[TF: Prime] Event Horizon - Chapter Two
Dec. 7th, 2011 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22a/n: Beta is having computer trouble again, so I bring this to you unbeta'ed. I apologize. Also, this chapter corrects my previously misspelled "Knockout" to "Knock Out".
Pairings Revealed: Ratchet/Sunstreaker, Sideswipe/First Aid, other
Rating: T
Warnings this chapter: spoilers for all of season one, implied spark merging, mechslash
Chapters: (01) (02) (03) (04) (05) (06) (07) (08) (09) (10) (11) (12) (Epi)
-----------------------------------
Event Horizon
Chapter Two
-----------------------------------
“Here?” Sunstreaker shakes his head, sliding back to fold his arms over his chestplate. “But you didn't introduce him with the others.”
He frowns and Ratchet can all but see the cogs turning, the facts being considered, and the moment when Sunstreaker realizes just what it is Ratchet is not saying.
Those blue optics darken with thinly veiled despair. “No.”
Ratchet sighs again, an all too human response. “Yes,” he says, much to his own grief. “He didn't recognize me. I don't know how or when Megatron got his claws into our youngling but he's a Decepticon now.”
Silence sweeps into the washracks. Sunstreaker is twitching, his armor cooling with audible pings and pops of metal.
“He didn't recognize you,” Sunstreaker repeats flatly.
“No.” Then again, Ratchet's frame has changed since he'd last seen Knock Out. Especially since he'd chosen an Earth alt-mode.
Eons ago, Ratchet had been more white than red, his helm decorations more pronounced, his plating thinner and more flexible. He hadn't bore the armor of battle, nor the kibble of an Earth alt-mode, nor the decorative lines in his faceplate. No wonder his youngling hadn't recognized him.
And eons ago, his youngling hadn't been dressed up in battle armor either, nor had he bore weapons, nor had he been taught anything of Cybertronian medicine save for some emergency skills Ratchet made sure everyone in his slapped-together family knew.
Sunstreaker's fingers rap over his armor, where he's crossed his arms. “Reprogramming?” he asks, after a solid moment of silence.
Ratchet's hand drags down his face – another habit he's picked up from the humans, Jack specifically. “Or processor damage. I can't say for certain because I couldn't get a useful scan at the time.”
It's a point of shame for Ratchet that he didn't even recognize his youngling until they came into close contact during the synethetic energon incident. Prior to that, Ratchet had only seen Knock Out through the vid feeds of his team. He'd heard mention of Knock Out during their encounters, had even seen the mech through the vid feeds, and had considered that they were one and the same bot. But Knock Out had looked so different than Ratchet remembered him. From his paint scheme down to his frame.
However, that moment in the caves, when Ratchet had lain there, bleeding out the synethetic energon and bathing in shame, his scans had detected a familiar presence. But more than that, his spark had leapt in recognition. Shock had swept through him, completely overriding his logic centers, making him incapable of forming a coherent thought. His youngling? With the Decepticons? It was a confirmation too painful to bear considering.
They'd thought him gone. Hiding in a neutral colony beyond their reach at best. Dead at worst. But to have joined the Decepticons? Such a possibility hadn't occurred to either Ratchet or Sunstreaker. Which begged the question as to why they hadn't encountered him before, in all the eons the Autobots and Decepticons have been engaged in this increasingly pointless and drawn out war.
Now... now Ratchet knows that his youngling is alive, and there is no one he could tell, no member of his team that is aware of the truth regarding Knock Out. No one who knows Ratchet's dirty little secret. He could only stay within their base, watching from his team's vid feeds as his youngling struts at Starscream's side, faces down Ratchet's own allies, and cringe every time Prime landed a hit, or Bulkhead managed to pummel his way past Breakdown.
How many times had he stood there, watching the monitor, barely able to contain his shuddering, part of him desperately straining to fulfill his urge to protect? How many times had his spark contracted watching his youngling gleefully attack the Autobots, Decepticon red optics vivid and bright? How many times had he forced himself to step back, not shout at the screen that it was his youngling out there, that Megatron had crossed the final line?
And how many times had Ratchet argued with himself not to reveal the truth, that he and Sunstreaker had broken one of Cybertron's most fundamental laws?
Words could not fully express the dilemma Ratchet had found himself suffering as of late.
“What if you could?”
Sunstreaker's voice cut into Ratchet's cascading thoughts, causing him to focus on his partner once again. “Could what?”
