[May 2008 Entry, #2 of #13] [Ratchet x Constructicons] Sheer Dumb Luck

[spotlight_noa]

Title: Sheer Dumb Luck
Rating: M
Universe: Movie
Pairing: Ratchet x Constructicons
Word Count: 28,295



There was another little vesicular cave-in, and Ratchet bit out a curse, flicking off the welder somewhat violently and stomping over to the counter his medical supplies were stored in and on.

“What are you doing?” asked Scavenger, coming up behind him-he moved remarkably quietly and Ratchet, who hadn’t heard him coming, jumped.

“Nothing exciting-I need a lower-power welder, but I’m not sure if I have one.” He flipped through another box. “And I’m right. I don’t. -Slag, it’s probably still back at the base-”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to find a welder that fits your hands,” Scavenger said unhappily. “Do you want me to ask Scrapper and Hook if they can make you a new one? They’ll probably want to look at your old one for reference. …Well, Scrapper might, Hook usually thinks that kind of thing is ‘limiting…’”

“It’s fine, I’ll just deal with the inconvenience. It’s not a real problem.”

“But I’m supposed to,” Scavenger said, sounding honestly upset-Ratchet, surprised again, turned to look. “We all have our place on the team, and-”

He looked miserable. “And it’s all I can do for ’Crusher right now.”

Ratchet wasn’t sure how to be comforting, but somehow felt he should be. “The engine parts you found me, and the wire, and the cleanser have already been incredibly helpful.”

“The parts were easy, and Mixmaster made the cleanser-it wasn’t me. And you still needed to work on all the parts I found.”

“What you found were pieces from earth vehicles, which is what I would expect, so of course they’re going to need some altering to fit a Cybertronian body,” Ratchet snapped, voice waspish. He had very little patience for pussyfooting around emotional issues, outside of the most extreme cases.

-Damn, now Scavenger looked downright withdrawn, right down to the spikes drawn in close to his body. Ratchet was unsure what to do, lost, and he felt a wave of relief when the door to the room slid open, revealing a mech he identified as Mixmaster with second-hand memories.

Mixmaster ignored Ratchet, marching across the room to pull Scavenger to him, holding him protectively and glaring-with at least four of the six optics Ratchet could see on him-at the Autobot.

He was big, Ratchet realized faintly, big enough that the mixing drum on his alt form had to be solid, or partially solid, an outward disguise only. The number of spiky protrusions and blade-like extensions on him was unusual even for a Decepticon, which only added to his fearsome appearance, although Ratchet could tell that he probably wasn’t all that good a fighter, with the number of external sensors he had. They would make him more vulnerable-he’d feel more pain, take more damage harder. He was also-

He was clinging just as hard as Scavenger was, and Ratchet should have known that that was the way to calm the mech down, the way they were all so unnaturally tactile. Of all things!

“Ratchet!” Scavenger said, shaking him out of his thoughts. “This is Mixmaster-he made the extra cleanser for you.”

“I am the chemist.” The words were said slowly, deliberately, and his voice was oddly accented in a way Ratchet didn’t think was human, an odd tension underneath the words.

They also sounded-practiced.

“Ratchet,” he introduced himself, slowly. “Although I suppose you knew that. -Thank you for the cleanser.”

Mixmaster relaxed visibly. “If I tighten the molecule some and cut out the level of contamination I can increase effectiveness and intensity,” he said, optics bright. Personally, Ratchet was skeptical of his ability to do so, but he nodded. “That would be helpful,” he said neutrally.

“Yes-” Mixmaster muttered, apparently to himself, gazing off into the distance. “That-” he turned, abruptly, to the table he was standing by, producing a beaker and reaching for one of the bottles of cleaner. Scavenger pushed himself into his side, watching, and Ratchet bit back the urge to grumble at the display, irritated, as he turned back to Bonecrusher’s waiting shell.

He felt an unnerving kinship to Sisyphus. The unending task.

---

Ratchet cursed as he picked up the emergency call, immediately setting aside what he’d been working on. “I need to go,” he said, voice firm, and stood. “There’s been an accident.” It was on the other side of town from the Decepticon-Constructicon-base, but not too far-that was good. And he’d need to stop in town to pick up the on-duty medic anyways.

“I’ll show you the door,” said Scavenger immediately. “And I can clean up here for you.” He didn’t bother waiting for Ratchet to answer, something the medic appreciated, instead transforming. They moved quickly through the maze of tunnels until Scavenger paused, close enough to the outside entrance that Ratchet could pick up the change in air composition.

“Next time, just come to this entrance and someone’ll be waiting to take you in, ’kay? Hook says it’s stupid to keep on meeting up with you on the road. Well, he didn’t say it quite like that, but that’s the idea.”

“Alright,” Ratchet said, not really thinking about the implications of that sentence, about the change to the routine that had formed, too concentrated on the need to get moving.

“See you-” Scavenger said as they reached the door, Ratchet accelerating away: he wasn’t bothering to keep his speed limited to what his alt form’s technical specs were, since he was driverless, unobserved-

---

Ratchet was kind of unnerved to find Mixmaster the one waiting for him outside the hidden entrance he used, his engine humming impatiently-Ratchet could see the mech shifting on his wheels, even in vehicle mode.

“Fi-nally,” he growled, and Ratchet frowned inwardly at the odd catch he’d put into the word, but didn’t say anything. To start with, he was a Decepticon, and all that Ratchet himself was there to do was repair their sixth; to end, out of all the Constructicons he’d met-and that was all of them, excluding the one he was repairing-Mixmaster was the one who set him most on edge, partially because of an indefinable sense of unease and partially because of the trickle-down effect of holding someone else’s memories in his mind, even isolated memories-

There was a fair chance, judging from what he was getting, that Scrapper or Hook or both were afraid of Mixmaster-and they were gestalt. The thought was chilling.

