[IDW] Casualty 03/03
Dec. 2nd, 2019 06:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Casualty
Universe: IDW MTMTE/LL, Between the Lines ‘verse
Characters: Ratchet/Megatron, First Aid, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus, Bluestreak, Ravage
Rated: M
Warnings: BDSM themes, PTSD, Trust Issues
Description: Peace has a nasty habit of bringing hidden issues to the forefront, and when it finally catches up to Megatron, Ratchet makes a terrible choice that might spell the end of their relationship.
Extended warnings: this fic in particular deals with issues of consent, medical ethics and consent, the tanglement of bdsm consent, and contains many discussions on morality.
Fic inspired by and titled after Hidden Citizens, “Casualty”.
Commission for Borath.
Part Three
His berth is too large.
There was a time it had been the perfect size. It had been formatted to fit him and him alone, and Ratchet recharged on it without any issues whatsoever.
Recharging alone is another matter. His berth is too large, too empty, and a bit chilly, no matter how he adjusts the thermostat. He turns over and reaches for a frame that isn’t there. It’s ridiculous, because it’s not as though he and Megatron shared a berth every night.
He misses Megatron.
Which is also ridiculous because he sees Megatron every day. In orbit. In passing. Words exchanged in the corridor, cordial and distant, with Ratchet refusing to push, and Megatron maintaining a chilly distance. Their conversations, if they have any, are brief.
Ratchet is fine. He’s absolutely fine. He’s choking on his guilt and trapped in a holding pattern, waiting for the final word from Megatron, but he’s fine.
He doesn’t know why he’s waiting. He’s quite sure the answer is right there in front of him. They’re over. They’re done. There is nothing left to say.
He still wouldn’t change the choice he made.
Ratchet is no fool. He’s heard the reprimands, the chastisement. Logically, he knows he made the selfish choice. He knows he’s the architect of his own guilt and shame. He knows, to the core of his being, that he betrayed Megatron.
He would still choose to save Megatron’s spark. He wishes he is a good enough mech to say he’d better bow to Megatron’s personal wishes, but not in this instance. Not in this situation. He can’t say it.
He’s betraying himself to admit as much. He’s a traitor to his spark, he reasons. Whether it’s himself or the Autobots or Megatron, he’s a mech who can’t be trusted apparently.
It’s better this way.
Better all around.
~
Ultra Magnus would have rathered Megatron stay off duty until he’s reached an equilibrium, but he can hardly deny a mech who’s been caged so much already. The haunted cast to Megatron’s optics stays his glossa.
At best, he shortens Megatron’s shifts, gives him the quieter ones. Megatron must notice, but he says nothing, which is an admission of his own fatigue without so many words.
Fatigue cloaks Megatron like a secondary layer. His vents labor with quiet click-clicks Ultra Magnus wants to urge him to let a medic investigate. His armor draws tight to his protoform. He speaks slowly, deliberately, as though careful not to let his words slur.
Ultra Magnus does not mention Ratchet around Megatron. He may not be as… familiar with personal interactions and relationships, but even he is not so foolish as to be unable to recognize a delicate subject. Their relationship has clearly taken a heavy blow, perhaps to its end, and Ultra Magnus has yet to decide if such is a good thing.
They are -- were -- good for each other. The situation was and is still complicated. Megatron’s feelings of betrayal are warranted. Ratchet’s desire to keep his lover alive is also understandable.
This is why Ultra Magnus does not arrange himself in something so messy as a relationship. It’s too compromising.
It’s such a bother.
“I swear,” Rodimus groans as he sulks onto the bridge to take shift over from Ultra Magnus, “If those two don’t get their act together, I’m going to lock them in a closet until they talk their slag out. They’re bringing down the atmosphere of the whole ship.”
“Locking them in a room together will not produce the results you seek,” Ultra Magnus tells him with a severe frown. “Time and distance are needed. You cannot push them, Rodimus.”
Rodimus rolls his optics and chuffs a vent -- something he learned from Chromedome, Ultra Magnus is sure. “Mechs need to be pushed sometimes. Especially those two.”
“I am surprised you are encouraging this.”
Rodimus looks up at him and winks. “Why wouldn’t I be? War’s over, right? If you ask me, the best way to put a leash on Megatron is to put an actual leash on Megatron.” He waggles his optical ridges.
Primus save him.
Ultra Magnus swallows a sigh and resists the urge to rub his temples. It only encourages him. “Enjoy your shift, Rodimus.”
His Prime grins and does a little dance in place. “Go relax, Mags. That’s an order.”
“You keep saying that as if it is actually going to work,” Ultra Magnus says, and he dismisses himself from the bridge.
It is too early to take a rest, which is fine, because Ultra Magnus doesn’t intend to immediately retire. He’s not going to relax, despite Rodimus’ orders. He seeks out Megatron instead, and is unsurprised to find the former warlord tucked away in his habsuite.
Megatron used to roam the halls of the Lost Light. Or he could be found on some of the observation platforms or the research center. However, since his recent troubles began, it is rare to find him anywhere but his habsuite.
He is not much for attempting socialization these days. This concerns Ultra Magnus, not only for the sake of Megatron’s mental health, but for the sake of the progress he’s made in becoming an Autobot and a member of the crew.
He pings for entry. He wouldn’t be surprised if Megatron ignores him, and is pleasantly relieved when the door opens, and Megatron treats him to something approximating a welcome look.
“Is something wrong?” Megatron asks.
“No. I wanted to see how you fare,” Ultra Magnus says with a tilt of his head in greeting. “Have you been recharging well?”
Megatron snorts and steps back into his habsuite, which Magnus takes as an invitation to enter. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
“No, but apparently it is a foolish one. Have you asked First Aid for assistance?” Ultra Magnus asks.
“Again. Rhetorical.”
Ultra Magnus cycles a ventilation. “I am concerned for your well-being, and I assure you, my concern is genuine.”
“I know it is. I still don’t trust it.” Megatron gives him a long, measured look. His face is a careful mask. Guarded.
“If there’s anything I can do--”
“There isn’t.”
It’s frustrating. Understandable, but frustrating.
“Very well.” Ultra Magnus backs toward the door, makes to leave, but pauses. The guilt lingers -- for not putting his foot down, for not speaking louder, for insisting on behalf of Megatron. “If you wish to speak to someone, I will be happy to listen. I know how to keep a secret.” ‘
The corner of Megatron’s lips curl into a half-smile. “Yes, you do, don’t you, Minimus Ambus.” He relaxes by a small degree. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”
It’s a victory, however small. It’s progress, and so Ultra Magnus calls it a win. He offers Megatron a tilt of his head -- acknowledgment -- before he takes his leave. Respecting Megatron’s space is paramount to regaining Megatron’s trust.
Ultra Magnus no more wants to see Megatron return to the rampaging warlord he’d been than anyone else on the ship. Megatron deserves the courtesy.
Now.
If only he could get Ratchet’s head out of his aft, perhaps things might move along more smoothly. But everything in stages, step by step, Ultra Magnus supposes.
There are some problems he isn’t meant to solve.
~
“You’re not recharging.”
“I recharge.”