“Scan him more in depth,” Sunstreaker says carefully, as though he were already crafting some elaborate plan. Knowing his partner, Ratchet wouldn't put it past him. “Could you fix him?”
Ratchet's optics focus. “It depends,” he hedges. “I don't know enough to say for sure.”
His uncertainty seems to have no bearing on Sunstreaker, who merely nods with confidence. “You can,” he says, foot tapping an idle cadence on the metal floor. “You're the best medic Cybertron's ever seen. We'll just have to get him back first.”
For the first time, Ratchet feels he completely understands the human expression for one's jaw to drop. “.... What?” He gropes for something tactful to say and as always, tact fails him. “Primus, Sunstreaker! We haven't an idea what's going on! One doesn't simply stride onto the Nemesis, grab a Decepticon, and waltz back out!”
“Have you even tried?” Sunstreaker demands, and then waves a hand as though dismissing himself. “All we have to do is find out, then you can fix him.”
Ratchet straightens, shoulders held back so that the height difference between them doesn't mean a bit of slag. “And just how do you expect to do that?” he demands. “No one here is a skilled hacker. Nor do we have Mirage!” Some of his calm shatters, one hand waving wildly through the air. “And aside from that, how do you expect to explain this to the rest of the Autobots?”
“With the truth,” Sunstreaker says simply, with a look to his optics, a churlish set to his mouthplates that has stubborn written all over it.
Ratchet gapes. There is simply no better word to describe his response. He stares at Sunstreaker as though the yellow mech has finally lost his processors like the rest of their allies have claimed for all these vorns. Like Sunstreaker hasn't voiced all of the thoughts that have occupied Ratchet's own processors. Like the truth is so simple, so easy, that is has no consequences.
“The truth,” Ratchet repeats flatly, spark yearning for it to be possible and warring with his logic, with the side of him that's been a war-time medic for more vorns than he can count, that's had to watch his own species mercilessly slay one another on an endless battlefield. “You mean that you intend to expose our longest held secret on the slim possibility that our friends will overlook the fact we've been lying to them all these vorns and leap at the opportunity to help? That we'll face no consequences?”
Sunstreaker snorts, the response sounding alien to Ratchet, as though such a human mannerism doesn't quite suit the yellow mech. “Aren't you the one always waxing on about the virtues of the Autobots?”
Ratchet snarls, his hand whipping through the air, aggravation warring with frustration and grief and shame. “They – we – are Autobots not saints. We broke a law, Sunstreaker!” His voice is loud, too loud, echoing on the empty walls of the washracks. Loud enough for any passing mech to easily hear. When did Ratchet abandon his restraint?
“That was an accident,” Sunstreaker retorts, rolling his optics in a decent approximation of human exasperation.
“An accident with intention!” Ratchet grits out, though he really, really doesn't care to revisit this old discussion-cum-argument.
Sunstreaker dismisses him with another wave of his hand. “Whatever. Besides, who cares about those old laws anyway? Cybertron's dead. The Council's dead. All we've got left is whatever we manage to scrounge together.” He vents loudly and leans forward, until their faces are inches apart. “Including our youngling.”
Silence sweeps through the room.
“If I might interject a comment?”
Ratchet startles at the unexpected voice, whirling toward the doorway. He hadn't even heard the door slide open! Sunstreaker is no less surprised, armor clamping down defensively. Neither of their sensors had reacted until now, which shouldn't come as such a shock considering who is leaning against the frame.
“Jazz,” Ratchet says, consciously powering down his battle systems and ventilating loudly. “How much did you hear?”
“Who cares?” Sunstreaker demands belligerently, shooting Ratchet a look and pinging him across internal comms. --He already knows the truth! What does it matter if he heard us?--
Ratchet ignores him.
Jazz waves a white-plated hand through the air dismissively. “Enough. And I have to say, Ratch. I think the shiny daffodil's right.”
Sunstreaker, predictably, bristles at the nickname.
Ratchet has to reboot his audials, unsure if he heard his superior correctly. “... Pardon?”
“I hate to admit it, but Cyberton is dead,” Jazz says, his optics shifting slowly between Ratchet and Sunstreaker. “Especially if Megatron has launched a chunk of dark energon at it. Those old rules shouldn't matter anymore.”
Ratchet shifts with a hiss of pistons and a clatter of metal on metal. “Maybe so. But we have enough problems without adding this to it! Everyone already looks at Sunstreaker's like he's two clicks from joining the Decepticons!”