They made their way to the med bay in silence, except for the occasional mutter from Mixmaster. Again, Ratchet kept to his vehicle mode, finding it more comfortable in the cramped corridor and making it slightly more acceptable to refrain from replying to the barely-on-the-edge-of-hearing murmurs which might or might not have been directed at him.

He was relieved to reach the med bay, flipping into a fast transformation before he’d even come to a full stop. Mixmaster edged away from him before he followed suit, then silently slunk into a far corner. Ratchet decided to put him out of mind and turned to his “charge.”

He was surprised to find Scrapper there, leaning over Bonecrusher’s body. His optics were off, and Ratchet had almost begun to think that he was in recharge when they flickered back on, snapping in his direction, showing none of the fuzziness or confusion restarting programs caused.

“Ratchet,” he said in greeting, surprisingly warm-not that that said much. “Thank you for coming.” The medic grunted in reply, increasingly unhappy with the way he kept on being thanked-the open recognition of his choice only made the guilt worse.

“Scrapper,” he said in reply, because he needed to say something.

“Scavenger said you needed a cooler welder. Will this work?”

He thought he hid his surprise pretty well as he took the tool, looking it over critically before he flipped it on, grabbing a piece of scrap to try it on.

“Thank you,” he said, a few minutes later, and honestly meant it. It wasn’t anything really necessary, but it meant that this part of the job would go much, much faster.

“It wasn’t for you,” Scrapper said, and Ratchet looked down to see his hand resting gently along the curve of Bonecrusher’s shoulder armor. He suddenly felt isolated, the outsider- He’d never understand what they felt for each other, what made the six Decepticons so trusting, accepting of each other-

And needy. That was the downside. Resolutely, Ratchet switched his attention back to where he’d left off, the last time he’d worked on Bonecrusher, and prepared to start working again.

He was so absorbed in the job that he almost cut through his finger with the laser scalpel he’d been working with when Mixmaster-who had apparently been watching him for a while; Ratchet hadn’t even heard him approach-suddenly stuck a bottle into his field of vision.

“He can’t feel you waiting,” Scrapper said shortly, briefly looking up from what he’d been working on. “Or tell you’re there.”

Well, of course, thought Ratchet, somewhat dumbfounded. Was Mixmaster honestly so unused to interacting with anyone outside of the gestalt that he didn’t know how to do so normally?

Mixmaster appeared to ignore Scrapper, although he shifted slightly, his jumbled armor extensions scraping together lightly. His hand was still outstretched, so Ratchet took the bottle, looking at it with a certain measure of confusion.

“It’s cle-eanser,” he said, that hitch in his voice obvious again-and, yes, he did remember asking for a changed version that the chemist had said he could make- “Twenty percent more efficient at eight percent lower concentration.” He produced a second bottle, this one a light green color. “This one will also break down organic material, but has only two percent improved efficiency for mechanical build-up.”

“Thank you,” Ratchet said, accepting the second bottle.

“You are welc-com-m-”

That was a processor glitch, Ratchet suddenly realized, and probably not a mechanical one, like Bumblebee’s problem, still not fully eradicated. It explained the odd quality to his speech…. And possibly what was wrong with him, or at least gave a clue into the matter. Often, a speech impediment, or any sort of social tic, was a sign of something much worse having gone wrong than a few speech patterns.

Then again, there was the change was wrong, and it really was just a quick glitch-they didn’t have a medic with them. Well, other than Ratchet, now. And Hook could manage some basic repairs, but Ratchet doubted he could manage much beyond fixing simple wounds to the point where self-repair functions could take over. Complicated processor work was undoubtedly outside of his skill level: even Ratchet didn’t take something like that lightly.

“What-t? Don’t like the way I sp-eak, Autobot?”

“That’s just stupid. What do you think I am, a Decepticon? And I’m a medic. How stable are these?”

Ratchet felt a certain amount of satisfaction at the confusion stamped across Mixmaster’s face, even his posture off-balance-at least he could manage that much, even if Mixmaster set him on edge in a way none of the other Constructicons did, in a way that had very little to do with him being a Decepticon.

Although some of that was fading, even with the knowledge that he had a glitch, on an unknown scale. Which made no sense.

“-avoid heat and cold with both, but -more so with the organic-contaminant one.” He cocked his head to one side, the move oddly birdlike on his hulking, bristling frame. He rattled off the exact temperatures, to three decimal places each, then started in about how such exposures would change short term and long term effectiveness. He was certainly-thorough, Ratchet thought.

“-And maybe fifty years in ideal conditions before there’s a noticeable degradation,” finished Mixmaster, voice oddly happy. “Ten years past that until that degradation shows in practical applications.” He paused, the joy seeming to drain away. “Is- ’Crusher-r do-ing well?”

His voice was worse when it wasn’t a technical matter. Ratchet hadn’t heard of anything like that before.

“He’s probably hovering at the edge of death.” His voice was flat. “Although I believe the spark is still stabilizing-that’s good. Another five to eight hours of work and I’ll have the circulatory system in good enough shape to start the final check for leaks and then try flushing it clean. There’s only the left leg left to clean, because Hook’s been helping with that. I’ve made minimal progress with the databanks, which is slightly better than what I expected-that will be my main focus after I finish this.” He waved a hand at the plate of armor he’d just finished reattaching lubricant lines to. “The final stage will be sensor networks, and double- and triple-checking everything.”

Mixmaster looked somewhere between hopeful and hopeless and looking over, Ratchet realized Scrapper looked the same.

---

Hook started in on Scrapper the moment he walked in the med bay door, followed by Ratchet, whom he ignored entirely.

“What were you thinking?” His voice was scathing.

“Where?” Scrapper asked, sounding mildly curious and remarkably unsurprised. Ratchet realized that Hook was hunched over a set of blueprints, scowling furiously; he’d made several changes, Ratchet assumed, judging by the red marks scrawled over half of it.

Scrapper moved to read over-and lean against-Hook’s shoulder, taking in the problems he’d had with whatever they were designing.

“What is this?”

