"I'm onto something," Red Alert protested.
"Okay, let's get going." Inferno started glaring, and Red Alert capitulated. The quicker he got the diagnostic over with, the quicker he could get back to locating the source of the problem.
* * *
"Shrapnel nearly ate you?" Sunstreaker started laughing, going so far as to double over and clutch his sides in an impression of a human too consumed with hilarity to breathe. “That’s really going to impress Ratchet.”
Shortly after the Skywarp incident a few weeks before, Sideswipe had gotten the idea in his head to start stalking Ratchet, not that he called it stalking. Sunstreaker wasn’t entirely sure what his brother saw in the medic, but in a newfound spirit of actually trying to keep his brother happy, he went along with it. So far, Sideswipe hadn’t succeeded in catching Ratchet’s attention in any way other than threats of further damage if Sideswipe managed to get himself mangled again.
"Shut up," Sideswipe said, poking at his side gingerly. The red armor was still intact, but the white plating beneath it was currently a dull gray. "Besides, you weren't even there."
"Whose fault was that?" Sunstreaker asked from the recharge berth. He had, by this point, more or less recovered from going up against a gestalt, and would be back on the regular duty roster in the morning.
"I got Devastator off your back, if you recall," Sideswipe said, giving up on his finish and flopping down onto the makeshift couch. He winced and shifted around.
"After he stomped me into the ground," Sunstreaker returned.
"Like anything you do out there is my fault, oh deadly and powerful warrior Sunstreaker." Sideswipe grinned and then started poking at the recent welds on his hip. Ratchet had literally dropped him in front of his door, telling him to keep off the leg for the rest of the night.
"Bah," Sunstreaker said after a moment, unable to come up with a better reply. When the door had opened to reveal their chief medic with Sideswipe literally tucked under one arm, he'd had a very brief moment of panic. "Stop touching that."
"I'll touch what I want," Sideswipe grumbled, but he took his fingers off his injuries. The gray of the welds showed up clearly against the black and white of his lower body.
"So what are you doing here?" Sunstreaker sat up, feeling the slight tugging of recently repaired injury.
"What do you mean?" Sideswipe asked, hands freezing in place over the discoloration on his side.
"Ratchet brought you here," Sunstreaker said. "Not to your own quarters."
"Oh." Sideswipe reset his vocalizer, the nearly inaudible sound clear in the sudden silence, and then he grinned cheekily. "Something about a babysitter," he said.
"I don't have time to be your minder," Sunstreaker said.
"Oh, not for me," Sideswipe said airily. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."
"Oh, for..." Sunstreaker swung his legs over the side of the berth. "If you want company, just say so."
It was an honest effort to be a little more open; since nearly losing Sideswipe to Skywarp's lucky shot some months before, Sunstreaker had been trying to be less abrasive. He just didn't quite know how to talk to his brother without the shield of friendly insults.
"Nah, I'm good." Sideswipe actually looked a little spooked. He levered himself upright on his one good leg and limped toward the door. "I'll see you later."
"Don't be ridiculous. You'll warp the welds." Sunstreaker pulled Sideswipe back into the room. Sideswipe yanked his arm out of his brother's grasp, overbalanced, and fell through the open door right onto the injured hip.
"If anyone is going to screw up the welds, it's going to be you," he hissed, using the doorframe to pull himself upright and shoving Sunstreaker's hand away.
"I didn't mean -" Sunstreaker started and then gave up. The door slid shut as Sideswipe limped heavily down the corridor. "Sorry," Sunstreaker muttered, but he couldn't say the word to his brother's face.
The following morning found a message from Red Alert waiting in his queue; something about a change in his first duty shift. Sunstreaker groaned at that, anticipating another bout of paranoia-inspired busywork. He looked down at himself - his finish was more or less unscuffed, and would only get ruined crawling around whatever part of the ship Red Alert had decided wasn't secure enough this time.
The washracks it was, then. Sunstreaker wasn't about to let certain scuff marks deter him from showing up looking his best.
Sideswipe was already at the main entrance when Sunstreaker arrived, along with a small crowd of other recently-injured mechs. He was still favoring the welded leg, but the limp was less pronounced than it had been the night before. Sunstreaker ostentatiously looked him up and down to show Sideswipe that he cared whether or not his brother had been damaged, and then let it go.
Sideswipe turned his back on Sunstreaker, talking to Slingshot, of all mechs. Sunstreaker suppressed a sigh and looked around. He had no idea what rust-bolted idea Red Alert had come up with this time, and it didn't seem like anyone else did either.
"You're all on time," Red Alert said, striding into the open. His hands were shaking slightly, which didn't bode well for the level of reasonable in the task Red Alert was about to ask all of them to do.
