[IDW] Next to Nothing
Jun. 14th, 2021 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Next to Nothing
Universe: TF AU, Null and Void series
Characters: Deadlock, Megatron, Ratchet
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: on and off-screen rape, sticky sexual interfacing, Lima Syndrome, Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator
Description: Deadlock is given a task by Lord Megatron to restore the shine to his favorite Autobot trophy, but no one is prepared for what it’s going to cost, least of all Deadlock himself.
Commission for Anonymous.
Subterfuge had never been one of Deadlock’s specialties. Such tasks were better suited for Soundwave and his army of cassettes or Barricade’s infiltration team.
Deadlock was better at destroying things.
Case in point, the Autobot supply depot on Omicron Six, a moon orbiting a planet in the Andares cluster. They thought it was spectacularly hidden, and had been stashing energon and ammunition there for decades.
It was amusing to let them think it was a secret, to get more confident in their ploy, until they’d built up a nice cache Deadlock was more than happy to relieve them of. With violent, brute force.
Deadlock and his team reunited with the Decepticon flagship with their hold full of stolen Autobot materials, and a one-hundred percent kill count for all those stationed at Omicron Six. Survivors? What survivors? Deadlock didn’t bother with survivors.
He expected a new mission.
He wasn’t prepared for the one Megatron handed him.
Deadlock heard the commotion before he even arrived at the medbay. The doors were wide open, and the jeering floated out into the corridor. He sidled into the doorway, not intending to make his presence immediately known, to assess the current state of affairs.
He leaned against the frame, arms folded across his chassis, and watched.
The red and white frame, dirtied by filth and dried transfluid, was a memory from centuries past, even buried as it was by the enormous bulk of one of the Constructicons – Long Haul perhaps. Deadlock never bothered to learn which was which. Said Constructicon eagerly thrust into the resisting frame beneath him, the pace of his thrusts hinting of a mech about to overload, while his massive hands squeezed his victim’s hips, causing them to creak.
The medbay was far too small for the crowd gathered to watch the spectacle, and quite of few of them were stroking their interface panels as though they intended to take a turn as well. Unfortunately for them, Megatron had other plans for the Autobot, and Deadlock was here to see those plans fulfilled.
“Don’t frag him too hard, ‘Crusher,” said one of the other Constructicons, Deadlock didn’t know which. “I don’t want him too loose for my turn.”
A violent thrust drove the whimpering Autobot down into the medberth. “He was loose before I got to him,” the Constructicon -- Bonecrusher, not Long Haul apparently -- grunted. “Blame Long Haul.”
“Who cares? Just hurry the frag up,” the mech demanded.
Bonecrusher slammed forward a handful more times before he stilled, engine roaring, head tossing back. His hips gave several sharp jerks, and then he abruptly pulled back, spike in one hand. It pulsed several thick, heavy spurts, striping the back of the Autobot’s thighs and aft, to join the spill leaking from the swollen valve.
Satisfaction poured from Bonecrusher in waves. He slapped the Autobot’s aft with a ring of metal on metal and stepped away, barking, “Next!”
With the large Constructicon out of the way, the Autobot’s face was visible, as were his bound hands, wrenched behind his back and held in place with a pair of magna cuffs. For a second, Deadlock remembered a moment of kindness, a gruff assurance that he was made for better things, and then it was gone again.
Ratchet didn’t move save to sag into the berth, feet flattening against the floor. His fingers were limp. His armor was filthy, scraped and covered in paint streaks, evidence of transfluid caking his seams. There was a drying spurt across his face, thick in the corners of his lips. He’d been well used before Deadlock’s arrival.
Deadlock unfortunately wouldn’t get the same opportunity apparently every other Decepticon aboard the Nemesis had been afforded. He had a much more important mission.
Ratchet didn’t make a sound. Not even when another Constructicon moved in to take Bonecrusher’s place. His gaze went dull, glassy with resignation, submitting without a fuss as a hand reaching for his face, no doubt intending to make use of his mouth.
Time to move.
Deadlock pushed off the door frame, rested one hand on his right holster, and waded into the crowd. “That’s enough.”
The Decepticons who saw him immediately moved out of the way. A hush preceded him until Deadlock was within reach of the Construction who already had his spike out, poised to sink into Ratchet’s well-used valve.
“Wait your turn,” he snarled without looking at Deadlock.
He rocked his hips forward, only to freeze when Deadlock aimed right at his interface array, spike in center-target.
“I said,” Deadlock repeated, “that’s enough.”
Deadlock very pointedly did not look at Ratchet. He looked up at the Constructicon, chin lifted, waiting to see if the mech would challenge him. Judging by the recognition gleaming in the Constructicon’s visor, however, he would not.
Instead, he stepped back, one hand raised, the other trying to tuck his spike away, though it seemed unwilling to listen. “Apologies, Commander. Didn’t realize it was your turn.”
“It’s not.” Deadlock spun the blaster around his fingers and tucked it away. “I’m here to escort the prisoner back to his cell.”
Grumbles rippled through the crowd behind him. Dissatisfaction rose in heavy waves, especially from the mechs who hadn’t had their turn. They would simply have to find their pleasure elsewhere.
Deadlock turned and arched an orbital ridge, one hand tapping the blaster on his hip. “Does anyone have a problem with that? Perhaps you’d like to address me directly?” He grinned, lips curled back over his sharpened denta.
Those closest took a few steps back, hands up. Others in the fringe muttered subvocally and started easing out of the medbay.
“It’s nice to meet some reasonable mechs.” Deadlock winked at the nearest Constructicon. The mech sneered at him, but that was as far as his courage would take him.
Wise mech.
Now for Ratchet.
The Autobot hadn’t moved. Not to close his panels or shift to get more comfortable. His optics were unshuttered, hazy as they watched the proceedings.
He said nothing when Deadlock grabbed his upper arm and pulled him off the medberth. Ratchet wobbled on unsteady knees, transfluid seeping out of his valve -- mixed with a fair share of energon. They’d used him enough to abrade his lining.
Tch.
What was the point of ruining a toy to the point it couldn’t be used again? No wonder Megatron had decided on a different approach.
“Let’s go,” Deadlock said, hand firmly wrapped around Ratchet’s upper arm, the thrum of the medic’s frame dull beneath his haptic sensors.
He started for the door, tugging the stumbling Autobot along, and those Decepticons still lingering in the medbay parted to make room.
One of them muttered something about never getting a turn, but was immediately shushed by another. Deadlock didn’t have to spare a vent for a grin. Maybe the average footsoldier was getting smarter.