“It improves flexibility: the house is in an area likely to be hit with earthquakes…”

“The house meets the legal requirements even without it and it’s an unnecessarily convoluted solution that mars the structure’s form-”

“The human building codes aren’t nearly as strict as they need to be-do you want the building to come down the minute there’s a crustal shift?”

“There needs to be a way to alter that without this hideous-”

Ratchet decided the argument wasn’t worth listening to-or at least concentrating on-and let it fade into a background hum as he moved to prepare his materials. He couldn’t even bring himself to be too annoyed when he realized someone had gone through them, again. That was unnerving: he didn’t like most Autobots going through his medical supplies, let alone any one of five Decepticons, the actual perpetrator unknown-

He shouldn’t be trusting them not to change something, not to sabotage him. Not now, while he was still working on Bonecrusher, but later-he’d need to destroy or discard anything he’d left unattended on their base-

Because Hook was capable of sabotage. Scrapper was, even if he usually disguised it. Scavenger wouldn’t have to think about it-those sorts of deceptions came easily to him. Mixmaster had the personality to do it, was unbalanced enough to even if he didn’t have a specific reason to-which he did: Ratchet was an Autobot-and certainly had the ability to, if he was half the chemist all signs indicated he was. And Longhaul… He probably wasn’t the sort to try sabotage when he could just kill Ratchet himself.

He forced the matter away, turning grimly back to Bonecrusher, although he was still distracted, suddenly aware of where he was and who he was with again. The issue stayed stuck in the back of his mind even as he worked, itching at the edge of his attention. He was on edge again, the strange calm that had been building up over his past visits suddenly evaporating.

So Ratchet caught on to the approaching Decepticon before he entered the room, with a scanning program he couldn’t even remember starting in the first place. He was grateful for the warning, setting aside his laser cutter and turning slightly to face the door for a brief moment, waiting. He missed Hook and Scrapper turning to look at him.

At least he wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Longhaul strode in, face blank except for a mild annoyance. Ratchet turned back to his repair work without an outward sign that he’d stopped to wait. Longhaul sat down next to Hook, one leg place so his knee bumped into him every time he shifted positions.

The room was almost perfectly silent-Ratchet was the loudest, using and moving around tools and spare materials-until Scavenger entered. He didn’t turn to watch him enter, his mood too uneasy for him to want to give away his mindset, his unease, but his attention was heightened, sensors being fed a little more energy than was normal-

“Longhaul! You’re back! Scrapper-I couldn’t find what you needed. Sorry. I found some stuff that might be useful, but-I can check somewhere else, though, I think I have an idea-”

Longhaul grunted; Scavenger didn’t seem insulted, and nobody reacted as if it was out of the ordinary, out of character.

“Thank you for looking, even if you couldn’t find it. How are you doing?”

“-Fine,” he said, voice ringing hollow, and Ratchet convinced himself it was his imagination. Because he was a Decepticon. “Hey, Hook, how’ve you been?”

“Acceptable.” Hook didn’t comment on the way Scavenger walked past them, brushing each with his hand or arm or tail, as if it was an accident, or a coincidence-or as if it was a habit so automatic it happened without thought. In the past, Ratchet had found himself confused, and interested in the gestalt effect. Today, he felt almost repulsed.

This time, he realized when Scavenger moved towards him-he sure as slag didn’t want what had happened in the washracks to happen again, especially since it would probably mean he’d end up dead-and had time to turn and face him, to form an emotional wall to keep everything at bay. “Ratchet-How is he doing?”

“About the same.” There was nothing particularly strange about the words, except for maybe the tone, but Scavenger paused, briefly.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No.” Ratchet turned away, then looked back briefly. Scavenger didn’t look hurt, exactly; he looked blank, and like the trail ends of surprise were slowly fading away. After a minute, he took a seat. Ratchet kept on working.

“Where’s Mixmaster?” Longhaul asked.

“Monitor duty,” Scrapper replied. Scavenger shifted to look at the obviously-placed camera mounted on the wall-Ratchet had no doubt there were more, harder to see-and waved, then returned to his original position: optics half-dimmed, slouched on a stool, leaning against a table with his elbows, to keep the spikes along his back out of the way, watching Ratchet work.

A deafening silence fell, creeping up on them like fog breathed out of the ground.

Hook and Scrapper started arguing quietly about cost and effectiveness in insulation, and its role in the design process. Longhaul’s optics were dimmed-Ratchet couldn’t guess what he was doing, but whatever he was concentrating on wasn’t in the room.

Scavenger was still watching him.

If it hadn’t been for his own unease, Ratchet would have felt at peace, everyone working or occupied, more comfortable and grateful just because of the presence of the others. Well, not him, but the others, and he could have pretended to be included, or just enjoyed the calm.

What had changed? It had just been three days since his last visit, when he’d been-comfortable, even with Mixmaster’s presence setting him on edge…

Ratchet paused in his work, still-activated welder in his hands.

He’d kept on asking himself what reason he had to trust the Decepticons. Maybe the better question was what reason he had not to.

Other than the fact that they were Decepticons.

Decepticons with no reason to fight. Other than that they were Decepticons. Because the reason for the war-or the excuse-had been removed, destroyed. How was the war every supposed to end, short of one faction or the other being wiped out completely? Ratchet suspected that Optimus Prime wanted peace, coexistence, even if he never said so, never really believed it was possible.

Well. Ratchet had been offered a chance at that, or something like it-something that was almost cooperation, now.

He tried not to think about how he was using Optimus Prime’s values as a reason, or an excuse, while he betrayed him.

Ratchet hadn’t been bothered by discovering one of the gestalt, or possibly more, had gone through his supplies, at the beginning of today’s session. It had only after he’d gone through the likelihood of being sabotaged that he’d been-unreasonable, or maybe reasonable (because they were Decepticons) in his actions and reactions. Did that mean that his problem wasn’t the
Decepticons, but the idea of them betraying him? Or just of them turning out to be what he’d half-expected all along?