Although he would much rather have been proved wrong, Sunstreaker's dire predictions were proved correct. He and the rest of the mechs on light duty spent the shift crawling around the Ark installing tighter mesh around the vents and gaps in the Ark's plating in order to keep the organic creepy crawlies out.
"This," he said to Hound, "is ridiculous."
"I can't exactly tell you you're wrong," Hound said, tightening a bolt. "It's not like they're not going to find a way in anyway."
"They are? That's not what I meant." Sunstreaker poked at the screen experimentally and started sealing the edges. "It's not like the Decepticons can teach stupid organics to spy."
"Probably not," Hound said agreeably, and shone a light around the finished product. "So far so good," he said, and the thin beam of light vanished into a dark crevice. "Oh, what's this?"
Sunstreaker shone his own light at the crack. "Huh. Mountain must have settled a bit."
It wasn't as if the phenomenon hadn't happened before; even though the Ark had been half-buried in the not-really-dormant volcano for millions of years, the earth still shifted around it. Occasionally, that meant new holes opened up. Still more occasionally, those new holes either coincided with tears in the Ark's hull or made fresh ones.
"Well, let's get it sealed off," Hound said, reaching into subspace for more of the mesh.
Bits of dust and something scaly drifted out of the rock as Hound taped the mesh across the hole, and Sunstreaker moved to avoid it. "This is disgusting," he muttered too quietly for Hound to hear; Hound actually liked the organic ecosystem, and he was one of the few mechs Sunstreaker made at least a token effort not to antagonize. Hound was just that friendly, and it was hard not to like him at least a little.
"Sealant," Hound said, holding the mesh around the edges, and Sunstreaker glued it into place. "Anywhere else?"
Sunstreaker shone his light into all the shadows, but there were no other openings that he could see. "It's clear," he said. "Do you want to tell Red Alert about the microscopic security breach, or shall I?"
Hound ignored the sarcasm and smiled. "I got it," he said, and radioed Red Alert while they moved on to the next site to be upgraded.
The end of the shift saw Sunstreaker in the washracks again, what with all the holes having been properly plugged, and that having been done ahead of schedule. Sideswipe showed up as Sunstreaker was leaving, limp nearly gone.
"Got anything to do tonight?" Sunstreaker asked.
"Yes," Sideswipe answered shortly. Sunstreaker shrugged. He'd tried.
"See you later," he said.
"Hey." It was said so quietly that Sunstreaker almost didn't hear it.
"Yeah?" he said over his shoulder.
"Sorry I let Devastator stomp on you," Sideswipe said.
"I seem to recall nothing I do out there being your fault," Sunstreaker said lightly.
"Yeah, well." Sideswipe shrugged. "I should have had your back."
"You had it," Sunsteaker said, turning around.
Sideswipe shifted uncomfortably, which Sunstreaker took as his cue to leave. He had a fresh coat of wax to apply, after all.
Sideswipe watched him go, wondering exactly what his brother was trying to pull. He'd been almost tentative over the past several weeks, not a word Sideswipe usually associated with Sunstreaker. The terms usually used to describe him tended to include things like caustic, sociopath, and - since their arrival on Earth and assimilation of their wonderfully descriptive epithets - asshole.
It was a dynamic Sideswipe had gotten very used to since the start of the war; Sunstreaker was rough on Sideswipe because he knew Sideswipe could take it, and Sideswipe wasn't going to go away no matter how hard Sunny pushed.
"So now," Sideswipe said later to Bluestreak over a cube of energon, "now it's like he suddenly thinks I'm fragile or something."
"You? Fragile?" The look on Bluestreak's face was gratifying. Sideswipe drained the cube. "That's ridiculous."
"Why else would be be acting so... so..." The word Sideswipe wanted to use was nice, but he didn't think it would properly convey the impression he was trying to give. It was as if the injuries Sideswipe had sustained had led Sunstreaker to conclude that he wasn't strong enough after all.
"Who, exactly, are we talking about, again?" Bluestreak asked, and Sideswipe gave up.
The duty roster the next morning was in any case enough to distract Sideswipe from considering how his brother was being even more of a jerk than usual.
"Why do I have monitor duty?" he demanded.
"You have been assigned monitor duty," Teletraan-I responded.
"That is not an answer," Sideswipe grumbled, but he didn't think Prowl would be happy with being bothered about the schedule.
"No, it is not," Teletraan-I said.
"Um." Sideswipe looked around to see if anyone else was near enough to hear the A.I. backtalking him. No one was. "What did you just say?"
"You have been assigned monitor duty," Teletraan-I responded.