They waited until he was down the hall, burden in his wake, before the grumbling started. Maybe they thought he couldn’t hear them, but their complaints were loud and clear. As if there wasn’t entertainment enough to be found.
Deadlock grinned.
They were all going to be very disappointed once they learned they no longer had an Autobot toy at their disposal.
“What are you doing?” Ratchet asked as Deadlock pulled him into the nearest lift and jabbed the button to take them down to the holding cells.
“Returning you to your cell,” Deadlock said.
Ratchet wobbled on his feet, half-slumping against the wall of the lift, but he didn’t try to pull free of Deadlock’s grip. Resignation layered over every inch of him, from the sag in his seams, the slump of his shoulders, and the dim flicker of his optics.
Distaste wound its way through Deadlock’s spark. What use was a trophy which no longer shined? What fun was a toy when it no longer struggled?
“Why?” Ratchet’s vocals were rough, a rasp torn from his intake. He made no move to wipe away the transfluid caked in the corners of his mouth.
Deadlock didn’t answer him.
The lift stopped and deposited them on one of the lower levels. Deadlock tightened his grip on Ratchet’s arm and pulled the larger mech with him. Ratchet stumbled, fell against him briefly. His frame ran hot -- too hot to be healthy -- and he stank of interfacing and transfluid and overloads. He reeked of surrender.
Deadlock pushed Ratchet back upright. His hand didn’t linger. As much as he’d have liked to sample the medic, he had higher standards. He certainly didn’t want a pet so used and filthy.
Not that he was going to get his chance either way. Damn.
Ratchet staggered after him, and his shuffling grew more pronounced the closer they got to his cell. The prison was largely unoccupied, Deadlock noted. It seemed Megatron had stopped bothering with taking prisoners, too.
Good.
Fatigue wreathed Ratchet from every angle, but he still managed to look at Deadlock with something approximating confusion when Deadlock deposited Ratchet within his cell and on the narrow cot serving as his recharge berth. Deadlock removed the magna-cuffs, tucking them away, and produced a mesh cloth from his subspace, pre-dampened with solvent.
“You might want to get cleaned up,” Deadlock suggested as he offered it to Ratchet, keeping his tone carefully neutral. A generous mech might even detect a note of concern, though he was careful not to play his hand too soon.
He needed Ratchet to believe in his sincerity.
“Why bother?” Ratchet took the cloth despite the exhausted mutter and dabbed at his face. “They’re just going to get me filthy all over again.”
Deadlock took a step back and eyed the tiny confines of Ratchet’s cell. There wasn’t much to see -- Ratchet had the cot and very little else. Hooks and rings bolted into the walls suggested Ratchet spent as much time beneath a Decepticon in this cell as he did in the medberth. Though judging by the lack of filth, they probably hosed the cell down every now and again.
“Not anymore,” Deadlock finally said as his gaze drifted back to Ratchet, admiring the swollen plump of his lips. He, unfortunately, couldn’t ogle Ratchet’s well-used and uncovered array without arousing suspicion. “Get some rest.”
“What do you mean?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock didn’t answer.
He let himself out of the cell, locked it behind him, and lingered for a moment, watching Ratchet through the metal bars. They didn’t bother to electrify them. Ratchet had nowhere to go even if he did somehow orchestrate an escape.
The Autobot stared back, echoes of the mech Deadlock remembered in the set of his jaw, the slight square of his shoulders. He clutched the moistened meshcloth like a lifeline. He was clearly tense, waiting for the other bolt to drop.
Good.
Deadlock left him there and went to the security station, staffed by a bored mech and a wall of darkened monitors, save one which showed the interior of Ratchet’s cell. Deadlock pinged the database for an identifier -- Charger -- and addressed the viridian mech directly, purposefully pitching his vocals a bit too loud.
Loud enough to echo all the way back to Ratchet in his cell.
“If anyone comes down here, let them know the Autobot is off limits,” Deadlock said. “He’s not to be removed from his cell.”
Charger sat forward, feet hitting the ground. “The frag?” he asked. “When did that happen?”
“Just now.” Deadlock planted his hand on his hip, thumb resting on the grip of his blaster. “If anyone protests, direct them to me. If they ignore you and try to take him anyway, comm me. Understood?”
Charger looked him up and down, and Deadlock felt the questioning ping seconds before Charger’s faceplate paled, and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Deadlock turned, glancing back in the direction of Ratchet’s cell, but it was silent, and the monitor showed Ratchet had started dabbing at his face, cleaning the rest of the accumulated mess.
It was a good start.
Now Deadlock would leave the medic simmer and come to his own conclusions.
~
Everything ached.
It was the kind of dull, persistent ache Ratchet thought he’d grown accustomed to, but could never fully escape. If he moved, he ached. If he was still, he ached. If he tried to recharge, the pain would follow him over, infecting his stasis.
His very existence was pain, and Ratchet honestly did not know how much more of it he could take.
Which made Deadlock’s kindness all the more suspect. And Ratchet used the term “kindness” loosely. Just because Deadlock had stopped the newest rape session in the medical bay and offered Ratchet a measly damp cloth, did not mean he was kind. It meant, in all likelihood, that he’d won some reward from Megatron for his service, and he didn’t like his rewards well-used and filthy.
Still.
Ratchet was not one to ignore an opportunity when it was given. He wiped his face, scraping the dried transfluid from the corners of his mouth. He sopped up the sticky trails of fluid on his thighs and aft. He cleaned up the worst of what lingered around his valve, though so much as touching the swollen pleats made him grit his denta as the white-hot agony of it flared back to life.
He was not, by any means, presentable. He was still unclean. He did not feel any better.
He balled up the thoroughly dirtied meshcloth and tossed it into the furthest corner of his cell. He curled on his side, back to the bars of his cell and the camera in the ceiling, and stared at the wall.
The long days -- Months? Years? Decades? -- of captivity had gotten to him. It had taken too long to recognize the mech who pulled him from the medbay. He should have realized it, judging by the way the Decepticons deferred to him, some backing off with fear spiking in their fields. Fear which was, in Ratchet’s opinion, largely preferable to the overwhelming stench of their lust.
He should have recognized Deadlock immediately. The mech had a well-earned reputation for his violent tendencies, his lack of mercy, his abnormally high death count. Ratchet had never gotten anyone in his medbay who’d survived an encounter with Deadlock -- he’d only seen what was left of them.
Deadlock was not a mech with a reputation for kindness.
And yet.