Ratchet frowned at the unconnected wire in one hand. The welder in the other had turned itself off, a safety feature that activated when it hadn’t been used for a certain amount of time.

“Ratchet?” Scavenger asked behind him, hesitant and worried. “Is everything okay?”

He didn’t react, just stood there for another moment, motionless.

Finally, he set down the welder in his hand; it made a dull clunk against Bonecrusher’s armor, the sound magnified in the dead silence. He could guess without looking that the room’s attention was riveted on him.

He turned around. “Scavenger.” His voice was calm, light, flat. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh. -Umm, don’t be. I mean, we’re different factions, right?”

Ratchet shrugged, embarrassed, partly because of the Decepticons watching him-he liked to give apologies and other important things privately, personally, but he knew it didn’t matter with a gestalt, and that it would make little to no sense to insist on doing so.

Longhaul muttered something that sounded suspiciously “-deserves it, too damn clingy-”

And, not entirely against his will, Ratchet felt himself relax.

“So can I help?”

“Probably not.”

“I was asking Ratchet, ’Hauler.”

“Longhaul’s answer was probably accurate.” Hook’s tone was crisp, but somehow more relaxed than it had been: Ratchet hadn’t heard the tension, but now he could hear the absence.

“So, Ratchet, is there anything I can do?”

“…Probably not.”

---

Longhaul looked downright stormy as he waited for Ratchet just inside the entrance to the base. It gave him a brief thrill of fear as he pulled up-had something gone wrong…?

“Something’s come up. There’s arrows pointing to the med bay-don’t give me that look, Scavenger put them up. I’ll catch you later.”

And then he was gone, accelerating away, leaving behind a bemused Ratchet, who hesitantly drove inside.

Sure enough, there were arrows. At least they know how hard it is to maneuver in this labyrinthine rat’s-nest they’ve built, Ratchet thought as he finally slipped into the med bay. He was shocked, briefly, to find it empty, until realism set in and he remembered that they always-always-had someone on monitor duty, and he waved absentmindedly at the camera mounted in one corner before turning to his work. He hadn’t gotten nearly as far as he’d wanted to, the last time he’d been to the base to work, and he’d need to make up for that-

He worked uninterrupted for hours, utterly absorbed, until he was interrupted by a private comm.

‘Ratchet?’

‘Scrapper. What is it?’

‘I need to go. Don’t try to reenter the base until one of use gets back in touch with you; there won’t be anybody here to deactivate the internal defenses. You should be fine when you exit, though. I hope to get in touch with you in a few days.’

-Within a few days. Hopefully. Ratchet tried to damp down his suspicions about that involving going after Autobots.

‘-Be careful.’ Scrapper’s mental tone was slightly worried.

He was stunned. Maybe it wasn’t Autobots. He knew there was no love lost between the Constructicons and their faction. Would they actually engage in a fight with them? Or worry that a fight would be started? There was a good chance humans would end up dead if a fight did break out, no matter if they were ignored completely. There had been almost fifty deaths at Mission City: only three had been Decepticons-not four-and only one had been an Autobot. All the rest had been human…

Or maybe their ‘something’ was Autobots, and Scrapper had warned him not to get caught helping them. The rules regarding how traitors were dealt with were clear, and strict.

He had work to do. He had the rest of the night off, after all, and he was going to take advantage of that.

He’d been working another hour when he glanced at the camera again. He wondered if Scrapper had been telling the truth when he said there was no one else there. That made no sense. And yet-

---

At least the walls were still marked with arrows: if they hadn’t been there, he would have found it impossible to get through the slagging maze that made up the excuse for a base.

Ratchet hesitated before he left, wondering how long it would take them to get back in contact with him, then forced the matter out of his mind. Worrying wouldn’t do anything.

---

It had been four days. He needed something to concentrate on, something to keep his mind occupied, but he didn’t know what.

There hadn’t been anything suspicious in the news.

---

Five days.

---

Six.

---

A full week.

He needed to just let it go.

---

Ratchet had been in recharge, but one of his scans had woken him up with an alert.

An approaching Decepticon energy signal.

It only took a few minutes to slip out of town, speeding a short ways into the dark desert: it was a few minutes before three in the morning, and the light from almost-full moon was blocked out by thick clouds.

Ratchet pulled to a halt and transformed, the noise magnified in the empty silence. As it faded, he could pick up the sounds of tires crunching over the desert, and he thought about damping down his energy signal, then figured it was too late. At least the tires meant it wasn’t Starscream. It could be Barricade, the only other Decepticon from Mission City still alive, though, or it could be any new arrival-

“Ratchet?”

That was a familiar voice. He relaxed. “Scavenger. What-”

“You need to come. It was Starscream-he found us-and it wouldn’t be too bad but he had the rest of his wing with him. And it’s Mixmaster-he got hit wrong, it broke some of his storage compartments, for his chemicals-”

Ratchet cursed fiercely. “That’s why it’s such a stupid idea to keep that sort of thing inside you- How far away?”

“From here? An hour at my top speed.”

Which was less than Ratchet’s. “Give me the coordinates.”

He was in motion before they finished transferring.

---

Ratchet was grateful for the rain as it pounded down on the six of them-not because it was pleasant-the way it dripped its way under armor plates most definitely wasn’t, but because it was doing something to dilute the reaction that was eating away Mixmaster’s internals.

Who the slag was stupid enough to carry around that much acid?

Mixmaster, apparently. And this was the end result: a hit from a Decepticon-from another Decepticon-in the wrong place, cracking one compartment open which broke through some of the other near-by chemical stores and weakened the rest so a second hit let all hell loose-

There wasn’t even enough water to wash everything away. It would have taken some body of water big enough to dump the mech, who was by no means small, into bodily, and this was the Mojave desert…

Ratchet had had to make due by counteracting it with a strong base chemical he’d had on hand. Now, he was waiting for the reaction to run its course, and hoping that nothing had been too badly damaged.