"Oh, shut up," Sideswipe said, and stalked off to the control center. He found nearly the entirety of the Ark's complement clustered there already. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Teletraan-I has apparently overwritten Prowl's carefully constructed duty roster to decide that we all have monitor duty," Bumblebee returned.
"Well, that's just all sorts of fantastic," Sideswipe grumbled. "And why do the monitors all show the wrong feed?" A ripple of awareness spread through the crowed as the assembled Autobots realized that the monitors showed a dark, star-filled sky instead of the relentless blue that had been visible from the back half of the Ark.
"Teletraan-I is experiencing some minor malfunctions," Red Alert announced, twitch in his hands more pronounced. "I am tracking the source. In the meantime, here is the updated duty roster."
Sideswipe was on external patrol, going over the perimeter to search out potential signs of Decepticon incursion. While it wasn't exactly likely that a physical assault - even a sneaky, Ravage-style one - was behind Teletraan-I's malfunctions, it couldn't be ruled out either.
Somewhat to Sideswipe's chagrin, he was paired with Sunstreaker.
"I hate dust," Sunstreaker grumbled as they set out, and then kept his mouth shut.
If Sunstreaker wasn't going to talk, neither was Sideswipe. He stubbornly maintained radio silence for the entirety of the patrol. It yielded no signs of Decepticons, but plenty of snake backbones.
"Hey, Sunny," Sideswipe said as they headed back towards the Ark, forgetting that he was ignoring his brother. "What eats snakes?"
"How should I know which organics devour each other, you glitch?" Sunstreaker said, and Sideswipe grinned. "I mean, I don't know," Sunstreaker amended, almost politely. "Maybe you should try asking someone else."
Oh, right, Sideswipe thought, that's why I'm not talking to you. He kept his radio firmly under wraps.
"Report," Prowl said, greeting them at the Ark's entrance.
"No Cons, lots of rocks, dust, and dead snakes," Sideswipe said. "Not even Con footprints."
"Although there are a few Cons who don't leave footprints," Sunstreaker said.
"That's true, but we didn't see Ravage or Laserbeak. Not that we ever see Ravage or Laserbeak." Sideswipe transformed back into root made, rubbing his chin. Sunstreaker followed suit, wincing at the dust coating his undercarriage.
"Why are you holding the door open?" Sunstreaker asked, and Sideswipe realized that Prowl was literally propping the door halfway apart.
"The glitches are getting worse," Prowl said. "The doors aren't functioning properly."
"They just stay shut, do they?" Sunstreaker asked, sauntering inside.
"Or open," Prowl said, as the door did exactly that. He transitioned smoothly from pushing the door open to pulling it closed again. "Would you both just get your afts inside?"
Both of them obeyed with alacrity, not particularly wanting to get stuck outside. Sideswipe had barely cleared the door when it slammed shut, nearly bisecting Prowl.
"Hm," was all Prowl had to say, examining his heel where the door had clipped it. "Ratchet wants to see you both," he added.
* * *
Ratchet looked around the empty medibay with something resembling a sense of satisfaction. Not that he had nothing to do - there was a list of more or less routine maintenance as long as his arm to do on the various mechs on board, some of which had been attended to in the aftermath of the most recent fights, but most of which had not.
Ratchet frowned at the copy of the list displayed by Teletraan-I. It didn't match up to what he remembered it being, which meant that there was yet another glitch. He sighed - a purely human habit, and when had they picked up so many of their hosts' mannerisms? - and sent a memo off to Prowl and Red Alert.
Any little bit of information would be helpful in tracking down the glitches, Red Alert had said. Well, this was a bit of information. Ratchet abandoned the screen and went through the list in his memory, ranking it by mechs easiest to wrangle. Then he ignored it entirely and commed Sideswipe.
"Are you busy?"
Sideswipe responded instantly. No, why?
Ratchet hesitated. "I want to go over your welds. See if they're integrating properly," he said.
What, now? Sideswipe commed back.
"Um." Ratchet paused again, because he’d checked the welds the day before, after Sideswipe had spent a shift patrolling the perimeter. The welds had been fine, and there was no reason to expect anything to go wrong.
On my way, Sideswipe added cheerfully, deflecting Ratchet's potential stammered explanation. His limp was almost entirely gone when he came strolling through the stuck-open medibay door, but Ratchet ran the scanner over it anyway.
"Looks like it's healing properly." The gray color of the various seams was fading into the proper red, black, and white, depending on placement, and Sideswipe didn't flinch when Ratchet prodded at either his chest plate or his hip joint. "No residual pain?"