“Not enough, according to this data,” First Aid replies, drawing upon decades of experience watching Ratchet, standing firm in the face of soldiers bigger and stronger and more stubborn. Megatron is perhaps the epitome of all three descriptors. “You’re not recovering. You’re in danger of activating another glitch.”
Megatron’s lips press into a thin line. His optics narrow. “I was under the assumption the glitch was fixed,” he says, and his mouth forms a sneer, hatred and fear mingling together in the flash of his field. “Was that not the intention of the… surgical process?”
He can’t form the word mneumosurgery. First Aid can’t blame him.
“The surgery corrected the existing glitch, but does not prevent new ones,” First Aid explains, drawing carefully upon his patience. “What we’re dealing with here is not a one-time occurrence, but something that’s likely to repeat itself in the future.”
A growl rises in Megatron’s chassis. “Explain.”
First Aid swallows a sigh. He’s been trying to explain this for days, but Megatron has been doing a fantastic job of avoiding the medical bay and necessary check-ups.
“Recharge purges aren’t uncommon,” First Aid begins, picking his words carefully, because there is a lot of ground to cover. How to explain to a former warlord that the war itself is part of the cause, that peace is partially to blame?
“We all suffer from them. We all have… trauma and pain we’re trying to forget. Things we push down that come back when we’re vulnerable. During the war, it was easier to deal with because we hid it for self-preservation. Now that we have a time of peace, our processors are reminding us of everything we pushed aside, usually in the form of those purges.”
Megatron frowns. “You’re telling me that everyone has to suffer mneumosurgery at some point?”
First Aid resists the urge to rub his forehead, a preliminary to the ache about to develop. “No. In most cases, mecha manage to work through the purges on their own. Rarely does it result in a purge-loop glitch, and rarer still are the mech’s firewalls so powerful they resist the intervention of a trained medic.”
Ratchet would have been able to pull Megatron from the purge-loop if not for his firewalls. Whether Megatron had constructed those on his own, or they’d been designed by Shockwave, no one knew. They’d probably never know. Megatron has been rebuilt so many times, it’s impossible to pinpoint where any coding glitch formed.
“I’m just unlucky then.” Megatron’s sneer is somehow both self-directed and aimed at First Aid, or perhaps Autobots in general.
“Some might say you’re lucky,” First Aid says, watching Megatron carefully, to see his reaction to this. “Your spark felt you were safe enough and ready to start dealing with everything you’ve pushed aside.”
At least he would be, if this wasn’t Megatron, whose reaction to pain is to keep pushing it down, ignoring it, and pretending everything is all right, because only those who are weak suffer, and Megatron is not weak.
Megatron’s jaw twists. “How do we make it stop?”
“A conversation with Rung would probably help,” First Aid says.
“No. Another option.”
First Aid fiddles with a datapad. “I can give you a sedative to help you recharge, but it’s not going to solve the problem.”
“The problem,” Megatron echoes, and his tone is flat and disbelieving. “You suggest I am ill. I have a sickness. A weakness. Something which must be excised.”
First Aid’s fingers twitch, and he resists the urge to rub at his forehead. “I’m saying that we’re all soldiers in peace-time, and we don’t know what to do with that anymore.”
Megatron frowns. His optics narrow. He looks away, audibly vents, and First Aid hears the click-click of a manual systems reset. Megatron’s field is a simmering presence beneath the surface, a volcano threatening to erupt. He’s an emotional mess, and First Aid never thought he’d find himself feeling sympathetic toward Megatron.
Yet, here he is. Concerned and sympathetic.
Physical pain is so much easier to bear than emotional and mental turmoil. How it must pain Megatron, to fight against something that doesn’t have physical shape. Something he can’t rip into, or blast away, or shoot.
Ironically, in any other situation, his relationship with Ratchet would be a stabilizing factor he could sorely use right now.
“So I am left to suffer,” Megatron says, and there’s a way he says the words, like he’s speaking around a sour taste on his glossa. “How appropriate. A new way has been found to punish me. How clever you Autobots are.”
“The mneumosurgery didn’t cause this,” First Aid says, repeats, feels like he’s been down this road before, but fear is an irrational beast. Fear is quick to blame, desperate to blame in order to regain some measure of control.
Megatron’s optics narrow. “I have no way of knowing, do I?”
First Aid activates his vocalizer, then goes silent. There is no point repudiating something when Megatron has no interest in listening to reason, and honestly, Megatron is right. First Aid has no way to prove Megatron’s current symptoms aren’t because of the mneumosurgery, especially since truthfully, they are in part.
The mneumosurgery did not cause Megatron’s purges, his glitches, the stress reactions. But as a mech who fears the process, who loathes the idea of being invaded in such a manner, the mneumosurgery certainly hasn’t helped.
“There are solutions,” First Aid says at length, careful to keep his tone light and helpful.
Megatron shoots him a derisive glance. “I’m sure there are.” He stands, and First Aid holds himself still from the flinch the action threatens to cause. Megatron is very large, and when he’s in a snit, that largeness is amplified.
For all that he’s an “Autobot” and co-captain of the Lost Light, he is still a dangerous mech. First Aid has not forgotten what Megatron is capable of.
“I’m here, if you ever want to listen to them,” First Aid says.
“I think I’ve had enough of an Autobot’s help.” Megatron sneers.
He’s gone between one cycle and the next. First Aid cycles his optics and a ventilation. He rubs his forehead, tapping the fingers of his other hand over a datapad.
Primus.
~
For the third time in as many days, Megatron wakes from recharge gasping, his armor a clatter around him, his field a riotous whirl. He’s cold, deep down inside, and he swears he can taste grit and grime. He has to cycle his optics more than a few times to see lights, and his ventilations are so rapid, it makes him light-headed.
He tumbles out of his berth, wobbles across the floor on knees which don’t want to bear his weight. He braces himself on the wall near his door, panting, optics squeezed shut against the swirling room.
It was easier when it was the same purge, over and over. But apparently his torture has grown bored with the mines. It’s moved on to other nightmares. Terminus dying and vanished. Trepan’s devilish grin of glee and satisfaction. Himself in chains before an army of Autobots hungry for his death.
He dies, and he lives, and he perishes again. It’s a nightmare based on truth and that’s the worst of it, because he doesn’t wake with relief at it being over. It’s not a lie that haunts him in his recharge. It’s a memory he has to live with.
How clever of them, to punish him in such a manner. Chromedome must have been delighted to leave this little trap in Megatron’s memory core.
He’s exhausted to his core.
A growl of anger rolls through Megatron’s internals. He’s exhausted, and he’s furious, and he wants answers. Immediately.
He pushes off the wall and storms out of his quarters, thoughts flashing lightning quick through his processor, but reason slipping through his fingers. He doesn’t believe First Aid. He doesn’t think this is common or normal. Chromedome must have left some trigger, some program, in his coding.
They will remove it, or Megatron will tear this ship to pieces.
He stalks to the medbay, a riotous fury building and building within him. He storms into the front lobby, and skids to a halt when he realizes the mech on shift is neither First Aid nor Velocity, but Ratchet, who looks up at him, first with curiosity, then with guarded concern.