He didn’t think about why he was helping them. They hadn’t asked him for his reasons-so far, at least. Because this was outside what he’d agreed to do.

The reaction was starting to subside. Ratchet added a little more of the base he was using and tried to agitate the mixture with an inert rod, stirring gingerly. He still wasn’t being careful enough, and he hissed as a drop of active acid splashed onto one hand.

“At least it looks like all the really important systems are in his head,” he muttered, mostly to himself, even though he knew the four conscious Decepticons were watching (and listening) to him. “He’s lost a lot of short-term memory.”

“He can get it back from one of us,” Scrapper offered, and Ratchet nodded. It made sense, that a gestalt was able to do that-

The sky was beginning to lighten even through the clouds-they were thinning, the rain slacking off.

“Could you tilt him to one side to help drain this off?”

Hook, Scavenger and Scrapper managed to tilt him to one side, between the three of them-one of Hook’s arms was nonfunctional, and Mixmaster outweighed all of them. That left Ratchet to try and help bail out the deepest puddles. It left his hands coated with a thin layer of acid, not enough to be an immediate problem but enough to prickle-he’d need to wash them thoroughly later, as soon as he had the time and the water, but for now the only damage was to paint and the finish on the metal, purely cosmetic-

Ratchet looked up again. “Is there any way at all to get water here? A lot of it.”

“I’ll try,” Scavenger said, which didn’t surprise Ratchet at all. He was the one in the best shape, out of all of them-most of the damage was to his sensors, his spikes-or maybe ‘antenna’ was a better analogy-which would be excruciatingly painful unless he could dull the feedback from them.

Longhaul made as if to follow him, but Hook reached out a tired hand and pulled him back down. Scrapper left instead. None of them said a word.

Ratchet turned away from the unconscious chemist, unable to do much more, and was hit with the in-your-face electrical charge he’d come to associate with heavy energon loss.

“Who else is hurt?” he demanded. “And when where you planning on telling me? Sometime after you keeled over in emergency stasis lock?”

“It’s not too bad,” said Longhaul immediately.

“Yes, it is. Don’t even think about telling me I’m wrong-I am a medic. I am a medic-you are not.” He paused momentarily. “What are you waiting for? Lay down.” Maybe it was the snarl, or his position of power (because he was a medic) or because of everything he’d done for them or simply a reflection of Longhaul’s weakened state, but he obeyed him without a word.

Ratchet didn’t let that faze him, kneeling next to the prostrate mech to investigate the damage. There was very little-comparatively speaking-visible damage, certainly not enough to explain the huge energon loss. The dust around him was dark and compacted, heavy with shed fluids.

“I’m going to jack into your system, okay? Take down as many firewalls as you can.”

Again, Ratchet was surprised by the level of compatibility he had with all the Constructicons he’d hooked up to-it had to be a gestalt thing, to facilitate the six (in this case) minds combining. This time, he was relieved-it was much, much easier to run diagnostics when you weren’t fighting the mech at the same time. The relief was enough to completely overpower the unease feeling so comfortable with a Decepticon invoked.

Although it had been feeling more and more normal, as time went on.

Ratchet pulled out quickly once he’d identified the damaged areas, realizing the urgency.

“You’re good at that,” said Longhaul, sounding surprised. “That didn’t hurt at all.”

Hurt? You had to be a truly bad match and a completely insensitive unpracticed medic for a basic diagnostic search to hurt. Maybe he’d been wrong about the gestalt mind making things easier-or the Decepticons just had truly awful medics.

“He’s having trouble concentrating,” Hook said quietly.

“Slag! Longhaul, I’m going to shut you down for a while. You’ve lost too much energon; there’s a leak in your central reserve. It’ll help you conserve energy.”

“Okay.”

“-Alright. You know, it’s a good thing you’re one of the ones who get calm with energy loss…” He pinched the necessary wires, turning off Longhaul’s higher functions.

“He’s usually not,” said Hook. “He usually gets unreasonable and angry with energon deprivation.”

“Then we’re lucky. Can you open up his core energy circuit while I-who’s that?” Ratchet spun around as he caught the approaching Decepticon energy signal, combined with the noise of an engine running hard.

“Scavenger. He’s got water.”

“-Good. Good. Open up the main energon store and pump-tear the armor off if you have to-while I take care of Mixmaster. Most of the damage to him is best handled by self-repair systems, except for lost data, and that’s up to you. I can repair the damage to the storage spaces faster than his personal systems, but that needs to wait-or it can wait, and it’ll be much easier, later-”

“I understand.”

“Good. Scavenger! Thank you-here.” Ratchet really didn’t think about how the Constructicon had gotten a hold of the bottles of water, just putting the matter aside. Pretend it’s Smokescreen, he told himself, cracking open the first bottle and pouring it over the downed Decepticon.

He was careful to rinse the body cavity perfectly clean before he moved on to his own hands.

At last he turned back to Longhaul, sitting down on the other side of him, across from Hook.

The damage wasn’t hard to repair: it was just welding shut the cracks in his main energon pump and cavity. The problem was all the energy that had been lost already. “Scavenger. Go back to the base and bring me back five basic rations of purified energon-please.”

“Okay. And do you need more water? Scrapper found some too.”

“Yes-thank you.” Ratchet was only half paying attention.

“Great-”

Ratchet fumbled his way back into Longhaul’s system, and winced at the myriad of urgent warnings. They didn’t have time. “I need to run a transfusion. Keep Mixmaster offline until I’m back up, and give me some energon once it’s available, or regular unprocessed fuel if you want to save it. I-”

“You’re taking it from your own system?” Ratchet had the distinct feeling that he’d managed to honestly shock Hook for the first time.

“Yes, you’re injured. Once Scrapper gets here with water, finish rinsing Mixmaster off, but be careful-there’s a good chance that a lot’s been weakened. And I might be out for a while-my fuel levels aren’t all that good right now. Force me up if it’s a real emergency.”

Hook protested, but Ratchet ignored him, focused on finishing up the repairs-there wasn’t much sense in giving an energon feed when it would all just leak out again.