"None," Sideswipe said. "Since when do you worry about pain?" he added.
"Since it tells me that you're doing something wrong," Ratchet snapped, uncomfortable now that he'd pulled Sideswipe into the medibay for a checkup he didn't really need for reasons that Ratchet didn't particularly want to examine.
"Hey, don't bite my head off," Sideswipe said, holding his hands up. "Everything okay?"
"Why wouldn't it be?" Ratchet asked, on the defensive and increasingly uncomfortable about it.
"Oh, the ship's glitching left and right, both Blaster and Red Alert are fritzing trying to track down the bad code in its systems, and Prowl is making all of us miserable," Sideswipe said lightly. "What's not to be upset about?"
"Right," Ratchet said. There was a slightly awkward silence. "You're good to go," he added somewhat lamely.
Sideswipe did not leave. He pulled his legs up on the berth, crossing them lazily, and the motion suddenly drove home that Ratchet had dragged Sideswipe out to the medibay simply because he wanted to see him. It was inappropriate, and a misuse of his authority, and now was a fine time to figure out that he was attracted to Sideswipe.
"That wasn't why you asked me down here, was it?" Sideswipe pressed, and for half an interminable second, Ratchet couldn’t shake the horrified thought that Sideswipe had acquired Soundwave’s telepathic mods. Either that, or his revelation was scrawled across his face.
The awkward silence grew almost exponentially while Ratchet failed to either meet Sideswipe's gaze or answer the question, not that he knew exactly what he would have said in response anyway.
"Well," Sideswipe said finally, uncrossing his legs with none of his usual grace, and then he smiled. "In that case, me and Sunny are going for a drive. You should come."
Ratchet avoided an enthusiastic agreement by the thinnest of margins. "Wait, what?" he said instead.
Sideswipe almost bounced. "The road up to the peak and then down the other side."
"There's no road there," Ratchet said, fairly sure he was right.
"There is, there - well, it might not technically be a road, but we've been up and down it enough times that it's practically a road by now," Sideswipe said with a slight tinge of mania.
"And you do what on this not a road?" Ratchet asked.
"Win," Sideswipe said cheekily, proving a long-standing suspicion correct. Ratchet had never had evidence of asinine street races - and neither had Prowl, although it wasn't technically forbidden - but he'd delivered plenty of lectures on the subject.
He couldn’t stall any more than he already had. It was time to nip this infatuation of his in the bud, before it had the chance to actually be a bud, much less turn into anything else. Ratchet opened his mouth to decline politely. "I'll be there," he said.
"Great." Sideswipe wasn't quite pushing him toward the door, but that was definitely his hand on Ratchet's back. "Come on."
"What, now?" Ratchet said, unconsciously echoing Sideswipe.
"Yes, now," Sideswipe said, and now he was definitely pushing, his hand drifting to just above Ratchet's waist.
"I have a list -" Ratchet started. Yes, the list. The list would get him out of his unintended acquiescence. He could always cancel later.
Sideswipe, apparently, was on to him. "The list can wait."
"You don't even know what's on the list."
"That list?" Sideswipe pointed to the monitor, where a mostly correct version of the scheduled check-ups was flickering. "Aaah, it's fine. Sunny's fluid levels can wait another day or two."
"But -" Ratchet was only protesting for the sake of pretending to be professional at this point. "Someone needs to be here," he said.
"Hoist already agreed to show up if something happens," Sideswipe said blithely, and how had Ratchet missed the comm chatter? He pinged Hoist to verify, getting a reply back so quickly he almost didn't see it.
"Okay, okay." He shuffled forward, letting Sideswipe guide him to the malfunctioning front doors. At the moment, they were propped open by a steel I-beam set flush against the floor. Sideswipe hopped over it, jogging to where Sunstreaker stood tapping his foot impatiently.
"I got him!" he crowed triumphantly, and Sunstreaker arched an optic ridge.
"Okay, okay, you win," he said.
"Win?" Ratchet paused. Had he just unwittingly participated in some kind of bet? The thought that Sideswipe had only dragged him outside to win some kind of contest with his brother was bitterly disappointing.
"I didn't think he'd be able to get you to come," Sunstreaker elaborated, in a tone that said Ratchet should understand this point without further explanation.
"And what's the prize for winning?" Ratchet asked acidly.
"No prize, Ratchet, lighten up." Sideswipe draped an arm across Ratchet's shoulders. Given that the top of his head barely came up to said shoulders, it required some interesting contortions. "Come on."
"I have no intention -" Ratchet started, and Sunstreaker shook his head.
"Are we going or not?" he said impatiently, dropping into car form.