Ratchet worked his intake and stared harder at the wall. He didn’t see the point in it. Not in Deadlock’s so-called kindness or his own functioning. It had been so long since his capture, since Ironhide and Bluestreak’s deaths, he doubted rescue. If the Autobots knew where he was, they’d have come by now. If they didn’t already think him dead.
He might as well be dead.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option. They’d hobbled him. They’d collared him. They’d put an inhibitor claw on him. They watched him too closely.
Ratchet belonged to the Decepticons until they grew tired of him, and that was the truth of things.
He cycled a ventilation, shuttered his optics, and tried to power down for a stasis nap. He doubted he’d get more than an hour in before someone showed up to make use of him. Skywarp was a frequent visitor, and it was getting close to his usual routine. But half a stasis nap was better than none when it came to forestalling inevitable glitches.
Which made it all the more surprising when he onlined after a solid, full recharge cycle without having been disturbed.
Ratchet’s processor was groggy and out of sorts, struggling to connect to his active queue. He woke up aching, everything aching, overheated from his repair nanites working more than overtime to fix some of the damage caused by the repeated assaults.
He hadn’t completed a full recharge cycle since the start of the war.
Ratchet sat up, confused. If it weren’t for the stench of interfacing still clinging to his frame, and the residual ache in his valve and jaw, he’d have thought he were in the midst of a dream. But he wasn’t.
Minutes ticked by. Then hours.
No one came for him. No Decepticons showed up to leer at him, to tell him in great detail all the ways he was of use for the Decepticon use, to taunt him with the fact the Autobots had made no efforts to rescue him. Hook had not arrived to drag him to the medbay, technically to make use of his medical skills, but to bend him over a medberth more often than not.
Neither did Megatron appear to demand his services.
Ratchet was on the verge of standing up and calling out to the guard for an explanation, because the waiting was worse than being used, when he heard footsteps approaching. He wasn’t sure who to expect -- Hook, perhaps. He was the likeliest candidate.
Deadlock stepped into view, carrying a cube of energon that looked to be mid-grade. “Recharge well?” He offered the energon through the bars.
Ratchet squinted, but he stood to accept the cube nonetheless. He’d stopped being suspicious and scanning the cube some days -- Months? Years? -- back. Sometimes they were spiked, sometimes they weren’t. It was never something that would kill him. It didn’t matter.
“What do you want?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock looked him up and down, but there was no heat in his optics. “You’re filthy.” He unlocked the door. “Come on.”
The door swung open. Deadlock held out a hand, but made no effort to come into the cell and pull Ratchet from it.
Did he actually want Ratchet to come to him? That was new.
Ratchet sighed. “And who wants my services this time?” He gripped his energon like a lifeline, popped the seal, and took a heavy swig in between questions. Fast enough to finish it without causing his tank to upset.
He’d learned how much the Decepticons liked to taunt him with fuel just for fun.
“No one,” Deadlock said. His hand remained offered.
Ratchet took another gulp and edged out of his cell. Deadlock took his arm in much the same way he did yesterday, though his grip wasn’t unnecessarily firm or bruising. It was matter of fact. He made no attempt to grope Ratchet.
“What are you doing?” Ratchet asked, pointlessly. Deadlock had yet to answer that question.
Deadlock towed him out of the prison and across the hall, an assault on Ratchet’s optics as they moved from the dim prison to the bright corridor. The smell of solvent and polish hit Ratchet’s sensors a few seconds before Deadlock pushed open a door to reveal a public washrack with several, unoccupied stalls.
“Clean up.” Deadlock released his arm and gestured to the racks. “Take all the time you need.”
Ah.
Deadlock was one of the fastidious ones.
Ratchet finished his energon, handed the empty back to his current jailer, and went to the furthest stall. It would, technically, put him out of sight from Deadlock, but the Decepticon didn’t protest. He didn’t try to join Ratchet in the stall or ogle him either -- which was usually the payment extracted for letting Ratchet clean himself.
For several long, long minutes, Ratchet had a semblance of peace. Maybe even privacy. He couldn’t see any cameras, which didn’t mean there weren’t any, only that he couldn’t see them. He peeked out and saw Deadlock standing in the doorway, looking into the hall, one hand on his blaster as though ensuring Ratchet would have privacy.
Fastidious and possessive. Well, he wouldn’t be the first.
Ratchet scrubbed himself raw, taking advantage of the universal supplies. He scrubbed out his seams, his joints, he rinsed out his mouth and even though it was painful, he sprayed out his valve as well, grimacing as old transfluid sloughed out of him.
“They told me you brought him here.”
“And?”
“And I want my turn with the shareware!”
The raised voices echoed a little too well in the washrack. Ratchet edged to the end of the wall and peered around it. Deadlock stood toe to toe with a Decepticon who was half-again his height. Ratchet’s internals went icy-cold.
Black Shadow was rarely aboard the Nemesis, but when he was, he delighted in exploring a variety of creative tortures on Ratchet. Blackshadow cared less about the fragging, and more about the sadism, delighting in seeing how quickly or loudly he could make Ratchet scream.
Worse, Blackshadow tended to have plenty of uninterrupted time with Ratchet because few mechs were willing to go against him for a turn. Only Megatron or one of the other commanders had the authority.
“No,” Deadlock said.
Black Shadow loomed over him, optics dark like coal-fire, large and imposing, but everything in Deadlock’s posture was lazy and unconcerned. He went so far as to effect a yawn and pick at his talons.
“No!?” Black Shadow’s outrage was a loud, tangible thing. “Who are you to fragging tell me what I can and can’t do?” He pointed in Ratchet’s direction, and Ratchet hurriedly ducked back into the stall. “I want it.”
“We don’t always get what we want,” Deadlock said, his tone completely mild. “Go away, Black Shadow. It would be embarrassing if I had to kill you right here.”
Black Shadow made an inarticulate noise of anger. His engine growled loud enough to echo into the washrack. Ratchet had no idea what Deadlock did, but the next sound was Black Shadow stomping away, because no one came into the washrack to drag Ratchet out of it.
He finished cleaning up as quickly as possible, and toweled off with the same speed. The washracks were filled with steam, and he kept his audials cocked for the slightest sound. He heard no further altercations, and every time the glanced toward Deadlock, the Decepticon was peering lazily into the hallway, a hand on one of his blasters.
Ratchet avoided the mirror. He was clean, but still bare, and aware of how ready-to-use he now presented.
He wasn’t clean at all.