“Slag it, Ratchet!” Sunstreaker snarls, sliding until he's between his mate and Jazz, optics flaring furiously. “You're acting as though you don't give a frag about our youngling!”
It is an accusation Sunstreaker could have made through comms, but he hadn't. He'd wanted Jazz to hear it, to bear witness. His words echo in the washrack, vibrating in Ratchet's audials.
He freezes, world narrowing down to a pinprick that consists of nothing more than Sunstreaker and the accusation that tears at Ratchet's very spark. He feels a shudder race through his frame, his plating clamped down tightly. Rage swells withing him, turning his worldview into a metaphorical shade of scarlet.
“How dare you,” Ratchet grits out, every world carefully enunciated as he glares up at his partner. No, they haven't taken the step of actual spark-bonding, but that shouldn't matter. They've been together long enough that Sunstreaker should understand without that bond.
Ratchet's spark wrenches furiously, so hard that he gropes at the seam of his chestplates without making the conscious decision to do so. He aches, hurt and shame vibrating through him.
Vorns of being alone flash before Ratchet, pulled out of his memory banks with stark detail. Such is the curse of Cybertronian memory. Nothing forgotten. No particular left vague and hazy. Nothing short of removal and deletion capable of easing the sting.
“I carried him,” Ratchet says, his voice soft, but heavy, giving lie to the anger boiling inside of him. “I am the one who went on sabbatical to hide the truth. I am the one who lied to our Prime and I'm the one who had to let go. Me!” He takes a step closer, banging his palm over his chest plates. “Me! Not you! How dare you--”
“--Whoa, Ratch. Easy there,” Jazz says, always the peacekeeper as the tries to insert his smaller frame between medic and frontliner. A perilous place to be right now, but Jazz has always enjoyed dancing on the edge of danger.
He's said too much. Ratchet backs down a step, but not because Jazz had interceded. There are things that he needs to say to Sunstreaker without overhearing audials. And he'd best not say them when hanging on the razor's edge of fury. Nevertheless...
He glares at Sunstreaker and bites out a single, sharp reply. “Frag you.”
Ratchet turns, pushes past both Jazz and his partner, and strides out of the washracks, heading for the only solace he has: his medbay.
***
a/n: I plan to try and get this done before the second season starts. Also, a sequel is already in the works. Huzzah!
Feedback is always welcome and appreciated!
Pairings Revealed: Ratchet/Sunstreaker, Sideswipe/First Aid, other
Rating: T
Warnings this chapter: spoilers for all of season one, implied spark merging, mechslash
Chapters: (01) (02) (03) (04) (05) (06) (07) (08) (09) (10) (11) (12) (Epi)
Event Horizon
Chapter Two
-----------------------------------
“Here?” Sunstreaker shakes his head, sliding back to fold his arms over his chestplate. “But you didn't introduce him with the others.”
He frowns and Ratchet can all but see the cogs turning, the facts being considered, and the moment when Sunstreaker realizes just what it is Ratchet is not saying.
Those blue optics darken with thinly veiled despair. “No.”
Ratchet sighs again, an all too human response. “Yes,” he says, much to his own grief. “He didn't recognize me. I don't know how or when Megatron got his claws into our youngling but he's a Decepticon now.”
Silence sweeps into the washracks. Sunstreaker is twitching, his armor cooling with audible pings and pops of metal.
“He didn't recognize you,” Sunstreaker repeats flatly.
“No.” Then again, Ratchet's frame has changed since he'd last seen Knock Out. Especially since he'd chosen an Earth alt-mode.
Eons ago, Ratchet had been more white than red, his helm decorations more pronounced, his plating thinner and more flexible. He hadn't bore the armor of battle, nor the kibble of an Earth alt-mode, nor the decorative lines in his faceplate. No wonder his youngling hadn't recognized him.
And eons ago, his youngling hadn't been dressed up in battle armor either, nor had he bore weapons, nor had he been taught anything of Cybertronian medicine save for some emergency skills Ratchet made sure everyone in his slapped-together family knew.
Sunstreaker's fingers rap over his armor, where he's crossed his arms. “Reprogramming?” he asks, after a solid moment of silence.
Ratchet's hand drags down his face – another habit he's picked up from the humans, Jack specifically. “Or processor damage. I can't say for certain because I couldn't get a useful scan at the time.”