Megatron almost turns around and strides back out, save that the exhaustion clings to every line and cable within him. So he squares his shoulders, meets Ratchet’s gaze directly.
“You will fix me,” he says, leaving no room for argument. “You will remove whatever your torturer has put in my coding or I promise you will regret what’s been done.”
Ratchet stands, audibly cycling a ventilation. “Chromedome helped you. He didn’t do anything else.” He pauses, rubs his fingers over his forehead. “I know First Aid explained this already. Your current symptoms have nothing to do with the mneumosurgery. It’s a psychological syndrome brought upon by acute stress.”
“Stress,” Megatron repeats, and his engine growls, his hands forming fists, his field slipping out of his control. “Weakness, you mean. I’m not strong enough to handle the situation, that is what you are telling me, rather than admitting what you’ve had done to me.”
Ratchet throws up his hands and comes out from behind the desk, prompting Megatron to slide a step backward, and Ratchet to stop mid-stride.
“I didn’t say weakness,” Ratchet hisses, and irritation flashes in his optics, before he reels it in, draws back, like he’s trying to dial himself down. “It’s years and years of war and pain and death. It’s never dealing with our problems because we’re too busy trying to stay alive. It’s never facing the things that led to our war because we didn’t have time, but now we do, so it’s coming back to bite us in the aft.”
Megatron levels him with a look, a sneer. “Then it’s my fault.”
“It’s all of our fault!” Ratchet snaps, and his field, too, is loose upon the room, rattling around them with a flash of grief and irritation and worry. “You think you’re the only one on this ship who has nightmares? Who suffers from purges? Who spends hours lying in the berth, thinking of the things they should have done, or the mechs who died, or the lives they could have saved? You ever wonder why Swerve’s does such a brisk business?”
“One needn’t wonder when it’s obvious,” Megatron grits out. He’s no fool. He’s seen many a mech cope with war through multiple mechanisms. Overindulgence, yes. Stimulants and depressants, for certain. Interfacing and relationships and treating oneself as expendable?
He’s witnessed all of it. He’s never indulged himself, but he’s witnessed it.
Ratchet huffs a ventilation. “Then why are you acting like it’s a foreign concept to you? Because you’ve never had to deal with it yourself?” He rakes a hand over his head, and for the first time, Megatron realizes he looks exhausted, too.
His face is drawn with fatigue, his optics dim and weary. His armor is drawn tight to his frame, dull as if improperly cared for. He looks old, like he hasn’t in ages.
No. Megatron will not feel sorry for Ratchet. He won’t.
“It did not begin until the so-called glitch,” Megatron says. Or, to be fair, it had not begun in earnest until then. “What other conclusions should I draw?”
Ratchet’s expression runs a gamut of emotion. “The glitch rose because you felt safe and comfortable. Your mind thought it was a good time to make you start dealing with your slag, but it wasn’t, and you suffered a glitch instead.” He waves a hand. “Don’t believe me? Ask anyone else. First Aid. Hoist. Rung. Smokescreen. Frag, dial up Cybertron and find another expert. They’ll tell you the same thing.”
Safe. Comfortable. What nonsense.
“Or,” Ratchet continues, “You could try listening to me and let me help, rather than deal with this on your own, since it’s obviously not working.”
Megatron snarls at him. “Help? You’ve already helped me once and look where it got me!” His voice is too loud, too angry, and he’s struggling to dial it down. “You took my greatest fear and used it against me.”
Ratchet flinches, and where Megatron expects him to argue, to puff up about how he’d made the right choice, and Megatron should be grateful, Ratchet doesn’t. Instead, he deflates. His gaze falls. He sighs, long and low.
“Yes,” Ratchet says, and his voice is striped in static. “I made a mistake. I chose selfishly. I can’t take that action back, and I know I’ve lost your trust.” He pauses, works his jaw, and something in him strengthens as he lifts his gaze again. “I’ll call someone else to help you. I don’t need a scan to tell you’re suffering, and you need care, if not from me, than someone else.”
Megatron cycles his optics. He is ready to argue, but there is something.
Something in Ratchet’s words or his tone or the distant flutters of a field now under control. Something in the way Ratchet looks at him, how he deflates like a foe defeated.
Ratchet had betrayed him. This is an unalterable truth. He’d chosen poorly, when it came to Megatron’s care, going against his wishes to save Megatron’s spark. His life.
Ratchet. The Autobot CMO. One of Optimus Prime’s closest friends. A mech who had, on many occasions, claimed to despise Megatron and wish him dead.
It would have been easier, wouldn’t it, for the Autobots to let him die. He could have crumbled to pieces under the glitch and no one would have blamed them. It would have been logical, reasonable, agreeable even, for Megatron’s end to find him in such a manner. It solves the little problem of whether or not they should execute Megatron.
It would have solved a lot of problems.
Ratchet, however, had chosen otherwise.
He’d chosen, selfishly, for himself, because he wanted Megatron to live. Because he cares. Because Ratchet, on a personal level, wants Megatron to stay alive. He hadn’t wanted to lose Megatron.
A bit of helpless laughter burbles up in Megatron’s intake before he swallows it down and gives himself away.
The very mech who should have walked away and done the Autobots a great service by letting Megatron die, had instead thrown away his own principles to keep Megatron alive.
Primus, how had he not seen this sooner?
Megatron’s spark throbs in his chassis, but for an entirely different reason. He sinks back another step, not to retreat, but to blindly grasp for one of the chairs in the lobby. He’d prefer the privacy of an office, but this late, he doubts they’ll be disturbed.
“What are my options?” Megatron says, knowing he’s let the silence drag too long, by the confusion on Ratchet’s face, but his thoughts twirling around too fast with his sudden revelation.
Ratchet cares for him. About him. Against all odds.
Ratchet cycles his optics, and confusion flickers across his face. “I can call First Aid, though Rung might be best. There’s also--”
“No,” Megatron says, interrupting him with a shake of his head. “What are my treatment options? How do I fix this?”
“Fix?” Ratchet echoes, and he shakes his head, confusion still prevalent in his field. “This isn’t a cracked optic or a broken strut. It can’t be fixed overnight. It’s going to take time. Rest. Conversations, even, with a qualified therapist.”
Like Rung, Megatron imagines, just as First Aid said.
Megatron huffs a vent. It’s not so much that he doesn’t like Rung, but that he doesn’t want to be psychoanalyzed. Sometimes a gun is just a gun. He doesn’t want Rung picking apart every decision he’s made, trying to find a deeper meaning to it. Neither does he want to break his spark open and spill out his pains to the mech.
He doesn’t trust Rung.
“Or there’s Smokescreen,” Ratchet continues, a bit distant, like he’s reading from a list. “He’s not officially accredited, and he’s never worked in an official capacity, but he’s good at what he does. First Aid is qualified for basic therapy as well.”
Megatron takes a breath. “What about you?”
Ratchet’s gaze jerks toward him, disbelief shimmering in his optics. He squirms for a moment before he seems to gather himself. “There’s a certain degree of trust involved. I no longer qualify.”
Yes. There is that.