Ratchet tossed the damp towel toward the bin in the corner and dragged his feet to rejoin Deadlock. What would it be, he wondered. Would he spend the evening on his knees? On his face? On his back?
Did it matter?
Deadlock straightened as Ratchet stepped within arm’s reach. He looked Ratchet up and down without a word before he nodded and took Ratchet by the arm. He pulled Ratchet across the hallway, right back to the prison.
“You got me clean so you could frag me in my cell?”
“I have no interest in fragging you,” Deadlock said.
Ratchet’s optics narrowed. He let himself be led, past the leering Decepticon at the guardstation, and back to his cell. The closest thing he had to home these days.
“Why?” Ratchet demanded.
He hated not knowing. He’d rather get the fragging over with so he wouldn’t have to worry about when it would come. It was worse when he was clean and rested and a bit repaired.
Maybe that was the point.
Deadlock didn’t answer him. He kept his silence until Ratchet was safely ensconced in his cell once more. The door was locked, and Deadlock stood on the other side of the bars, peering through them at Ratchet. He stood there for several ventilations, staring, until his lips curved into a little smile.
“It’s such a shame,” he said. “I thought you’d recognize me by now.”
“You’re Deadlock.” Ratchet sat on his cot and stared back at Deadlock. He didn’t know what game the Decepticon was playing, but he wasn’t amused. “I know who you are.”
“You know who I was, too.” Deadlock’s smile broadened at the edges. “Once upon a time you told me I had the potential to be something special, but I guess you told all the half-dead leakers that.”
Ratchet stared at Deadlock, running the words through his memory banks, until the echoes of them pinged back a memory. It was from before the war when he’d worked at Dead End’s clinic, donating his time in a vain effort to save the dregs of Cybertronian society. He started out encouraging all the mechs he saved, until reality caught up to him, and eventually, he stopped bothering.
“Turns out, Drift made something of himself after all,” Deadlock said once the silence grew too heavy between them. He tipped forward in an elaborate bow. “Nice to see you again, doc.”
Drift.
Ratchet paged through his databanks until the designation brought up a moment in time, a handsome leaker who had potential like all the others, but nowhere to direct his passion. The image was grainy in his memory banks, but he recalled the half-starved frame, the filth caking the seams, the daze of a mech who’d half-fried his processor on stims, desperately searching for something to give him meaning.
Apparently, he’d found it in Megatron and the Decepticons.
“Drift,” Ratchet echoed, this time with recognition in his vocals. “In better circumstances, I’d be glad to see you again, too.”
“Better circumstances.” Deadlock looked all around the confines of Ratchet’s cell, eyeing the thickness of the bars, the distance between them. “It’s a role reversal, isn’t it?”
Was it revenge? Did that explain Deadlock’s behavior? Was he waiting to build Ratchet up so he could tear him down all over again?
“So it would seem,” Ratchet said. He pressed his knees together, acutely aware that his interface array was bare and visible. It suddenly felt unseemly despite the fact Deadlock had seen him pinned beneath the Constructicons the day before.
Deadlock smiled at him, and there was something soft in it, something that almost reminded him of Drift. “It’s my turn to help you,” he said, and then he rapped his knuckles on the bars. “Get some recharge, Ratchet. You look like you could use more.”
“Help me?” Ratchet echoed, stammering on the words, but Deadlock had no answer for him.
He turned and walked away while Ratchet’s processor stuttered on the revelation and the implications therein. He’d saved a mech who turned out to be one of the most violent Decepticons, who’d left so many guttering sparks on Ratchet’s operating table. And now that mech was… protecting him?
“Black Shadow made threats.” Deadlock’s voice floated back down the hall. “Do I need to remind you of the circumstances of Ratchet’s confinement?”
“No, sir.” The guard’s voice was softer, and it wavered. Clearly, he feared Deadlock. “Ratchet’s under your protection. I remember.”
“He’s mine,” Deadlock said, the growl echoing back to Ratchet. “No one touches him. And if I find out someone has, I’m blaming you.”
Deadlock’s footsteps departed the prison, the echoes of his threat lingering. Ratchet sat on his berth, processor whirling.
One good deed from centuries ago might be what saves him now. It was almost too good to be true, too much to be believed.
But Ratchet was clean. He was fueled. And clearly, Deadlock had staked some kind of claim.
Whether or not it would be respected was another matter entirely.
~
Deadlock went back to his habsuite and relaxed for the first time since boarding the Nemesis. Ensuring Lord Megatron’s plans were on the right course had taken every moment of the last couple of days, but now that all the pieces were in place, he could cycle a ventilation.
He powered on his workstation, logged into the system, and brought up the surveillance feed from Ratchet’s cell. The medic had curled up on the berth once more, back to the bars, facing the wall. He appeared to be attempting to recharge.
Good.
One or two more cycles of uninterrupted recharge would make Ratchet think he was safe. It would be proof of Deadlock’s protection. Of course, he’d need a few more demonstrations, but this was a mission of patience and subtlety, not speed and chaos.
Every little step was as important as the larger picture.
Maybe, when it was all said and done, Deadlock would still get to frag Ratchet. He just wouldn’t have to hold the medic down to do it.
Mmm. Now there was a thought. Ratchet riding his spike willingly? Ratchet dropping to his knees and eagerly sucking down Deadlock’s spill? He’d look good on his knees, where he belonged. He’d look even better painted in Deadlock’s transfluid.
Deadlock’s engine revved.
He kept the feed pulled up. While he’d publicly staked his claim, there were still mechs who’d push their luck. Deadlock couldn’t inform the crew of Lord Megatron’s plan or it wouldn’t work. Their behavior had to be genuine in order for Ratchet to believe it. Which meant Deadlock had to actually keep an optic out, and be prepared to intervene for the inevitable moment someone decided to push their luck.
Ratchet recharged.
Deadlock watched. He put a motion sensor trigger on the feed so that if Ratchet moved, or someone approached the cell, he’d get a notification, and then Deadlock let himself recharge, too.
He’d give Ratchet a handful of shift cycles without being disturbed, and then he’d move into the next phase of the plan.
It was all a matter of patience.
~
Several cycles passed.
Ratchet was left in peace. He recharged without being disturbed. No one came for him. No one dragged him to the medbay. No one visited his cell for a little one on one action. He wasn’t summoned by Megatron.
Perhaps Deadlock’s protection was sincere. Maybe it actually meant something.
His frame healed, little by little, repair nanites working feverishly now that they were able to focus on their tasks without having to redirect to some new damage. The daily ache in his entire frame shifted to being localized, and then it eased to an occasional throb when he moved.