Ten minutes later he finished repairs. Five minutes past that, he passed out.

---

Ratchet came to feeling distinctly out of it, and staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. The fact that he could stare at the ceiling-that is, that he was in his root mode-was cause for alarm in and of itself.

It was distinctly unnerving. He had no recollection whatsoever of how he’d ended up-

A brief movement had him turning and loosing off a shot in the general direction, on nerves alone. He froze for a second as his processor identified ‘Decepticon’-that build was unmistakable-and then relaxed suddenly as he recognized Hook. That was where he was, on the Constructicon base. He’d given a good portion of his energon to Longhaul to replace what the larger mech had lost-apparently more than he’d readily been able to spare-

Ratchet froze again as he realized he’d just shot at Hook. Amazingly, incredibly, he hadn’t been attacked in return.

He met the other’s gaze. “…Sorry?”

“Considering the circumstances, I’ll forgive you. How are you?”

“-Good, when all’s said and done. And considering the circumstances. Where are Mixmaster and Longhaul?”

“Med bay.”

“Where are we?”

“My room.”

Huh. He hadn’t thought about what their living quarters would look like… Hook’s, at least, was totally bare, except for a small table with a single datapad resting on it.

“Why am I here?”

“You were less likely to be woken up-everyone else is in the med bay. Longhaul and Mixmaster-and Bonecrusher, of course, although he’s not really present yet, is he?-are there by necessity, and Scrapper’s there to keep them in order. Scavenger’s there for the company, which leaves me. I was charged with watching you, and I figured it would be easier here.”

“Um, thank you. What day is it?”

“You were out for just over twenty-seven hours.”

Good. It could have been a lot worse, Ratchet knew. Oddly, he found himself surprised by the news that the Constructicons apparently didn’t sleep in one big crowd-given the amount of physical contact they all indulged in.

“Alright. Where’s the medbay from here?”

“I’ll show you-we’re close.”

“Thank you.” Ratchet lurched to his feet, taking a minute to stabilize-his systems were still feeling the effects of the energy drain, even though some of what he’d lost had been replaced. He didn’t miss the way Hook reached out a set of hands, wanting to stabilize him, offer support-that was weird. Maybe it was just another extension of the tactile nature they all had.

Although Hook did not strike him as having a particularly open personality when it came to that sort of thing.

---

Longhaul had onlined again, probably naturally-he hadn’t been bad off, after Ratchet’s repairs had finished, and his energy levels had been topped off as well, doubtlessly. Mixmaster, Ratchet was happy to see, was still unconscious-he was a different matter altogether, of secondary importance at the moment. He was in a considerably more stable state than Longhaul had the potential to be.

“How are you feeling?” Ratchet demanded briskly as he walked up next to the mech.

“Fine. Can I leave?”

“What?”

“Can. I. Leave. Please.”

“…After I run a diagnostic.”

“Oh, slag.”

“Two minutes either way won’t make that much of a difference. Stay still!”

The scan didn’t even take two minutes. It finished barely thirty seconds later. “Okay, there, you’re free to go. Keep your energon levels extremely high-that’s not a recommendation. Don’t dip below ninety percent reserves, and ninety-five percent is better.”

Ratchet watched the Decepticon leave, and then turned to Mixmaster. He’d been wondering, vaguely, where the other two Decepticons were-Bonecrusher was still on his table, and Hook had gone to the comm. room-since Hook had said that they were in the med bay: he was relieved to catch sight of them, leaning against each other with their backs to the wall, recharging.

Apparently he’d been partially right-some of them, at least, liked to sleep with someone else there.

But that was neither here nor there. He double-checked the progress of Mixmaster’s systems, his internal repair working remarkably quickly: he was very happy with the result. Nothing had been too badly damaged, beyond the short-term, and they’d already figured out an answer to that-

Speaking of which. Technically, there was nothing to stop him from rebooting him then and there, but it would probably be best to wait until one of his gestaltmates were there. After all, Ratchet had just woken up confused enough to attack Hook-and having an enraged Mixmaster going after him, even if just for a few seconds, wasn’t something Ratchet wanted; it could also cause more damage, if he wasn’t careful enough in his movements-

Ratchet sat down instead, trying to enjoy the downtime.

That lasted for less than two minutes, before Ratchet found himself facing Bonecrusher’s body again, welder in hand.

After all, he had work to do.

---

Ratchet was the one to online Mixmaster again, carefully sending a brief electric pulse through the right wires, jumpstarting the proper systems, so Ratchet was the first sight Mixmaster saw as he came back to consciousness.

“Aut-tobot,” he identified, sounding remarkably calm.

“Er, yes,” Ratchet replied, glad that he wasn’t being shot at-yet, at least. “State your designation.”

“Mixmaster. Ob-viously. ’Crusher?”

“Still in bad shape. The others are fine, though-you’re fine, which is something of a miracle. We are going to have a talk.”

“Why-y woul-d y-ou t-t-t-alk with me, Aut-to-”

“Calm down,” Hook said carefully, stepping forward. He ran gentle fingers along one of Mixmaster’s arms, not even trying to disguise the gesture as casual, obviously relieved. “You lost your short-term memory-this is Ratchet, he’s patching Bonecrusher back together. He also saved your life. And Longhaul’s.”

“I wouldn’t need to if he had an ounce of common sense-”

Ratchet’s sentence was derailed by the sight of Hook casually accepting a cable from Mixmaster, handing one of his own over in return, then the two of them initiating in the tie-

They were interfacing. Or something slagging close to it.

So that was how they transferred memories back and forth. Of course. So they got the memories in the first place through a combination of bond and interface-or maybe combiner form, when they were whole-and they were preserved as individual thoughts through the gestalt mind, which could then be moved back to the originator if they lost their copy of the data…

Ratchet turned away and ignored how Scavenger was clearly distracted, probably picking up feedback, and how Scrapper had just shuddered at the feel of a phantom data transfer, at how Longhaul was utterly still-

Apparently all the rumors about gestalt bonds were true.