It weighs on Megatron still. The anger simmers beneath the surface. He looks at Ratchet and wants to shout, as much as he desperately wants to shake Ratchet, shake out the truth. He feels the touch of the needles still.
He remembers too keenly how he felt in Ratchet’s arms. How his spark still yearns for the medic and the pleasure their relationship had given him.
“I let you bind me,” Megatron says, and it’s hard to ventilate, but he forces the words out regardless, quiet as they are. “I let you command me. I allowed you control over me, however measured the circumstances were. I let you see me weak.”
He lifts his gaze, expecting to see Ratchet sharing his shame with the floor, but Ratchet meets his optics instead. He’s not as much a coward as Megatron thought him to be.
“That was a gift you took advantage of. I can’t easily forget what you did. But.” Megatron pauses, cycles a ventilation, tangles his fingers together as he leans forward on his knees. “But I do recognize it was not done out of malice. So rather than burn the bridge to the ground, I’m willing to try rebuilding it.”
Silence.
Ratchet’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. He rubs his face and leans back against the desk. “Just to be clear, are you saying you don’t want to end our relationship?”
“I’m saying I’m too invested to train another Autobot,” Megatron says, provoking a sharp bark of laughter from the medic.
Ratchet hides behind his palm, but it’s not enough to hide the half-smile curving his lips. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“That would be a first.”
Ratchet snorts and lowers his hand, bracing them against the edge of the desk. “Yes, it would.”
“We can’t pick up where we left off,” Megatron informs him, because he won’t have Ratchet thinking all is forgiven, and he’s free to continue as they were before. “I’m still furious, and you no longer have my trust.”
To his credit, Ratchet doesn’t flinch. “That’s fair.” He audibly cycles a ventilation, briefly shuttering his optics before opening them again. “Small steps. Very small steps.” He pushes off from the desk and moves to rummage behind it, pulling something from a cabinet before emerging again. “You’re having trouble recharging. Don’t lie and tell me you aren’t. This is a mild sedative. It won’t put you out completely, but it will help you fall into recharge easier.”
He offers the sedative.
Megatron works his jaw for several long moments before he takes it. A tentative trust, he decides, as he tucks the chip into a panel for later use.
“Thank you,” Megatron says, and stands. Indecision grips him, as he looks into Ratchet’s face, and misses the comfort he’d found with Ratchet like a desperate need unlike any he’d felt in a long, long time. “If you’re so inclined, after your shift, come see me in my hab.”
Ratchet blinks at him, startled, but offers a brief nod. “I will.”
“Good.”
Megatron hesitates, but both he and Ratchet are guarded once more, which is probably for the best. So he leaves, back to his habsuite, back to his solitude, where he can ventilate with ease and hope he hasn’t made a terrible mistake.
~
Concentration is beyond his grasp.
Long after Megatron’s left. Long into the night, as Ratchet sits at his desk, one sensor primed to the door in case someone should need a medic, his thoughts spin and careen and collide into one another.
It’s not forgiveness, but it’s a chance. He only has to reach out and take it. Respect it.
It’s more than he deserves and then some. He’d been prepared to accept the end of their relationship. He’s not sure he’s prepared for the long, hard battle before them. Rebuilding is much harder the second time around.
It’s worth it.
However unexpected, it’s worth it.
Velocity comes to relieve him, fighting off a yawn, cupping warmed, sweet energon as is her usual routine. She gives him a piercing look -- too perceptive this one is -- but she must decide it’s none of her business because she doesn’t ask.
“Quiet night?”
“The quietest,” Ratchet says with a grunt. “Good luck.”
“You, too,” Velocity says, and if there’s an edge of amusement to her voice, Ratchet chooses to ignore it.
He doesn’t rush out of the medbay, but it’s a near thing. He’s as excited as he is apprehensive, enough to wonder if Megatron might have changed his mind in the hours since they spoke. Then he chastises himself for it.
This is Megatron, for Primus’ sake. Ratchet shouldn’t be so eager to find his way to Megatron’s habsuite. He shouldn’t be relieved for a glimpse of forgiveness from the mech. It’s ridiculous.
He finds himself outside of Megatron’s habsuite anyway. His hands are steady, because Ratchet’s hands are always steady, though inside he’s perhaps not quite so steady. But he is not a coward so he pings the door and waits, half-hoping Megatron has allowed the use of the sedative, and half-hoping he hasn’t.
He isn’t sure which he wants more, and both indicate a measure of trust.
The door opens and Ratchet schools his expression into something more guarded than blatantly relieved. “You aren’t recharging,” he observes quietly.
“Not yet,” Megatron says, and steps aside, gesturing for Ratchet to enter.
This time, the invitation is more blatant.
“Were you waiting for me?” Ratchet asks.
“It would have been rude not to.”
Ratchet’s spark flutters. The door closes behind him, and Megatron sits on the edge of the berth, looking at Ratchet expectantly. His hands are loosely clasped, his elbows braced on his thighs. His expression is as guarded as Ratchet’s own.
Ratchet works his intake. Here, in the quiet and dim of Megatron’s habsuite, the intimacy is not lost on him. It feels different than earlier, than the medical bay. Somehow, the guilt is heavier. Somehow, it feels a lot more like shame.
“I’m sorry,” Ratchet says, and the words feel foreign on his glossa. He has to force them out, past decades and decades of relying on his own arrogance to help him keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“I know.” Megatron tilts his head. “But you’re also not sorry.”
Ratchet doesn’t let himself flinch. “You’re alive. And I may be selfish for wanting that, but I’m not sorry for it.”
Megatron snorts something that might be a laugh, if Ratchet were being generous. “No, you wouldn’t be. Because you love me.”
Frag it all to the Pit.
Ratchet folds his arms, heat soaking into face before he can stop it, and he’s unable to keep Megatron’s gaze. “I guess if that’s the only word there is for it.”
Megatron laughs, outright laughs at this, and it’s such a warm sound, Ratchet’s spark dances in his chassis. “It’s an acceptable one.” The berth creaks as he shifts on it. “Recharge with me, medic. There’s a bridge to be built.”
“You’re unexpectedly forgiving,” Ratchet says. He doesn’t move, not just yet, but he looks up to see Megatron has indeed made room for him on the berth, though it’s smaller than the one in Ratchet’s habsuite.
Megatron tilts his head, crimson optics glittering at Ratchet from the dim. “Think about it, and perhaps a reason why will come to you.”
Ratchet can think of one, but he doesn’t want to presume. He lets his action speak for itself, finally closing the distance to join Megatron on the berth, tasting the fatigue in Megatron’s field the moment they make contact. He feels as though he hasn’t had a solid recharge since that night.
Ratchet’s spark aches with sympathy.
He rests a hand on Megatron’s chest, over his badge, feels the former warlord tense beneath him, his gaze landing on Ratchet’s hand before rising to his face.
“Just recharge,” Ratchet says. “To start.”
Megatron nods. “To start.”
It’s not too late. Ratchet takes comfort from that, and from the way Megatron curls into him, allows Ratchet to curl around him, and the gradual way he leans into Ratchet’s touch. How he relaxes, inch by precious inch, until the soft ventilations indicate recharge.