He recharged.
Sometimes, when he onlined, there was a cube of energon or a decanter of coolant waiting just inside the doorway to his cell. Whoever brought them had made every effort not to disturb Ratchet, hadn’t ventured any further inside save to leave the fluids before locking the door once more.
For several cycles, Ratchet’s worst issue was boredom. And suspicion. How long would this reprieve last? It wasn’t the first time he’d been left alone, only for Megatron to summon him when he was at his most optimistic. Those were the times Megatron had something particularly nasty planned.
Ratchet started to pace.
Rested and refueled, he had an abundance of energy and nowhere to place it. The confines of his cell wrapped around him, reminding him of his predicament. It was easier to tolerate when he was in pain, exhausted, and half out of his mind with delirium. Now, almost one-hundred percent recovered, it was a renewed torture.
Deadlock showed up sometime around Ratchet’s two-hundredth route around his cell. He stood on the other side of the bars, his face assembled into something that resembled apology.
“You look better,” he said.
“Uninterrupted recharge helps.” Ratchet approached the bars, close enough he could reach between them if he wanted. Not that he did.
Deadlock nodded slowly. “What else?”
“Going home,” Ratchet supplied because why not. It didn’t hurt to ask for an impossibility.
“That’s not something I can do yet.” Deadlock’s gaze traced the perimeters of the cell. “Try again.”
Ratchet crossed his arms, chuffing a ventilation. “Fine. I’m bored.”
“Now that I can help fix.” Deadlock smiled at him, slow and careful, almost shyly if Ratchet had to describe the curve of his lips. As if he was trying to conceal the sharp fangs Drift hadn’t bore. “Let me see what I can do.”
He turned to go, and Ratchet swallowed down the urge to ask him to stay, if only because he was company who did not immediately demand Ratchet get on his knees or spread his legs.
Ratchet sighed and went back to his bunk, slumping down onto it. The boredom came back with a vengeance, so he fiddled with his fingers, trying to scrape out the accumulated gunk that the rinse in the washracks had missed. He didn’t have access to his manipulators, but it was a decent distraction at the least.
He heard footsteps as Deadlock returned, and Ratchet’s spark performed a completely unnecessary flip-flop of relief. He looked up and stood, ready to see what Deadlock had brought him for entertainment, only for ice to dredge though his lines.
Cutthroat stared back at him through the bars, grinning, his talons clicking across the metal as he worked the key into the lock. “Hello, Ratchet,” he purred as Ratchet unconsciously took a step back, though there was nowhere to go. “Miss me?”
No.
Absolutely not.
Ratchet bared his denta, hands forming his fists. There were few Decepticons he actively attempted to dissuade, and Cutthroat was one of them. Rape wasn’t good enough for Cutthroat, no. He liked to hurt. To rip and tear. He’d rendered Ratchet unconscious on more than one occasion, sending him to Hook’s merciless care every time.
“Frag off!” Ratchet snarled as the door swung open with a metallic creak, and Cutthroat wedged himself inside, nearly too large to fit into the cell.
He wasn’t one to care about dragging Ratchet elsewhere.
Cutthroat chuckled. “That’s exactly what I plan to do,” he said before he lunged, and there was nowhere for Ratchet to go.
He ineffectually threw a punch, but Cutthroat snatched his wrist, squeezing tight enough to make several struts bend and one snap. Pain lanced through Ratchet’s right arm as Cutthroat yanked him forward. Ratchet tried to claw at his intake with his other hand and stars danced in his optics as Cutthroat backhanded him.
He staggered, processor reeling, only to jerk to sharp awareness as Cutthroat spun him toward the berth and twisted his arm behind his back. Ratchet’s shattered wrist sent pulses of agony through his arm, and his shoulder echoed the pain as it was wrenched to the limits of his flexibility.
Ratchet slapped his free hand on the berth, all that saved him from smacking his face into the rough surface of it. Cutthroat kicked his legs apart, wedging his massive frame between Ratchet’s thighs.
“Get off me!” Ratchet snarled, his vocals reaching a panicked pitch. He struggled in Cutthroat's grip, but the Decepticon shoved his wrist up higher, and Ratchet’s shoulder shrieked at him.
“Be still,” Cutthroat said, his ventilations already hot and unsteady as he vented down at Ratchet. He smacked Ratchet again, the heavy weight of his hand addling Ratchet’s processor. “You know it’s easier if you’re still.”
Ratchet tried to push himself away from the berth with his free hand, but Cutthroat grabbed it and pinned it against his back with the other. He only needed one hand to hold both of Ratchet’s wrists, which left the other free to pin Ratchet’s head down to the berth. He used the weight of his frame against Ratchet’s head, and it was a terrifying pressure, the thinner plates creaking as they struggled to bear the mass.
The blunt pressure of a spike nudged against Ratchet’s bared valve, and damn Deadlock. Damn him for letting Ratchet heal up enough to make this particularly brutal, for his valve to cycle back to fully functional just in time for Cutthroat of all mechs to use him.
“That’s better,” Cutthroat purred as he rocked against Ratchet’s valve, smearing pre-fluid all over his folds and aft.
The head of his spike poked at Ratchet’s valve, grinding against the opening, and Ratchet ground his denta, loosing a ragged ventilation. His fans whined, try as he might not to show his fear, but he reeked of it. There was no bracing, but Ratchet squeezed his optics shut anyway.
“Get off him!”
The weight abruptly vanished from Ratchet’s back, and he gasped as Cutthroat’s hands lost their grip on his wrists, but not before tugging his arms nearly from their sockets. Ratchet collapsed forward, shoulders in agony, but forcing motion into his knees and feet, away from where Cutthroat should have been behind him, but wasn’t anymore.
He pressed himself into the corner, cradling his fractured wrist, optics wide as Deadlock slammed Cutthroat into the bars -- twice -- and then punched him solidly in the face. While he was yet reeling, Deadlock shoved him out of the open door. Cutthroat stumbled and fell, Deadlock descending on him again, talons out, raking heavy furrows into the thinnest parts of Cutthroat’s armor.
Energon splattered out, the stench of it thick in the air.
“Ratchet is mine!” Deadlock snarled as he attacked, each blow meant to hurt, but not kill, as he sliced through cables and sensitive junctions, while Cutthroat tried and failed to defend himself. “Don’t touch him again!”
Cutthroat howled with pain, the distinct whine of a cannon cycling up rising through the noisy violence, but before Cutthroat could fumble for his weapon, Deadlock had a blaster aimed at his face, the ready-lights gleaming brightly.