Ratchet was leaving the room, headed for the outside if not actually going back to town-the one place he knew how to find, because Scavenger’s arrows were still up-when he heard his name and paused.

“Ratchet. Thank you.”

The four-fold echo was unnerving, in a familiar way. Their voices fit together.

---

“Hey Ratchet!” Scavenger said loudly, sliding into the room. His sensor spikes were raised high, flaring out in a fan around his head and bristling along his back.

“Scavenger. You’re looking better-your, ah, spikes looked partially damaged.”

“What, my sensors? Oh, they heal fast. And Hook looked them over.”

Ratchet frowned. “Would you mind if I looked over them? Sensors can be tricky-if something went wrong with the self-heal function, it could have ramifications.”

“What? Sure-here.” There wasn’t a hint of shyness in any part of the Decepticon’s demeanor as he moved closer, leaning over as he pressed his side into Ratchet, giving the medic full access to his back.

Ratchet decided to ignore the way his tail had curled around his leg, and bent to examine a spine, running sensitive fingers down it, rotating it slightly-though it was obvious that it responded to Scavenger’s moods, it could be moved manually by him, as well, it wasn’t locked into place. After a minute he turned to another, carefully noting the electrical impulses and how they varied in different areas-everything seemed to be working fine, at least-

“Ratchet?” Scavenger said, unexpectedly quiet and voice strained, somehow. “If-Do I need to dampen my sensitivity for this?”

“What?” Ratchet said, and only then he caught the way Scavenger’s engine was working, body vibrating slightly, subliminally, with the increased force of it, and the way the mech was leaning into his inquisitive fingers, arching against them. “Oh! I’m sorry, yes, it’s fine if you cut it off almost entirely-”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Scavenger abruptly, straightening but not moving away, leaning into the mech; Ratchet hadn’t realized how much taller he was, compared to himself. Then, abruptly, he changed topics: “You’re saving Bonecrusher, and you saved Mixmaster and Longhaul.”

He felt uncomfortable. “Longhaul probably would have survived-”

“You saved them.” His tone was fierce. “So-you-should-” Scavenger ran determined fingers along a seam in Ratchet’s armor, engine running even more fiercely, the vibrations carrying over into the other’s frame. “I want to thank you-because you-”

That was downright alarming. He tried to back up, but Scavenger pressed an arm around him. “You don’t owe me a thing and, really, this isn’t so much a thank-you as it is-”

“Interfacing? Oh. That’s just because I want to. Partly because you’re helping us-you’re- It’s not because I think I need to, it’s that you would, you have, and so you’re someone I’d want to ’face with. But I do want to say thanks. So: thank you.” He probed a finger further into Ratchet, sending a brief flick of electricity dancing over a bunch of sensory nerves, making the mech jolt a little, his own engine rumbling to life.

“…Why me? And I’m an Autobot, Scavenger.”

“No, not really-you’re Ratchet. Kind of like I don’t think of myself as a Decepticon the way I think of myself as Scavenger, or Devastator. It’s just a job description. And you’ve helped us.” His tones were hushed with happy respect. “And you’re nice-and interesting. You’re not always nasty. You apologized once.” This time, he released a brief crackle of electricity from a sensor-spike Ratchet was holding, the energy snapping to his hand, and he shuddered at the sensation.

“-Fine,” Ratchet said. “If you-want it.” He shouldn’t be interfacing a Decepticon, but-

But it was Scavenger, who wasn’t really a Decepticon, or just a Decepticon. And an overload didn’t mean much more than friendship, or at least enough trust for physical intimacy.

Scavenger brightened, and backed up, giving Ratchet more space, moving back into the hunched-over position, facing him this time. Hesitantly, the medic ran a finger along one of the sensors on his head, and Scavenger made a needy noise, then spoke. “Is there-somewhere on you?”

“Nowhere particularly. My hands…”

Scavenger brightened, turning immediately to grab one of the digits, turning it over in his hands, observing. Ratchet wasn’t expecting it when he produced another wave of energy, bringing him to his knees, joining the other, and then forcing him to lean on him when he repeated it, optics blurring momentarily with the feedback.

“Tell me how I do, ’kay? I’m not used to this with someone who’s not one of us.”

Ratchet snorted. “You’re ridiculous-you know exactly what you’re doing. You-ohhh…”

“Okay, maybe I do-but I’m a Decepticon, right?” He smiled unashamedly, then pointedly moved the hand he was holding back to a sensor. Ratchet shifted so his arms went around the mech, his other hand joining the other, forcing Scavenger to hunch a little to make up for the differences in their height, and smirked once his face was hidden from the other’s view. He wasn’t the only one who had a few tricks-he let one hand start to vibrate, a low hum, with a quick modification of what he used for the saw, then pressed a single finger to one of the spikes, deliberately.

He… Honestly, he liked the way that made Scavenger jerk against him, armor scraping against armor and the other reduced to a low, static Cybertronian babble. He pulled the finger away again, and Scavenger made a low, annoyed noise.

Ratchet made up for it by deliberately tugging the wire his other hand had singled out-he could just barely see it, with the position his head was in, but he could see enough to figure out which ones were primarily for pleasure and which for pain. It worked a little differently than it did on Autobot designs, but Ratchet had gotten good at telling the difference, working on Bonecrusher-

Scavenger responded with a sudden flare of his personal energy field, warm against Ratchet’s nerves where it got through his layer of armor, brushing his neural nets. Ratchet was reduced to speechlessness and his grasp tightened convulsively around the other, something Scavenger seemed to like almost as much as deliberate manipulation of pleasure sensors.

“Can we- Link up?” asked the other hopefully. “I can’t feel you-it’s weird.”

Gestalts, Ratchet had decided, were weird, but he could understand the need, if it was what he was used to.