It’s a start.
***
Universe: IDW MTMTE/LL, Between the Lines ‘verse
Characters: Ratchet/Megatron, First Aid, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus, Bluestreak, Ravage
Rated: M
Warnings: BDSM themes, PTSD, Trust Issues
Description: Peace has a nasty habit of bringing hidden issues to the forefront, and when it finally catches up to Megatron, Ratchet makes a terrible choice that might spell the end of their relationship.
Extended warnings: this fic in particular deals with issues of consent, medical ethics and consent, the tanglement of bdsm consent, and contains many discussions on morality.
Fic inspired by and titled after Hidden Citizens, “Casualty”.
Commission for Borath.
His berth is too large.
There was a time it had been the perfect size. It had been formatted to fit him and him alone, and Ratchet recharged on it without any issues whatsoever.
Recharging alone is another matter. His berth is too large, too empty, and a bit chilly, no matter how he adjusts the thermostat. He turns over and reaches for a frame that isn’t there. It’s ridiculous, because it’s not as though he and Megatron shared a berth every night.
He misses Megatron.
Which is also ridiculous because he sees Megatron every day. In orbit. In passing. Words exchanged in the corridor, cordial and distant, with Ratchet refusing to push, and Megatron maintaining a chilly distance. Their conversations, if they have any, are brief.
Ratchet is fine. He’s absolutely fine. He’s choking on his guilt and trapped in a holding pattern, waiting for the final word from Megatron, but he’s fine.
He doesn’t know why he’s waiting. He’s quite sure the answer is right there in front of him. They’re over. They’re done. There is nothing left to say.
He still wouldn’t change the choice he made.
Ratchet is no fool. He’s heard the reprimands, the chastisement. Logically, he knows he made the selfish choice. He knows he’s the architect of his own guilt and shame. He knows, to the core of his being, that he betrayed Megatron.
He would still choose to save Megatron’s spark. He wishes he is a good enough mech to say he’d better bow to Megatron’s personal wishes, but not in this instance. Not in this situation. He can’t say it.
He’s betraying himself to admit as much. He’s a traitor to his spark, he reasons. Whether it’s himself or the Autobots or Megatron, he’s a mech who can’t be trusted apparently.
It’s better this way.
Better all around.
Ultra Magnus would have rathered Megatron stay off duty until he’s reached an equilibrium, but he can hardly deny a mech who’s been caged so much already. The haunted cast to Megatron’s optics stays his glossa.
At best, he shortens Megatron’s shifts, gives him the quieter ones. Megatron must notice, but he says nothing, which is an admission of his own fatigue without so many words.
Fatigue cloaks Megatron like a secondary layer. His vents labor with quiet click-clicks Ultra Magnus wants to urge him to let a medic investigate. His armor draws tight to his protoform. He speaks slowly, deliberately, as though careful not to let his words slur.
Ultra Magnus does not mention Ratchet around Megatron. He may not be as… familiar with personal interactions and relationships, but even he is not so foolish as to be unable to recognize a delicate subject. Their relationship has clearly taken a heavy blow, perhaps to its end, and Ultra Magnus has yet to decide if such is a good thing.
They are -- were -- good for each other. The situation was and is still complicated. Megatron’s feelings of betrayal are warranted. Ratchet’s desire to keep his lover alive is also understandable.
This is why Ultra Magnus does not arrange himself in something so messy as a relationship. It’s too compromising.
It’s such a bother.
“I swear,” Rodimus groans as he sulks onto the bridge to take shift over from Ultra Magnus, “If those two don’t get their act together, I’m going to lock them in a closet until they talk their slag out. They’re bringing down the atmosphere of the whole ship.”
“Locking them in a room together will not produce the results you seek,” Ultra Magnus tells him with a severe frown. “Time and distance are needed. You cannot push them, Rodimus.”
Rodimus rolls his optics and chuffs a vent -- something he learned from Chromedome, Ultra Magnus is sure. “Mechs need to be pushed sometimes. Especially those two.”
“I am surprised you are encouraging this.”
Rodimus looks up at him and winks. “Why wouldn’t I be? War’s over, right? If you ask me, the best way to put a leash on Megatron is to put an actual leash on Megatron.” He waggles his optical ridges.
Primus save him.
Ultra Magnus swallows a sigh and resists the urge to rub his temples. It only encourages him. “Enjoy your shift, Rodimus.”
His Prime grins and does a little dance in place. “Go relax, Mags. That’s an order.”
“You keep saying that as if it is actually going to work,” Ultra Magnus says, and he dismisses himself from the bridge.
It is too early to take a rest, which is fine, because Ultra Magnus doesn’t intend to immediately retire. He’s not going to relax, despite Rodimus’ orders. He seeks out Megatron instead, and is unsurprised to find the former warlord tucked away in his habsuite.
Megatron used to roam the halls of the Lost Light. Or he could be found on some of the observation platforms or the research center. However, since his recent troubles began, it is rare to find him anywhere but his habsuite.
He is not much for attempting socialization these days. This concerns Ultra Magnus, not only for the sake of Megatron’s mental health, but for the sake of the progress he’s made in becoming an Autobot and a member of the crew.
He pings for entry. He wouldn’t be surprised if Megatron ignores him, and is pleasantly relieved when the door opens, and Megatron treats him to something approximating a welcome look.
“Is something wrong?” Megatron asks.
“No. I wanted to see how you fare,” Ultra Magnus says with a tilt of his head in greeting. “Have you been recharging well?”
Megatron snorts and steps back into his habsuite, which Magnus takes as an invitation to enter. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
“No, but apparently it is a foolish one. Have you asked First Aid for assistance?” Ultra Magnus asks.
“Again. Rhetorical.”
Ultra Magnus cycles a ventilation. “I am concerned for your well-being, and I assure you, my concern is genuine.”
“I know it is. I still don’t trust it.” Megatron gives him a long, measured look. His face is a careful mask. Guarded.
“If there’s anything I can do--”
“There isn’t.”
It’s frustrating. Understandable, but frustrating.
“Very well.” Ultra Magnus backs toward the door, makes to leave, but pauses. The guilt lingers -- for not putting his foot down, for not speaking louder, for insisting on behalf of Megatron. “If you wish to speak to someone, I will be happy to listen. I know how to keep a secret.” ‘
The corner of Megatron’s lips curl into a half-smile. “Yes, you do, don’t you, Minimus Ambus.” He relaxes by a small degree. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”
It’s a victory, however small. It’s progress, and so Ultra Magnus calls it a win. He offers Megatron a tilt of his head -- acknowledgment -- before he takes his leave. Respecting Megatron’s space is paramount to regaining Megatron’s trust.
Ultra Magnus no more wants to see Megatron return to the rampaging warlord he’d been than anyone else on the ship. Megatron deserves the courtesy.
Now.
If only he could get Ratchet’s head out of his aft, perhaps things might move along more smoothly. But everything in stages, step by step, Ultra Magnus supposes.
There are some problems he isn’t meant to solve.
“You’re not recharging.”
“I recharge.”