“This is your only warning,” Deadlock said, perched over him, blaster ready to fire and talons dripping energon. “Next time, I’ll take your spike.”
“Let me up!” Cutthroat snapped, though his field leaked a fear as acrid as Ratchet’s own. He had twice the mass on Deadlock, but it was hard to ignore a blaster pressed to your forehead, ready to splatter your processor across the floor.
The blaster whined as if desperate to release its charge. “Say it,” Deadlock growled.
“Frag you!” Cutthroat snarled, but the energon had drained from his facial derma, and there was no hiding the reek of fear in his field. “You want that piece of shareware, you can have it.”
The smack of metal on metal made Ratchet flinch, while Cutthroat howled, the grip of Deadlock’s blaster leaving a thick furrow over Cutthroat’s cheek. He narrowly escaped losing an optic.
“Go.” Deadlock’s tone was ice-cold, finger still on the trigger, gesturing with it. “Now.”
Cutthroat scrambled to his feet and scurried down the hall. If he’d been a predacon, his tail would’ve been tucked between his legs. He cast a murderous glare over his shoulder, but Deadlock seemed unperturbed.
He thumbed off his blaster and holstered it.
Ratchet felt no relief in watching Cutthroat flee. “He’ll be back,” he said as Deadlock eased into the cell, though he hovered in the doorway, his face an unreadable mask.
“Then next time, I’ll kill him,” Deadlock said. He cocked his head, optics scanning a quick flick over Ratchet’s frame. “How injured are you?”
“Does it matter?” Ratchet snapped. He sagged into the corner, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll heal. I always heal.”
Deadlock inched closer, but when Ratchet flinched, he stopped and dropped into a crouch instead. He braced his elbows on his knees, head cocked.
“That should not have happened. I apologize,” he said. “I think it would be better if I moved you to a more secure location.”
Ah, there it was.
“And where would that be?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock twisted one wrist, his shoulders rolling in a shrug. “My quarters. No one has that access code but myself. Soundwave. Lord Megatron, of course.” He vented a quiet sigh. “My influence does not extend to Lord Megatron, I’m afraid.”
Ratchet wished he were surprised.
Still.
He gnawed on the offer. He stared at Deadlock, who stared back at him unflinching.
Ratchet had been shareware for whomever in the crew wanted him once they’d left the base and Megatron took up position on the Nemesis. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to only have to submit to one mech? Deadlock seemed keen on treating him as a pet rather than a toy.
And Ratchet had a better chance of surviving under Deadlock’s ownership. Deadlock might slip up, give him access to a console or a workstation. He could find a way to broadcast something to the Autobots, if not for a rescue, at least to inform them where the Decepticon warship liked to make its berth.
“It’ll be easier to keep you safe,” Deadlock said as he looked around the room, nasal ridge wrinkling. “More comfortable, too.”
“Megatron won’t approve,” Ratchet said.
Deadlock shook his head and gave Ratchet a fanged grin. “Lord Megatron’s the one who gave you to me.” He paused and then ducked his head, rubbing the back of it. “I mean, not that you’re a thing to be owned.”
Except for the fact Ratchet clearly was.
He left that comment alone.
Ratchet cycled a ventilation. He didn’t think he had a choice either way. He could stay in this cell, and hope Deadlock’s offer of protection was genuine for the next time Cutthroat decided to venture down here, or one of the Constructicons decided they missed him in the medbay. Or he could willingly take his chances with Deadlock.
“Fine,” Ratchet said.
Deadlock’s grin was almost puppy-like for it’s joy. He stood and offered a hand down to Ratchet. “No time like the present.”
A better time would’ve been ten minutes earlier, before Cutthroat almost raped him again, and most certainly fractured his ulnar strut.
Ratchet took the hand and let Deadlock pull him to his feet, where he swayed at the sudden surge of motion. His shoulders ached. His face throbbed, derma sure to swell after both of Cutthroat’s open palm slaps.
Primus, he was exhausted.
“Do you want me to get one of the medics, or would you rather take care of yourself?” Deadlock asked.
“No one’s fragging touching me,” Ratchet growled. His knees, however, betrayed him, and he wobbled, leaning heavily on Deadlock’s side.
Damn if the mech wasn’t warm, his engine idling at a gentle enough vibration to soothe the anxiety rattling around Ratchet’s lines.
“Fair,” Deadlock said. “Come on, doc. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
Ratchet bit his glossa on the snide reply. That so long as he was aboard the Nemesis, no place was safe, no matter what Deadlock tried to convince him of.
He didn’t trust Deadlock at all, but belonging to the vicious killer was better than the alternative, so Ratchet let Deadlock pull him out of the cell. He limped along with the Decepticon as they exited the prison and headed toward what Ratchet could only assume were Deadlock’s private quarters.
It might be better; it might be worse, but enough was enough. It might also be Ratchet’s only opportunity to escape.
Or die trying.
****
Universe: TF AU, Null and Void series
Characters: Deadlock, Megatron, Ratchet
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: on and off-screen rape, sticky sexual interfacing, Lima Syndrome, Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator
Description: Deadlock is given a task by Lord Megatron to restore the shine to his favorite Autobot trophy, but no one is prepared for what it’s going to cost, least of all Deadlock himself.
Commission for Anonymous.
Subterfuge had never been one of Deadlock’s specialties. Such tasks were better suited for Soundwave and his army of cassettes or Barricade’s infiltration team.
Deadlock was better at destroying things.
Case in point, the Autobot supply depot on Omicron Six, a moon orbiting a planet in the Andares cluster. They thought it was spectacularly hidden, and had been stashing energon and ammunition there for decades.
It was amusing to let them think it was a secret, to get more confident in their ploy, until they’d built up a nice cache Deadlock was more than happy to relieve them of. With violent, brute force.
Deadlock and his team reunited with the Decepticon flagship with their hold full of stolen Autobot materials, and a one-hundred percent kill count for all those stationed at Omicron Six. Survivors? What survivors? Deadlock didn’t bother with survivors.
He expected a new mission.
He wasn’t prepared for the one Megatron handed him.
Deadlock heard the commotion before he even arrived at the medbay. The doors were wide open, and the jeering floated out into the corridor. He sidled into the doorway, not intending to make his presence immediately known, to assess the current state of affairs.
He leaned against the frame, arms folded across his chassis, and watched.