It's a point of shame for Ratchet that he didn't even recognize his youngling until they came into close contact during the synethetic energon incident. Prior to that, Ratchet had only seen Knock Out through the vid feeds of his team. He'd heard mention of Knock Out during their encounters, had even seen the mech through the vid feeds, and had considered that they were one and the same bot. But Knock Out had looked so different than Ratchet remembered him. From his paint scheme down to his frame.
However, that moment in the caves, when Ratchet had lain there, bleeding out the synethetic energon and bathing in shame, his scans had detected a familiar presence. But more than that, his spark had leapt in recognition. Shock had swept through him, completely overriding his logic centers, making him incapable of forming a coherent thought. His youngling? With the Decepticons? It was a confirmation too painful to bear considering.
They'd thought him gone. Hiding in a neutral colony beyond their reach at best. Dead at worst. But to have joined the Decepticons? Such a possibility hadn't occurred to either Ratchet or Sunstreaker. Which begged the question as to why they hadn't encountered him before, in all the eons the Autobots and Decepticons have been engaged in this increasingly pointless and drawn out war.
Now... now Ratchet knows that his youngling is alive, and there is no one he could tell, no member of his team that is aware of the truth regarding Knock Out. No one who knows Ratchet's dirty little secret. He could only stay within their base, watching from his team's vid feeds as his youngling struts at Starscream's side, faces down Ratchet's own allies, and cringe every time Prime landed a hit, or Bulkhead managed to pummel his way past Breakdown.
How many times had he stood there, watching the monitor, barely able to contain his shuddering, part of him desperately straining to fulfill his urge to protect? How many times had his spark contracted watching his youngling gleefully attack the Autobots, Decepticon red optics vivid and bright? How many times had he forced himself to step back, not shout at the screen that it was his youngling out there, that Megatron had crossed the final line?
And how many times had Ratchet argued with himself not to reveal the truth, that he and Sunstreaker had broken one of Cybertron's most fundamental laws?
Words could not fully express the dilemma Ratchet had found himself suffering as of late.
“What if you could?”
Sunstreaker's voice cut into Ratchet's cascading thoughts, causing him to focus on his partner once again. “Could what?”
“Scan him more in depth,” Sunstreaker says carefully, as though he were already crafting some elaborate plan. Knowing his partner, Ratchet wouldn't put it past him. “Could you fix him?”
Ratchet's optics focus. “It depends,” he hedges. “I don't know enough to say for sure.”
His uncertainty seems to have no bearing on Sunstreaker, who merely nods with confidence. “You can,” he says, foot tapping an idle cadence on the metal floor. “You're the best medic Cybertron's ever seen. We'll just have to get him back first.”
For the first time, Ratchet feels he completely understands the human expression for one's jaw to drop. “.... What?” He gropes for something tactful to say and as always, tact fails him. “Primus, Sunstreaker! We haven't an idea what's going on! One doesn't simply stride onto the Nemesis, grab a Decepticon, and waltz back out!”
“Have you even tried?” Sunstreaker demands, and then waves a hand as though dismissing himself. “All we have to do is find out, then you can fix him.”
Ratchet straightens, shoulders held back so that the height difference between them doesn't mean a bit of slag. “And just how do you expect to do that?” he demands. “No one here is a skilled hacker. Nor do we have Mirage!” Some of his calm shatters, one hand waving wildly through the air. “And aside from that, how do you expect to explain this to the rest of the Autobots?”
“With the truth,” Sunstreaker says simply, with a look to his optics, a churlish set to his mouthplates that has stubborn written all over it.
Ratchet gapes. There is simply no better word to describe his response. He stares at Sunstreaker as though the yellow mech has finally lost his processors like the rest of their allies have claimed for all these vorns. Like Sunstreaker hasn't voiced all of the thoughts that have occupied Ratchet's own processors. Like the truth is so simple, so easy, that is has no consequences.
“The truth,” Ratchet repeats flatly, spark yearning for it to be possible and warring with his logic, with the side of him that's been a war-time medic for more vorns than he can count, that's had to watch his own species mercilessly slay one another on an endless battlefield. “You mean that you intend to expose our longest held secret on the slim possibility that our friends will overlook the fact we've been lying to them all these vorns and leap at the opportunity to help? That we'll face no consequences?”
Sunstreaker snorts, the response sounding alien to Ratchet, as though such a human mannerism doesn't quite suit the yellow mech. “Aren't you the one always waxing on about the virtues of the Autobots?”