“Not enough, according to this data,” First Aid replies, drawing upon decades of experience watching Ratchet, standing firm in the face of soldiers bigger and stronger and more stubborn. Megatron is perhaps the epitome of all three descriptors. “You’re not recovering. You’re in danger of activating another glitch.”
Megatron’s lips press into a thin line. His optics narrow. “I was under the assumption the glitch was fixed,” he says, and his mouth forms a sneer, hatred and fear mingling together in the flash of his field. “Was that not the intention of the… surgical process?”
He can’t form the word mneumosurgery. First Aid can’t blame him.
“The surgery corrected the existing glitch, but does not prevent new ones,” First Aid explains, drawing carefully upon his patience. “What we’re dealing with here is not a one-time occurrence, but something that’s likely to repeat itself in the future.”
A growl rises in Megatron’s chassis. “Explain.”
First Aid swallows a sigh. He’s been trying to explain this for days, but Megatron has been doing a fantastic job of avoiding the medical bay and necessary check-ups.
“Recharge purges aren’t uncommon,” First Aid begins, picking his words carefully, because there is a lot of ground to cover. How to explain to a former warlord that the war itself is part of the cause, that peace is partially to blame?
“We all suffer from them. We all have… trauma and pain we’re trying to forget. Things we push down that come back when we’re vulnerable. During the war, it was easier to deal with because we hid it for self-preservation. Now that we have a time of peace, our processors are reminding us of everything we pushed aside, usually in the form of those purges.”
Megatron frowns. “You’re telling me that everyone has to suffer mneumosurgery at some point?”
First Aid resists the urge to rub his forehead, a preliminary to the ache about to develop. “No. In most cases, mecha manage to work through the purges on their own. Rarely does it result in a purge-loop glitch, and rarer still are the mech’s firewalls so powerful they resist the intervention of a trained medic.”
Ratchet would have been able to pull Megatron from the purge-loop if not for his firewalls. Whether Megatron had constructed those on his own, or they’d been designed by Shockwave, no one knew. They’d probably never know. Megatron has been rebuilt so many times, it’s impossible to pinpoint where any coding glitch formed.
“I’m just unlucky then.” Megatron’s sneer is somehow both self-directed and aimed at First Aid, or perhaps Autobots in general.
“Some might say you’re lucky,” First Aid says, watching Megatron carefully, to see his reaction to this. “Your spark felt you were safe enough and ready to start dealing with everything you’ve pushed aside.”
At least he would be, if this wasn’t Megatron, whose reaction to pain is to keep pushing it down, ignoring it, and pretending everything is all right, because only those who are weak suffer, and Megatron is not weak.
Megatron’s jaw twists. “How do we make it stop?”
“A conversation with Rung would probably help,” First Aid says.
“No. Another option.”
First Aid fiddles with a datapad. “I can give you a sedative to help you recharge, but it’s not going to solve the problem.”
“The problem,” Megatron echoes, and his tone is flat and disbelieving. “You suggest I am ill. I have a sickness. A weakness. Something which must be excised.”
First Aid’s fingers twitch, and he resists the urge to rub at his forehead. “I’m saying that we’re all soldiers in peace-time, and we don’t know what to do with that anymore.”
Megatron frowns. His optics narrow. He looks away, audibly vents, and First Aid hears the click-click of a manual systems reset. Megatron’s field is a simmering presence beneath the surface, a volcano threatening to erupt. He’s an emotional mess, and First Aid never thought he’d find himself feeling sympathetic toward Megatron.
Yet, here he is. Concerned and sympathetic.
Physical pain is so much easier to bear than emotional and mental turmoil. How it must pain Megatron, to fight against something that doesn’t have physical shape. Something he can’t rip into, or blast away, or shoot.
Ironically, in any other situation, his relationship with Ratchet would be a stabilizing factor he could sorely use right now.
“So I am left to suffer,” Megatron says, and there’s a way he says the words, like he’s speaking around a sour taste on his glossa. “How appropriate. A new way has been found to punish me. How clever you Autobots are.”
“The mneumosurgery didn’t cause this,” First Aid says, repeats, feels like he’s been down this road before, but fear is an irrational beast. Fear is quick to blame, desperate to blame in order to regain some measure of control.
Megatron’s optics narrow. “I have no way of knowing, do I?”
First Aid activates his vocalizer, then goes silent. There is no point repudiating something when Megatron has no interest in listening to reason, and honestly, Megatron is right. First Aid has no way to prove Megatron’s current symptoms aren’t because of the mneumosurgery, especially since truthfully, they are in part.
The mneumosurgery did not cause Megatron’s purges, his glitches, the stress reactions. But as a mech who fears the process, who loathes the idea of being invaded in such a manner, the mneumosurgery certainly hasn’t helped.
“There are solutions,” First Aid says at length, careful to keep his tone light and helpful.
Megatron shoots him a derisive glance. “I’m sure there are.” He stands, and First Aid holds himself still from the flinch the action threatens to cause. Megatron is very large, and when he’s in a snit, that largeness is amplified.
For all that he’s an “Autobot” and co-captain of the Lost Light, he is still a dangerous mech. First Aid has not forgotten what Megatron is capable of.
“I’m here, if you ever want to listen to them,” First Aid says.
“I think I’ve had enough of an Autobot’s help.” Megatron sneers.
He’s gone between one cycle and the next. First Aid cycles his optics and a ventilation. He rubs his forehead, tapping the fingers of his other hand over a datapad.
Primus.
For the third time in as many days, Megatron wakes from recharge gasping, his armor a clatter around him, his field a riotous whirl. He’s cold, deep down inside, and he swears he can taste grit and grime. He has to cycle his optics more than a few times to see lights, and his ventilations are so rapid, it makes him light-headed.
He tumbles out of his berth, wobbles across the floor on knees which don’t want to bear his weight. He braces himself on the wall near his door, panting, optics squeezed shut against the swirling room.
It was easier when it was the same purge, over and over. But apparently his torture has grown bored with the mines. It’s moved on to other nightmares. Terminus dying and vanished. Trepan’s devilish grin of glee and satisfaction. Himself in chains before an army of Autobots hungry for his death.
He dies, and he lives, and he perishes again. It’s a nightmare based on truth and that’s the worst of it, because he doesn’t wake with relief at it being over. It’s not a lie that haunts him in his recharge. It’s a memory he has to live with.
How clever of them, to punish him in such a manner. Chromedome must have been delighted to leave this little trap in Megatron’s memory core.
He’s exhausted to his core.
A growl of anger rolls through Megatron’s internals. He’s exhausted, and he’s furious, and he wants answers. Immediately.
He pushes off the wall and storms out of his quarters, thoughts flashing lightning quick through his processor, but reason slipping through his fingers. He doesn’t believe First Aid. He doesn’t think this is common or normal. Chromedome must have left some trigger, some program, in his coding.
They will remove it, or Megatron will tear this ship to pieces.
He stalks to the medbay, a riotous fury building and building within him. He storms into the front lobby, and skids to a halt when he realizes the mech on shift is neither First Aid nor Velocity, but Ratchet, who looks up at him, first with curiosity, then with guarded concern.