The red and white frame, dirtied by filth and dried transfluid, was a memory from centuries past, even buried as it was by the enormous bulk of one of the Constructicons – Long Haul perhaps. Deadlock never bothered to learn which was which. Said Constructicon eagerly thrust into the resisting frame beneath him, the pace of his thrusts hinting of a mech about to overload, while his massive hands squeezed his victim’s hips, causing them to creak.
The medbay was far too small for the crowd gathered to watch the spectacle, and quite of few of them were stroking their interface panels as though they intended to take a turn as well. Unfortunately for them, Megatron had other plans for the Autobot, and Deadlock was here to see those plans fulfilled.
“Don’t frag him too hard, ‘Crusher,” said one of the other Constructicons, Deadlock didn’t know which. “I don’t want him too loose for my turn.”
A violent thrust drove the whimpering Autobot down into the medberth. “He was loose before I got to him,” the Constructicon -- Bonecrusher, not Long Haul apparently -- grunted. “Blame Long Haul.”
“Who cares? Just hurry the frag up,” the mech demanded.
Bonecrusher slammed forward a handful more times before he stilled, engine roaring, head tossing back. His hips gave several sharp jerks, and then he abruptly pulled back, spike in one hand. It pulsed several thick, heavy spurts, striping the back of the Autobot’s thighs and aft, to join the spill leaking from the swollen valve.
Satisfaction poured from Bonecrusher in waves. He slapped the Autobot’s aft with a ring of metal on metal and stepped away, barking, “Next!”
With the large Constructicon out of the way, the Autobot’s face was visible, as were his bound hands, wrenched behind his back and held in place with a pair of magna cuffs. For a second, Deadlock remembered a moment of kindness, a gruff assurance that he was made for better things, and then it was gone again.
Ratchet didn’t move save to sag into the berth, feet flattening against the floor. His fingers were limp. His armor was filthy, scraped and covered in paint streaks, evidence of transfluid caking his seams. There was a drying spurt across his face, thick in the corners of his lips. He’d been well used before Deadlock’s arrival.
Deadlock unfortunately wouldn’t get the same opportunity apparently every other Decepticon aboard the Nemesis had been afforded. He had a much more important mission.
Ratchet didn’t make a sound. Not even when another Constructicon moved in to take Bonecrusher’s place. His gaze went dull, glassy with resignation, submitting without a fuss as a hand reaching for his face, no doubt intending to make use of his mouth.
Time to move.
Deadlock pushed off the door frame, rested one hand on his right holster, and waded into the crowd. “That’s enough.”
The Decepticons who saw him immediately moved out of the way. A hush preceded him until Deadlock was within reach of the Construction who already had his spike out, poised to sink into Ratchet’s well-used valve.
“Wait your turn,” he snarled without looking at Deadlock.
He rocked his hips forward, only to freeze when Deadlock aimed right at his interface array, spike in center-target.
“I said,” Deadlock repeated, “that’s enough.”
Deadlock very pointedly did not look at Ratchet. He looked up at the Constructicon, chin lifted, waiting to see if the mech would challenge him. Judging by the recognition gleaming in the Constructicon’s visor, however, he would not.
Instead, he stepped back, one hand raised, the other trying to tuck his spike away, though it seemed unwilling to listen. “Apologies, Commander. Didn’t realize it was your turn.”
“It’s not.” Deadlock spun the blaster around his fingers and tucked it away. “I’m here to escort the prisoner back to his cell.”
Grumbles rippled through the crowd behind him. Dissatisfaction rose in heavy waves, especially from the mechs who hadn’t had their turn. They would simply have to find their pleasure elsewhere.
Deadlock turned and arched an orbital ridge, one hand tapping the blaster on his hip. “Does anyone have a problem with that? Perhaps you’d like to address me directly?” He grinned, lips curled back over his sharpened denta.
Those closest took a few steps back, hands up. Others in the fringe muttered subvocally and started easing out of the medbay.
“It’s nice to meet some reasonable mechs.” Deadlock winked at the nearest Constructicon. The mech sneered at him, but that was as far as his courage would take him.
Wise mech.
Now for Ratchet.
The Autobot hadn’t moved. Not to close his panels or shift to get more comfortable. His optics were unshuttered, hazy as they watched the proceedings.
He said nothing when Deadlock grabbed his upper arm and pulled him off the medberth. Ratchet wobbled on unsteady knees, transfluid seeping out of his valve -- mixed with a fair share of energon. They’d used him enough to abrade his lining.
Tch.
What was the point of ruining a toy to the point it couldn’t be used again? No wonder Megatron had decided on a different approach.
“Let’s go,” Deadlock said, hand firmly wrapped around Ratchet’s upper arm, the thrum of the medic’s frame dull beneath his haptic sensors.
He started for the door, tugging the stumbling Autobot along, and those Decepticons still lingering in the medbay parted to make room.
One of them muttered something about never getting a turn, but was immediately shushed by another. Deadlock didn’t have to spare a vent for a grin. Maybe the average footsoldier was getting smarter.
They waited until he was down the hall, burden in his wake, before the grumbling started. Maybe they thought he couldn’t hear them, but their complaints were loud and clear. As if there wasn’t entertainment enough to be found.
Deadlock grinned.
They were all going to be very disappointed once they learned they no longer had an Autobot toy at their disposal.
“What are you doing?” Ratchet asked as Deadlock pulled him into the nearest lift and jabbed the button to take them down to the holding cells.
“Returning you to your cell,” Deadlock said.
Ratchet wobbled on his feet, half-slumping against the wall of the lift, but he didn’t try to pull free of Deadlock’s grip. Resignation layered over every inch of him, from the sag in his seams, the slump of his shoulders, and the dim flicker of his optics.
Distaste wound its way through Deadlock’s spark. What use was a trophy which no longer shined? What fun was a toy when it no longer struggled?
“Why?” Ratchet’s vocals were rough, a rasp torn from his intake. He made no move to wipe away the transfluid caked in the corners of his mouth.
Deadlock didn’t answer him.
The lift stopped and deposited them on one of the lower levels. Deadlock tightened his grip on Ratchet’s arm and pulled the larger mech with him. Ratchet stumbled, fell against him briefly. His frame ran hot -- too hot to be healthy -- and he stank of interfacing and transfluid and overloads. He reeked of surrender.
Deadlock pushed Ratchet back upright. His hand didn’t linger. As much as he’d have liked to sample the medic, he had higher standards. He certainly didn’t want a pet so used and filthy.
Not that he was going to get his chance either way. Damn.
Ratchet staggered after him, and his shuffling grew more pronounced the closer they got to his cell. The prison was largely unoccupied, Deadlock noted. It seemed Megatron had stopped bothering with taking prisoners, too.