"Yes. Yes, we are. We're all going." Sideswipe transformed into his alt mode. Ratchet, feeling like he'd missed something, followed suit and rolled after the twins.
The terrain above the Ark wasn't as rough as Ratchet had been expecting, but then again, given the low-slung nature of the twins' alt modes, he felt he shouldn't have been surprised. His own higher clearance meant that he could handle any roughness in the terrain with no trouble at all. Of course, once the road cleared the volcano's crater and started winding down the other side, it became almost perfectly smooth. At that point, the fact that a Lamborghini Countach was much faster than an ambulance both around corners and in a straight line came into play, and Ratchet found himself playing catch-up.
The twins seemed to take it in stride - instead of racing straight-out down the curving mountain road, they transformed from alt mode to root mode and back, flinging themselves over giant rocks and generally showing off their strength and agility. It was sheer kinetic beauty, and Ratchet could almost believe they’d asked him out here just to show off.
Caught up in the show, Ratchet just kept driving, keeping his pace quick but constant. He called encouragement to both of the brothers, until Sideswipe tripped over a nearly invisible fallen tree. The resulting fall sent him careening into Sunstreaker, who in turn knocked Ratchet right off the road.
"Ow," Sideswipe moaned pitifully from underneath Ratchet.
"Ow yourself," Ratchet said, transforming into root mode and ending up flat on his back, still on top of Sideswipe.
"Are you all right?" Sunstreaker asked, and irritation flashed across Sideswipe's face.
"Oh, fine," Ratchet said, since Sideswipe was now apparently sulking underneath him, and carefully levered himself upwards. Sideswipe scrambled to his feet, ignoring both of them. "Sideswipe?" He started forward, with the intent of checking the weld on Sideswipe's hip; if anything was going to break, that would have been it.
"Leave it, it's fine," Sideswipe said, backing up.
Ratchet exchanged glances with Sunstreaker. "Let him look at it, Sides," Sunstreaker said impatiently.
"Oh, sure, but no one needs to look at you," Sideswipe spat, not even trying to hide his aggravation. "You both think I can't handle myself, is that it?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Ratchet said.
"I'm not being ridiculous!" Sideswipe backed up, glaring at both of them. "I'm sick of you treating me like I'm some fragile, breakable thing!"
"No one is -" Ratchet started patiently.
"He is!" Sideswipe pointed at Sunstreaker. "Ever since I... Ever since Skywarp," he finished.
"You're out of your mind," Sunstreaker said flatly. He'd backed off as well, arms crossed and optics narrowed.
"Oh?" There was a definite element of hysteria to Sideswipe's voice. "Then why are you being so... so... so polite? You only do that when you hate people and want to drive home a point!"
Sunstreaker blinked. "Wait, what?"
"You know what you've been doing," Sideswipe said, and his voice was bitter now, resignation in every line of his body. He slumped into a sitting position, leaning against a rock. "You've been nice."
"I've been trying -" Sunstreaker started, and then looked sideways at Ratchet, as if he'd forgotten that Ratchet was even there. He shook his head slightly and dropped to the ground next to Sideswipe.
With the sensation that he was intruding on what should be a private conversation, Ratchet tried to fade into the background without actually moving. Sunstreaker had obviously dismissed him, but he didn't think Sideswipe remembered he was present, and Sideswipe was the one who was apparently upset.
"Well, you've succeeded," Sideswipe said. "I can tell, okay? I'm not good enough for you and you can just stop pretending."
"Where the hell did that come from?" Sunstreaker was anything but disinterested now. "I try - I've been trying - to be considerate of your slagging feelings and you throw it back in my face?"
"Since when do you give a flying fuck about my feelings?" Sideswipe shot back. "All you care about is me not dragging you down!"
"Since you almost died!" Sunstreaker shouted, and Sideswipe's optics narrowed.
"Every other time I nearly died, you didn't blink!" he hissed. "It's part of the deal, Sunstreaker. We're warbuilds. We're at war. That's what happens. It never bothered you before."
"I never had to watch it happen in slow motion before, okay?" Sunstreaker said, almost unwillingly, looking at the ground as if he were forcing the words out past a physical block in his throat. "It... it threw me."
Sideswipe opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it again, just staring at his brother. "Are you making fun of me?" he said finally, suspicion lacing the words.
Sunstreaker's face hardened. "Fine, believe what you want," he said, standing and dusting himself off. "I'm going home." He transformed and shot back up the road, hugging the turns so tightly that Ratchet had a new appreciation for how much the two of them had had to slow down before, just so that he could keep up.
"Sunny?" Sideswipe scrambled to his feet and took a few steps toward the road. He stayed in root mode, though, just staring at the dust hanging in the air.