Megatron almost turns around and strides back out, save that the exhaustion clings to every line and cable within him. So he squares his shoulders, meets Ratchet’s gaze directly.
“You will fix me,” he says, leaving no room for argument. “You will remove whatever your torturer has put in my coding or I promise you will regret what’s been done.”
Ratchet stands, audibly cycling a ventilation. “Chromedome helped you. He didn’t do anything else.” He pauses, rubs his fingers over his forehead. “I know First Aid explained this already. Your current symptoms have nothing to do with the mneumosurgery. It’s a psychological syndrome brought upon by acute stress.”
“Stress,” Megatron repeats, and his engine growls, his hands forming fists, his field slipping out of his control. “Weakness, you mean. I’m not strong enough to handle the situation, that is what you are telling me, rather than admitting what you’ve had done to me.”
Ratchet throws up his hands and comes out from behind the desk, prompting Megatron to slide a step backward, and Ratchet to stop mid-stride.
“I didn’t say weakness,” Ratchet hisses, and irritation flashes in his optics, before he reels it in, draws back, like he’s trying to dial himself down. “It’s years and years of war and pain and death. It’s never dealing with our problems because we’re too busy trying to stay alive. It’s never facing the things that led to our war because we didn’t have time, but now we do, so it’s coming back to bite us in the aft.”
Megatron levels him with a look, a sneer. “Then it’s my fault.”
“It’s all of our fault!” Ratchet snaps, and his field, too, is loose upon the room, rattling around them with a flash of grief and irritation and worry. “You think you’re the only one on this ship who has nightmares? Who suffers from purges? Who spends hours lying in the berth, thinking of the things they should have done, or the mechs who died, or the lives they could have saved? You ever wonder why Swerve’s does such a brisk business?”
“One needn’t wonder when it’s obvious,” Megatron grits out. He’s no fool. He’s seen many a mech cope with war through multiple mechanisms. Overindulgence, yes. Stimulants and depressants, for certain. Interfacing and relationships and treating oneself as expendable?
He’s witnessed all of it. He’s never indulged himself, but he’s witnessed it.
Ratchet huffs a ventilation. “Then why are you acting like it’s a foreign concept to you? Because you’ve never had to deal with it yourself?” He rakes a hand over his head, and for the first time, Megatron realizes he looks exhausted, too.
His face is drawn with fatigue, his optics dim and weary. His armor is drawn tight to his frame, dull as if improperly cared for. He looks old, like he hasn’t in ages.
No. Megatron will not feel sorry for Ratchet. He won’t.
“It did not begin until the so-called glitch,” Megatron says. Or, to be fair, it had not begun in earnest until then. “What other conclusions should I draw?”
Ratchet’s expression runs a gamut of emotion. “The glitch rose because you felt safe and comfortable. Your mind thought it was a good time to make you start dealing with your slag, but it wasn’t, and you suffered a glitch instead.” He waves a hand. “Don’t believe me? Ask anyone else. First Aid. Hoist. Rung. Smokescreen. Frag, dial up Cybertron and find another expert. They’ll tell you the same thing.”
Safe. Comfortable. What nonsense.
“Or,” Ratchet continues, “You could try listening to me and let me help, rather than deal with this on your own, since it’s obviously not working.”
Megatron snarls at him. “Help? You’ve already helped me once and look where it got me!” His voice is too loud, too angry, and he’s struggling to dial it down. “You took my greatest fear and used it against me.”
Ratchet flinches, and where Megatron expects him to argue, to puff up about how he’d made the right choice, and Megatron should be grateful, Ratchet doesn’t. Instead, he deflates. His gaze falls. He sighs, long and low.
“Yes,” Ratchet says, and his voice is striped in static. “I made a mistake. I chose selfishly. I can’t take that action back, and I know I’ve lost your trust.” He pauses, works his jaw, and something in him strengthens as he lifts his gaze again. “I’ll call someone else to help you. I don’t need a scan to tell you’re suffering, and you need care, if not from me, than someone else.”
Megatron cycles his optics. He is ready to argue, but there is something.
Something in Ratchet’s words or his tone or the distant flutters of a field now under control. Something in the way Ratchet looks at him, how he deflates like a foe defeated.
Ratchet had betrayed him. This is an unalterable truth. He’d chosen poorly, when it came to Megatron’s care, going against his wishes to save Megatron’s spark. His life.
Ratchet. The Autobot CMO. One of Optimus Prime’s closest friends. A mech who had, on many occasions, claimed to despise Megatron and wish him dead.
It would have been easier, wouldn’t it, for the Autobots to let him die. He could have crumbled to pieces under the glitch and no one would have blamed them. It would have been logical, reasonable, agreeable even, for Megatron’s end to find him in such a manner. It solves the little problem of whether or not they should execute Megatron.
It would have solved a lot of problems.
Ratchet, however, had chosen otherwise.
He’d chosen, selfishly, for himself, because he wanted Megatron to live. Because he cares. Because Ratchet, on a personal level, wants Megatron to stay alive. He hadn’t wanted to lose Megatron.
A bit of helpless laughter burbles up in Megatron’s intake before he swallows it down and gives himself away.
The very mech who should have walked away and done the Autobots a great service by letting Megatron die, had instead thrown away his own principles to keep Megatron alive.
Primus, how had he not seen this sooner?
Megatron’s spark throbs in his chassis, but for an entirely different reason. He sinks back another step, not to retreat, but to blindly grasp for one of the chairs in the lobby. He’d prefer the privacy of an office, but this late, he doubts they’ll be disturbed.
“What are my options?” Megatron says, knowing he’s let the silence drag too long, by the confusion on Ratchet’s face, but his thoughts twirling around too fast with his sudden revelation.
Ratchet cares for him. About him. Against all odds.
Ratchet cycles his optics, and confusion flickers across his face. “I can call First Aid, though Rung might be best. There’s also--”
“No,” Megatron says, interrupting him with a shake of his head. “What are my treatment options? How do I fix this?”
“Fix?” Ratchet echoes, and he shakes his head, confusion still prevalent in his field. “This isn’t a cracked optic or a broken strut. It can’t be fixed overnight. It’s going to take time. Rest. Conversations, even, with a qualified therapist.”
Like Rung, Megatron imagines, just as First Aid said.
Megatron huffs a vent. It’s not so much that he doesn’t like Rung, but that he doesn’t want to be psychoanalyzed. Sometimes a gun is just a gun. He doesn’t want Rung picking apart every decision he’s made, trying to find a deeper meaning to it. Neither does he want to break his spark open and spill out his pains to the mech.
He doesn’t trust Rung.
“Or there’s Smokescreen,” Ratchet continues, a bit distant, like he’s reading from a list. “He’s not officially accredited, and he’s never worked in an official capacity, but he’s good at what he does. First Aid is qualified for basic therapy as well.”
Megatron takes a breath. “What about you?”
Ratchet’s gaze jerks toward him, disbelief shimmering in his optics. He squirms for a moment before he seems to gather himself. “There’s a certain degree of trust involved. I no longer qualify.”
Yes. There is that.