Ratchet snarls, his hand whipping through the air, aggravation warring with frustration and grief and shame. “They – we – are Autobots not saints. We broke a law, Sunstreaker!” His voice is loud, too loud, echoing on the empty walls of the washracks. Loud enough for any passing mech to easily hear. When did Ratchet abandon his restraint?
“That was an accident,” Sunstreaker retorts, rolling his optics in a decent approximation of human exasperation.
“An accident with intention!” Ratchet grits out, though he really, really doesn't care to revisit this old discussion-cum-argument.
Sunstreaker dismisses him with another wave of his hand. “Whatever. Besides, who cares about those old laws anyway? Cybertron's dead. The Council's dead. All we've got left is whatever we manage to scrounge together.” He vents loudly and leans forward, until their faces are inches apart. “Including our youngling.”
Silence sweeps through the room.
“If I might interject a comment?”
Ratchet startles at the unexpected voice, whirling toward the doorway. He hadn't even heard the door slide open! Sunstreaker is no less surprised, armor clamping down defensively. Neither of their sensors had reacted until now, which shouldn't come as such a shock considering who is leaning against the frame.
“Jazz,” Ratchet says, consciously powering down his battle systems and ventilating loudly. “How much did you hear?”
“Who cares?” Sunstreaker demands belligerently, shooting Ratchet a look and pinging him across internal comms. --He already knows the truth! What does it matter if he heard us?--
Ratchet ignores him.
Jazz waves a white-plated hand through the air dismissively. “Enough. And I have to say, Ratch. I think the shiny daffodil's right.”
Sunstreaker, predictably, bristles at the nickname.
Ratchet has to reboot his audials, unsure if he heard his superior correctly. “... Pardon?”
“I hate to admit it, but Cyberton is dead,” Jazz says, his optics shifting slowly between Ratchet and Sunstreaker. “Especially if Megatron has launched a chunk of dark energon at it. Those old rules shouldn't matter anymore.”
Ratchet shifts with a hiss of pistons and a clatter of metal on metal. “Maybe so. But we have enough problems without adding this to it! Everyone already looks at Sunstreaker's like he's two clicks from joining the Decepticons!”
“Slag it, Ratchet!” Sunstreaker snarls, sliding until he's between his mate and Jazz, optics flaring furiously. “You're acting as though you don't give a frag about our youngling!”
It is an accusation Sunstreaker could have made through comms, but he hadn't. He'd wanted Jazz to hear it, to bear witness. His words echo in the washrack, vibrating in Ratchet's audials.
He freezes, world narrowing down to a pinprick that consists of nothing more than Sunstreaker and the accusation that tears at Ratchet's very spark. He feels a shudder race through his frame, his plating clamped down tightly. Rage swells withing him, turning his worldview into a metaphorical shade of scarlet.
“How dare you,” Ratchet grits out, every world carefully enunciated as he glares up at his partner. No, they haven't taken the step of actual spark-bonding, but that shouldn't matter. They've been together long enough that Sunstreaker should understand without that bond.
Ratchet's spark wrenches furiously, so hard that he gropes at the seam of his chestplates without making the conscious decision to do so. He aches, hurt and shame vibrating through him.
Vorns of being alone flash before Ratchet, pulled out of his memory banks with stark detail. Such is the curse of Cybertronian memory. Nothing forgotten. No particular left vague and hazy. Nothing short of removal and deletion capable of easing the sting.
“I carried him,” Ratchet says, his voice soft, but heavy, giving lie to the anger boiling inside of him. “I am the one who went on sabbatical to hide the truth. I am the one who lied to our Prime and I'm the one who had to let go. Me!” He takes a step closer, banging his palm over his chest plates. “Me! Not you! How dare you--”
“--Whoa, Ratch. Easy there,” Jazz says, always the peacekeeper as the tries to insert his smaller frame between medic and frontliner. A perilous place to be right now, but Jazz has always enjoyed dancing on the edge of danger.
He's said too much. Ratchet backs down a step, but not because Jazz had interceded. There are things that he needs to say to Sunstreaker without overhearing audials. And he'd best not say them when hanging on the razor's edge of fury. Nevertheless...
He glares at Sunstreaker and bites out a single, sharp reply. “Frag you.”
Ratchet turns, pushes past both Jazz and his partner, and strides out of the washracks, heading for the only solace he has: his medbay.
a/n: I plan to try and get this done before the second season starts. Also, a sequel is already in the works. Huzzah!
Feedback is always welcome and appreciated!