Ratchet didn't move.
"I really screwed that up, didn't I," Sideswipe said mournfully, turning to Ratchet.
"Um," Ratchet said, displaying the wit and intelligence for which he was widely known.
"I, uh, I have to go." Sideswipe walked back toward the base without waiting for a response, climbing swiftly over the rock face in the general direction of the Ark.
Ratchet didn't stop him; he transformed to alt mode and drove back slowly, checking around every corner to make sure Sunstreaker hadn't driven off the road and keeping his optics open for a flash of red or white in case Sideswipe slipped off the steep cliff.
The Ark doors were wide open when he got back, the steel I-beam still placed over the threshold. Ratchet stepped over it, flinching when the doors slammed closed only to bounce off the steel blocking it. The I-beam bent under the force of the blow, and Ratchet eyed the doors warily. He started to comm Sideswipe and Sunstreaker to make sure both of them had returned safely, but before he could follow through, another transmission cut him off.
Ratchet! Prowl snapped over the comm-line. Haven't you been paying attention?
"I didn't hear you call, Prowl," Ratchet said.
All Autobots return to the Ark, Prowl said. We have a situation.
"I'm inside the Ark," Ratchet said. "What kind of situation?"
Teletraan's glitches are no accident, Prowl sent. It's a virus.
"Decepticon?" Ratchet said.
Who else? Get to the medibay and remain there in case of emergencies. Prowl out.
"Wait," Ratchet sent. "Who else is still outside the Ark?"
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, Prowl returned. Do you know where either of them are?
"The last I saw, the twins were heading back here," Ratchet said. "They haven't arrived?" He pinged both of the twins, but neither of them answered.
A moment of silence and then, We have more pressing issues. Blaster will keep trying to raise all three of them. You have your instructions.
"Understood." Ratchet threw one last unhappy glance at the deceptively bright and sunny day outside and went toward the medibay.
First Aid was waiting, pacing nervously back and forth. "Ratchet!" he cried, and Ratchet narrowly escaped being flatted by the doors crashing shut.
"Slagging Decepticons," Ratchet said in reply. "What's going on?"
"I don't know any more than you do," First Aid said. "How did the Decepticons manage to hack the Ark?"
"I have no idea." Ratchet looked around, hating that he had been told to stay put and not knowing what else he could do.
"I thought we had countermeasures to prevent remote access," First Aid continued, still pacing.
"We do," Ratchet said.
"So they have a hard line in," First Aid said.
"How would they possibly manage to hardwire into the Ark without Red Alert noticing?" Ratchet stopped his contemplation of the medibay to glare at his protege. "Hasn't he had all of us doing sweeps for days now?"
"Well, they must have," First Aid said reasonably. "If we haven't been remotely hacked."
"I'm sure Optimus has it under control," Ratchet said.
"I guess," First Aid said dubiously, and Ratchet could hear him send a ping over the comm-line.
"Stop interfering," he said, but his words were drowned out by the most welcome sound he'd heard in days.
This is Sideswipe. Sunstreaker and I are outside. Why are the doors closed? came over the general communication lines. Ratchet closed his eyes briefly in relief.
Prowl responded on the same frequency; Ratchet wasn't sure if that was intentional or if Prowl was simply using the frequency on which he'd been hailed.
We're experiencing technical difficulties, he said with a rare flash of humor. Stand by.
Is there a reason the engines have been activated? That was Sunstreaker, and as soon as Ratchet heard the transmission, he became aware of the deck plates vibrating under his feet.
Remain calm. That was Optimus, deep voice reassuring even through the comm-line.
Calm? Wheeljack chimed in. The Ark is trying to launch itself right out of the mountainside!
The Ark does not have the structural integrity for a successful launch, sent Perceptor.
That doesn't mean it won't rip itself to pieces trying! Wheeljack was doing a fairly good impression of shouting, despite the comm-line not actually having a volume control.
We can reach 'em from here, Sideswipe sent.
Are you crazy? Sunstreaker's transmission overlapped his brother's. You want to climb down the exhaust port - actually, yeah, we can reach 'em from here. Unless you guys can shut 'em off from in there, I don't see any other way to stop the Ark from trying to launch.
“Don't you dare pull something like that,” Ratchet sent. “If you two get yourselves blown to pieces, don't think I'll put you back together.”
Ratchet, we have no other choice. That was sent on Ratchet's private frequency, Sideswipe doing his best to sound reassuring.
Do it, Optimus sent after a long pause. Good luck.
Ratchet slammed a fist into the wall.