“Give me time to put up firewalls.” It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. To fill them up, Ratchet tried scraping one head spike against the other-which Scavenger didn’t actually seem to like. He tried wrapping an purposefully overheated hand over it instead, and felt gratified by the response.

Then Scavenger was handing him a cable-a hardline-and Ratchet accepted. He had firewalls cutting off anything important, Autobot secrets-he handed the other his own, and shuddered as he clicked the port into place. The reaction was immediate, a flood, a roaring ocean of data-it abated as Scavenger completed the circuit, and the immediate effects of feeling exactly what he’d been doing to his partner flooded his systems, along with the acknowledgement of what he’d done for them, for the Constructicons as a group, and there was also the feeling of their minds fitting together, a match that let everything synch-he was still himself but he could feel what being Scavenger was, could feel the other’s thoughts and happiness and, yes, what he was feeling-

He made the conscious effort to move his own body and ran his hand down another sensor, gripping the base of it, firmly-he liked having such an easy way to create a reaction, to make him feel-

Scavenger’s mental presence flowed into his, searching, and Ratchet let him, bemused, and the surge of emotion when he found the fierce, odd fondness Ratchet for the Constructicons he was hiding sent him spiraling out of consciousness and into pure sensation, then nothingness.

---

It was over.

He had less than two hours of work left to do to Bonecrusher: just reattaching and reactivating removed or dormant systems, running the final scan and then hooking up the spark, which had stabilized nicely.

It was highly unlikely that his final double-check would find anything wrong: Ratchet was a very competent medic, and he’d done his best. He’d done everything he’d been able to think of, for Bonecrusher’s long term and short term health-

Ratchet turned as he caught the sound of footsteps, but not out of unease or nerves-he was simply curious. He felt comfortable with all five of the other mechs-even Mixmaster. Somehow, the edginess, the stress, had gotten set aside.

(He was a little more than friendly with one of them. How had that happened? Why wasn’t he worried that Scavenger would show up again-either for the awkwardness, or the potential for another round of interfacing?)

“Hey,” Longhaul said gruffly, drifting in.

“Hello. Would you mind bringing me Bonecrusher’s shoulder armor?”

Longhaul made a noise of surprise, and the medic looked up again.

“What?”

“You’re almost done? Already?”

“I’ll finish today.” Ratchet tried to keep his voice neutral. “And what do mean, ‘already?’ It’s been a minor eternity. I almost never take this long to complete repairs.” Which wasn’t strictly true-it had taken far longer than he was used to, yes, but the time had gone quickly, despite everything that had happened, that had changed.

“So this is it.” Longhaul sounded-happy, content.

“Yes.” In contrast, Ratchet knew he sounded angry, defensive.

“You won’t have to keep on coming here.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Bonecrusher’ll function fine.” That was why he sounded so uncharacteristically joyful: they would be complete again. All they wanted, all they really asked for.

“Yes. There’s a slight chance that there will be further problems or complications-there always is-but it’s very low.”

“What happens if there is a problem?”

“You’ll need to find a medic.”

“We know where to find you. If there’s a problem, are you going to fix it?”

Ratchet paused, then answered very quietly. “Maybe. If you catch me on a good day.”

“Thanks.” Longhaul’s voice was soft.

“Hmph. I haven’t agreed to anything yet-now, would you hand me that armor? I haven’t got all day. I’m on shift later.”

---

All five Constructicons were present for the reactivation. Somehow, it felt-appropriate, even though Ratchet usually preferred to do the most complicated work without observation.

They’d all wandered in as he progressed, an apparent coincidence. There certainly wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Ratchet couldn’t have protested, if he’d wanted to. He was pretty sure he didn’t.

Bonecrusher’s body was intact again, not a wire out of place, in better condition than he’d been in before he had (to all extents and purposes) died-in better condition than he’d been in for some time before that.

The only thing really missing was the spark.

Scavenger shifted uneasily, tail stirring against the floor in a brief, unsettling shiver.

Carefully, Ratchet opened up the spark chamber again, the process just as seamless-more so-than it had been the first time. (This was the end to everything, mirroring what had happened at the start of all this.) He’d waited to start the security programs just for this, and almost everything else was running, or ready to start, automatically, as soon as the spark was reattached.

It was time.

Ratchet was careful as he moved the spark, still not wanting to damage-or damage to a further extent-anything so important-and so fragile. There were still contaminants, although most of them had been expelled over the past weeks, something that had surprised Ratchet but given him hope-

He thought again about how likely it was that Bonecrusher would be someone different when he onlined fully. No one-no one ever, as far as Ratchet knew-had ever survived this kind of damage. The long-range effects-there was no saying. The rest of his gestalt was confident that he was still the same mech: somehow, Ratchet found that comforting, too. Even though he had no reason to.

First, situate the spark chamber without removing the isolation valves. Ratchet risked a glance at the Decepticons. Mixmaster was shaking slightly.

Second, attach the necessary wires. He wasn’t used to this level of tension when he was with them. It was setting him on edge. It wouldn’t be a problem again-

Third, manually attach a second-level energon line to the spark chamber and open the line. A few more systems hummed to life, and the noise was almost painfully loud in the dead-silent room.

Fourth, initiate the transformation on the aligned isolation valves and check for leaks. Weld the primary lines as a failsafe. This time, Ratchet didn’t sneak another glance. He could still hear the creak of metal against metal.

Fifth and sixth, close the chamber and activate all involuntary systems. Everything was working correctly. Seventh, wait.

“He’ll be fully online within seventy-two hours. It’s done.”

And it was.

He’d never seen the other five all so obviously happy, which made sense. Now Bonecrusher was back in his body, they probably had a much clearer sense of him. That would grow over the course of the next few days as he approached full functionality-it was a matter of hours, now.

“Hook-I left a list of instructions, warnings and expected progress. Scrapper, Mixmaster, Longhaul, Scavenger-good bye. I’m needed at the fire station.”

He left to a chorus of distracted good-byes and made his way to the entrance. He barely needed the arrows still painted on the walls.