It weighs on Megatron still. The anger simmers beneath the surface. He looks at Ratchet and wants to shout, as much as he desperately wants to shake Ratchet, shake out the truth. He feels the touch of the needles still.
He remembers too keenly how he felt in Ratchet’s arms. How his spark still yearns for the medic and the pleasure their relationship had given him.
“I let you bind me,” Megatron says, and it’s hard to ventilate, but he forces the words out regardless, quiet as they are. “I let you command me. I allowed you control over me, however measured the circumstances were. I let you see me weak.”
He lifts his gaze, expecting to see Ratchet sharing his shame with the floor, but Ratchet meets his optics instead. He’s not as much a coward as Megatron thought him to be.
“That was a gift you took advantage of. I can’t easily forget what you did. But.” Megatron pauses, cycles a ventilation, tangles his fingers together as he leans forward on his knees. “But I do recognize it was not done out of malice. So rather than burn the bridge to the ground, I’m willing to try rebuilding it.”
Silence.
Ratchet’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. He rubs his face and leans back against the desk. “Just to be clear, are you saying you don’t want to end our relationship?”
“I’m saying I’m too invested to train another Autobot,” Megatron says, provoking a sharp bark of laughter from the medic.
Ratchet hides behind his palm, but it’s not enough to hide the half-smile curving his lips. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“That would be a first.”
Ratchet snorts and lowers his hand, bracing them against the edge of the desk. “Yes, it would.”
“We can’t pick up where we left off,” Megatron informs him, because he won’t have Ratchet thinking all is forgiven, and he’s free to continue as they were before. “I’m still furious, and you no longer have my trust.”
To his credit, Ratchet doesn’t flinch. “That’s fair.” He audibly cycles a ventilation, briefly shuttering his optics before opening them again. “Small steps. Very small steps.” He pushes off from the desk and moves to rummage behind it, pulling something from a cabinet before emerging again. “You’re having trouble recharging. Don’t lie and tell me you aren’t. This is a mild sedative. It won’t put you out completely, but it will help you fall into recharge easier.”
He offers the sedative.
Megatron works his jaw for several long moments before he takes it. A tentative trust, he decides, as he tucks the chip into a panel for later use.
“Thank you,” Megatron says, and stands. Indecision grips him, as he looks into Ratchet’s face, and misses the comfort he’d found with Ratchet like a desperate need unlike any he’d felt in a long, long time. “If you’re so inclined, after your shift, come see me in my hab.”
Ratchet blinks at him, startled, but offers a brief nod. “I will.”
“Good.”
Megatron hesitates, but both he and Ratchet are guarded once more, which is probably for the best. So he leaves, back to his habsuite, back to his solitude, where he can ventilate with ease and hope he hasn’t made a terrible mistake.
Concentration is beyond his grasp.
Long after Megatron’s left. Long into the night, as Ratchet sits at his desk, one sensor primed to the door in case someone should need a medic, his thoughts spin and careen and collide into one another.
It’s not forgiveness, but it’s a chance. He only has to reach out and take it. Respect it.
It’s more than he deserves and then some. He’d been prepared to accept the end of their relationship. He’s not sure he’s prepared for the long, hard battle before them. Rebuilding is much harder the second time around.
It’s worth it.
However unexpected, it’s worth it.
Velocity comes to relieve him, fighting off a yawn, cupping warmed, sweet energon as is her usual routine. She gives him a piercing look -- too perceptive this one is -- but she must decide it’s none of her business because she doesn’t ask.
“Quiet night?”
“The quietest,” Ratchet says with a grunt. “Good luck.”
“You, too,” Velocity says, and if there’s an edge of amusement to her voice, Ratchet chooses to ignore it.
He doesn’t rush out of the medbay, but it’s a near thing. He’s as excited as he is apprehensive, enough to wonder if Megatron might have changed his mind in the hours since they spoke. Then he chastises himself for it.
This is Megatron, for Primus’ sake. Ratchet shouldn’t be so eager to find his way to Megatron’s habsuite. He shouldn’t be relieved for a glimpse of forgiveness from the mech. It’s ridiculous.
He finds himself outside of Megatron’s habsuite anyway. His hands are steady, because Ratchet’s hands are always steady, though inside he’s perhaps not quite so steady. But he is not a coward so he pings the door and waits, half-hoping Megatron has allowed the use of the sedative, and half-hoping he hasn’t.
He isn’t sure which he wants more, and both indicate a measure of trust.
The door opens and Ratchet schools his expression into something more guarded than blatantly relieved. “You aren’t recharging,” he observes quietly.
“Not yet,” Megatron says, and steps aside, gesturing for Ratchet to enter.
This time, the invitation is more blatant.
“Were you waiting for me?” Ratchet asks.
“It would have been rude not to.”
Ratchet’s spark flutters. The door closes behind him, and Megatron sits on the edge of the berth, looking at Ratchet expectantly. His hands are loosely clasped, his elbows braced on his thighs. His expression is as guarded as Ratchet’s own.
Ratchet works his intake. Here, in the quiet and dim of Megatron’s habsuite, the intimacy is not lost on him. It feels different than earlier, than the medical bay. Somehow, the guilt is heavier. Somehow, it feels a lot more like shame.
“I’m sorry,” Ratchet says, and the words feel foreign on his glossa. He has to force them out, past decades and decades of relying on his own arrogance to help him keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“I know.” Megatron tilts his head. “But you’re also not sorry.”
Ratchet doesn’t let himself flinch. “You’re alive. And I may be selfish for wanting that, but I’m not sorry for it.”
Megatron snorts something that might be a laugh, if Ratchet were being generous. “No, you wouldn’t be. Because you love me.”
Frag it all to the Pit.
Ratchet folds his arms, heat soaking into face before he can stop it, and he’s unable to keep Megatron’s gaze. “I guess if that’s the only word there is for it.”
Megatron laughs, outright laughs at this, and it’s such a warm sound, Ratchet’s spark dances in his chassis. “It’s an acceptable one.” The berth creaks as he shifts on it. “Recharge with me, medic. There’s a bridge to be built.”
“You’re unexpectedly forgiving,” Ratchet says. He doesn’t move, not just yet, but he looks up to see Megatron has indeed made room for him on the berth, though it’s smaller than the one in Ratchet’s habsuite.
Megatron tilts his head, crimson optics glittering at Ratchet from the dim. “Think about it, and perhaps a reason why will come to you.”
Ratchet can think of one, but he doesn’t want to presume. He lets his action speak for itself, finally closing the distance to join Megatron on the berth, tasting the fatigue in Megatron’s field the moment they make contact. He feels as though he hasn’t had a solid recharge since that night.
Ratchet’s spark aches with sympathy.
He rests a hand on Megatron’s chest, over his badge, feels the former warlord tense beneath him, his gaze landing on Ratchet’s hand before rising to his face.
“Just recharge,” Ratchet says. “To start.”
Megatron nods. “To start.”
It’s not too late. Ratchet takes comfort from that, and from the way Megatron curls into him, allows Ratchet to curl around him, and the gradual way he leans into Ratchet’s touch. How he relaxes, inch by precious inch, until the soft ventilations indicate recharge.
It’s a start.