* * *
"In we go," Sunstreaker said, glancing at Sideswipe out of the corner of his optics. His brother hadn't actually spoken to him since he'd stormed off, not that Sunstreaker was entirely certain he would welcome anything Sideswipe said.
"Sunny," Sideswipe started, and then clearly didn't know how to continue.
"If I get so much as singed, you're buffing the burn marks out," Sunstreaker said, taking pity on him. At the end of the day, he hated arguing with his brother, and things had gotten progressively worse over the past several weeks. Someone clearly had to be the reasonable one, and it just as clearly wasn’t going to be Sideswipe. Not to mention, the mileage he was going to get out of this would be fantastic. "And don't call me Sunny," he added.
"I'll call you whatever I want," Sideswipe said, a relieved smile tugging at his lips.
"You're such a pain," Sunstreaker said, and Sideswipe broke into a grin.
"You take port. I'll take starboard."
"You don't even know what those words mean," Sunstreaker said, but he was already racing toward an exhaust port.
"Last one to disable their engine takes extra shifts for a week!" Sideswipe shouted after him.
"You're on!" Sunstreaker called, and redoubled his efforts to get inside the ship.
Overwhelming heat from the engines nearly choked his intakes; Sunstreaker couldn't imagine how Sideswipe was handling it with his less heat-resistant plating. He paused for a moment, considering how best to shut down the engines without actually setting them on fire, and settled for just smashing everything within reach.
Not that there was much actually within reach until Sunstreaker got closer to the engines themselves, by which time he was beginning to seriously rethink the plan. “The engines, which are inside the ship, cannot be reached by the mechs who are already inside the ship why, again?” he sent to Sideswipe.
All the doors are locked down, Sideswipe sent back. Total panic mode.
What Sideswipe referred to as total panic mode meant all the doors were closed and Teletraan-I was likely to set the auto-defense systems on any mech trying to go through a wall or a locked door without unlocking the door first, and the doors couldn’t be unlocked until the panic mode was reset. It was meant to prevent Decepticons from bypassing security measures by just going straight through the walls, but at the moment it was just creating problems.
“You realize that’s ridiculous, right,” Sunstreaker sent, but he was right on top of engine #4, and deactivating it was more or less a matter of shutting off the fuel. The engine sputtered and died as Sunstreaker more or less neatly smashed what were probably key pieces that he hoped could be rebuilt, if the Ark ever needed to fly again.
It’s hot in here, Sideswipe sent back.
We need three engines down, Optimus sent over the wideband comm. Sunstreaker heard weapons fire from engine #3, which was not where Sideswipe was supposed to be. He broke into a run, barreling right through the wall in precisely the maneuver crawling through the Ark’s exhaust port had been meant to avoid, and shot out one of the internal turrets just in time to save Inferno.
“You’re not Sideswipe,” he said, glaring at the other mech.
“Sorry?” Inferno offered, apparently unsure whether the Ark or Sunstreaker was a greater threat to his continued survival.
“Just… don’t do anything stupid. If you can manage that.” Sunstreaker vaulted over a rail just to show off, only then realizing that Inferno had deactivated engine #3 before the internal defenses had pinned him behind a console, and now he was stuck behind the engine itself. “Slag it. Sideswipe!”
Engine #1 disabled, Sideswipe commed back on a private frequency. Grimacing, Sunstreaker relayed the message to the rest of the command structure, adding, “Can we get out of here now? Teletraan-1 is still trying to poke holes in what’s left of my finish.”
“Not that there’s much to poke holes in,” Inferno muttered, clearly audible despite the sounds of engine #2 shaking itself to pieces, and Sunstreaker wondered if the other mech had a death wish, if he could perhaps indulge that death with, and if there was enough confusion that he could get away with it. The answer to the third question being no, he settled for flinging the nearest part of scrap at Inferno’s head. Inferno, wisely, kept his mouth shut.
Teletraan-I is still crippled by the virus, Prowl sent on the wide band. Remain in position.
I told you we should just reboot the slagging thing, Wheeljack sent. Isolate the bad code while the main processors are offline.
That leaves us vulnerable – Prowl started.
We’re already vulnerable, Optimus interrupted, somehow making it seem as though he were merely exploiting a gap in the conversation. Do it, Wheeljack. Those of you close enough to the exterior of the Ark, make your way outside in case of Decepticon incursion.
Muttering under his breath, Sunstreaker made his way through the Ark’s exhaust ports for the second time. Inferno, much to Sunstreaker’s displeasure, didn’t actually fit through the narrower parts of the system, which led to him standing outside staring at the empty sky for an assault that never materialized.
At least Sideswipe was suffering with him. His brother was leaning on his rifle, looking scorched and incredibly unenthusiastic.
“This sucks,” Sunstreaker declared. “And you still owe me an apology.”
“I know,” Sideswipe said after a long pause, managing to radiate tension from the same weary position he’d been in before Sunstreaker had spoken without actually moving.
“I’ll accept a promise to not do it again,” Sunstreaker said when it became obvious that Sideswipe was once again struggling for the right words. Oh yes, there would be so much mileage from being the reasonable one. Sideswipe wouldn’t argue with him for weeks, if Sunstreaker worked things properly.
“Never,” Sideswipe agreed fervently.
“And you pick up the extra duty shifts.” There were still no Decepticons visible either in the sky or on the ground. Sunstreaker shaded his optics with one hand and checked again anyway. “For the next two weeks.”
“That’s not fair – aw, you got to the engine first, didn’t you.” Sideswipe rubbed at a patch of soot on his recently-welded thigh, grimacing as all the attempt did was spread it around.
“I did,” Sunstreaker informed him smugly.
“No, we’re both fine,” Sideswipe said, and pointed at his comm-link when Sunstreaker gave him a questioning look. Sunstreaker left him to the conversation, and paced around the still-closed Ark doors.
“Well?” he demanded, when Sideswipe finally stopped talking. After all the trouble he and Sideswipe had gone to in setting up the display for Ratchet that afternoon, he would hate to think that Sideswipe’s little temper tantrum had ruined everything for both of them.
“Oh, it’s still on,” Sideswipe said cheerfully. “He won’t know what hit him.”
“Good,” Sunstreaker said. It was possible that he was beginning to see what Sideswipe saw in Ratchet after all; that was the only explanation for the little knot of joy and relief that bubbled up at Sideswipe’s words. It was also possible that his brother’s attitude was contagious. Either way, they’d still been stuck outside for far too long. “Finally,” he growled when the external doors cycled open. Sideswipe limped after him, not quite using his rifle as a crutch but walking almost completely normally as a shadow appeared around the corner.
“No Decepticons,” Sunstreaker reported unnecessarily, when the shadow turned out to be Jazz.
“Surveillance is up and running,” Jazz told him. “You and Sideswipe report to me first thing in the morning for final cleanup.”
“What do you mean, final cleanup?” Sunstreaker asked. Wasn’t it enough that he’d been shoved through ridiculously overheated exhaust systems twice already and then shoved outside to stare down nonexistent Decepticons, not to mention stopping the entire ship from shaking itself apart? Apparently not, because Jazz shrugged.
“Snakes, man,” he said.
Derailed from his growing ire, Sunstreaker stared at Jazz, wondering if he’d somehow developed some sort of glitch in his audio receptors. “Snakes,” he repeated flatly.
“Megatron apparently uploaded the virus into mechanical versions of Earth snakes,” Jazz explained.
“Which got onto the ship how?” Sideswipe asked, sounding – slag him – actually interested enough in the answer that he forgot not to limp as he inched closer to the conversation.
“Well, that’s the interesting part,” Jazz said, looking far too gleeful. “Apparently inside the skins and organs of organic snakes.”
“That’s disgusting,” Sunstreaker informed them both.
“Well, the short-range EMP should have knocked them all out of commission,” Jazz said. “We just have to find all of them.” Before they decompose, he did not have to say. Sunstreaker already had a horrifying mental image.
“Nope, still no less disgusting,” Sideswipe agreed, at which point Jazz noticed the limp and chased him off to the medibay over protests of not wanting to incur Ratchet’s wrath. Sunstreaker smirked at his retreating form and then headed for the washracks.
* * *
“Don’t think I didn’t notice your little display earlier,” Ratchet said, poking unnecessarily hard at the fresh weld. The original weld had cracked under the heat coming out of the Ark’s engine, and Sideswipe was at the medic’s mercy until released.
“What display?” he asked with complete seriousness. The entire day had been more or less a clusterfuck from start to finish, and he had no idea what Ratchet was talking about.
“You and your brother, on the way out from the Ark,” Ratchet said, a questioning note in the statement.
“Oh. Well.” Sideswipe was on firmer ground, now. He gave Ratchet his best grin. “It was meant to be noticed.”
“Of course it was,” Ratchet muttered. Sideswipe’s grin grew wider.
“I’d hate to think,” he said solemnly, “that we went through all that effort for nothing.”
Ratchet pulled his hands away from the fresh welds, actually backing off a step. “It’s…” he said, and then, maddeningly, stopped. “I have to go,” he said, and if Sideswipe hadn’t known better, he would have said Ratchet was actually running away.
“Sunstreaker,” he sent. “We’re going to have to try harder.”