Good.
Fatigue wreathed Ratchet from every angle, but he still managed to look at Deadlock with something approximating confusion when Deadlock deposited Ratchet within his cell and on the narrow cot serving as his recharge berth. Deadlock removed the magna-cuffs, tucking them away, and produced a mesh cloth from his subspace, pre-dampened with solvent.
“You might want to get cleaned up,” Deadlock suggested as he offered it to Ratchet, keeping his tone carefully neutral. A generous mech might even detect a note of concern, though he was careful not to play his hand too soon.
He needed Ratchet to believe in his sincerity.
“Why bother?” Ratchet took the cloth despite the exhausted mutter and dabbed at his face. “They’re just going to get me filthy all over again.”
Deadlock took a step back and eyed the tiny confines of Ratchet’s cell. There wasn’t much to see -- Ratchet had the cot and very little else. Hooks and rings bolted into the walls suggested Ratchet spent as much time beneath a Decepticon in this cell as he did in the medberth. Though judging by the lack of filth, they probably hosed the cell down every now and again.
“Not anymore,” Deadlock finally said as his gaze drifted back to Ratchet, admiring the swollen plump of his lips. He, unfortunately, couldn’t ogle Ratchet’s well-used and uncovered array without arousing suspicion. “Get some rest.”
“What do you mean?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock didn’t answer.
He let himself out of the cell, locked it behind him, and lingered for a moment, watching Ratchet through the metal bars. They didn’t bother to electrify them. Ratchet had nowhere to go even if he did somehow orchestrate an escape.
The Autobot stared back, echoes of the mech Deadlock remembered in the set of his jaw, the slight square of his shoulders. He clutched the moistened meshcloth like a lifeline. He was clearly tense, waiting for the other bolt to drop.
Good.
Deadlock left him there and went to the security station, staffed by a bored mech and a wall of darkened monitors, save one which showed the interior of Ratchet’s cell. Deadlock pinged the database for an identifier -- Charger -- and addressed the viridian mech directly, purposefully pitching his vocals a bit too loud.
Loud enough to echo all the way back to Ratchet in his cell.
“If anyone comes down here, let them know the Autobot is off limits,” Deadlock said. “He’s not to be removed from his cell.”
Charger sat forward, feet hitting the ground. “The frag?” he asked. “When did that happen?”
“Just now.” Deadlock planted his hand on his hip, thumb resting on the grip of his blaster. “If anyone protests, direct them to me. If they ignore you and try to take him anyway, comm me. Understood?”
Charger looked him up and down, and Deadlock felt the questioning ping seconds before Charger’s faceplate paled, and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Deadlock turned, glancing back in the direction of Ratchet’s cell, but it was silent, and the monitor showed Ratchet had started dabbing at his face, cleaning the rest of the accumulated mess.
It was a good start.
Now Deadlock would leave the medic simmer and come to his own conclusions.
Everything ached.
It was the kind of dull, persistent ache Ratchet thought he’d grown accustomed to, but could never fully escape. If he moved, he ached. If he was still, he ached. If he tried to recharge, the pain would follow him over, infecting his stasis.
His very existence was pain, and Ratchet honestly did not know how much more of it he could take.
Which made Deadlock’s kindness all the more suspect. And Ratchet used the term “kindness” loosely. Just because Deadlock had stopped the newest rape session in the medical bay and offered Ratchet a measly damp cloth, did not mean he was kind. It meant, in all likelihood, that he’d won some reward from Megatron for his service, and he didn’t like his rewards well-used and filthy.
Still.
Ratchet was not one to ignore an opportunity when it was given. He wiped his face, scraping the dried transfluid from the corners of his mouth. He sopped up the sticky trails of fluid on his thighs and aft. He cleaned up the worst of what lingered around his valve, though so much as touching the swollen pleats made him grit his denta as the white-hot agony of it flared back to life.
He was not, by any means, presentable. He was still unclean. He did not feel any better.
He balled up the thoroughly dirtied meshcloth and tossed it into the furthest corner of his cell. He curled on his side, back to the bars of his cell and the camera in the ceiling, and stared at the wall.
The long days -- Months? Years? Decades? -- of captivity had gotten to him. It had taken too long to recognize the mech who pulled him from the medbay. He should have realized it, judging by the way the Decepticons deferred to him, some backing off with fear spiking in their fields. Fear which was, in Ratchet’s opinion, largely preferable to the overwhelming stench of their lust.
He should have recognized Deadlock immediately. The mech had a well-earned reputation for his violent tendencies, his lack of mercy, his abnormally high death count. Ratchet had never gotten anyone in his medbay who’d survived an encounter with Deadlock -- he’d only seen what was left of them.
Deadlock was not a mech with a reputation for kindness.
And yet.
Ratchet worked his intake and stared harder at the wall. He didn’t see the point in it. Not in Deadlock’s so-called kindness or his own functioning. It had been so long since his capture, since Ironhide and Bluestreak’s deaths, he doubted rescue. If the Autobots knew where he was, they’d have come by now. If they didn’t already think him dead.
He might as well be dead.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option. They’d hobbled him. They’d collared him. They’d put an inhibitor claw on him. They watched him too closely.
Ratchet belonged to the Decepticons until they grew tired of him, and that was the truth of things.
He cycled a ventilation, shuttered his optics, and tried to power down for a stasis nap. He doubted he’d get more than an hour in before someone showed up to make use of him. Skywarp was a frequent visitor, and it was getting close to his usual routine. But half a stasis nap was better than none when it came to forestalling inevitable glitches.
Which made it all the more surprising when he onlined after a solid, full recharge cycle without having been disturbed.
Ratchet’s processor was groggy and out of sorts, struggling to connect to his active queue. He woke up aching, everything aching, overheated from his repair nanites working more than overtime to fix some of the damage caused by the repeated assaults.
He hadn’t completed a full recharge cycle since the start of the war.
Ratchet sat up, confused. If it weren’t for the stench of interfacing still clinging to his frame, and the residual ache in his valve and jaw, he’d have thought he were in the midst of a dream. But he wasn’t.
Minutes ticked by. Then hours.
No one came for him. No Decepticons showed up to leer at him, to tell him in great detail all the ways he was of use for the Decepticon use, to taunt him with the fact the Autobots had made no efforts to rescue him. Hook had not arrived to drag him to the medbay, technically to make use of his medical skills, but to bend him over a medberth more often than not.
Neither did Megatron appear to demand his services.
Ratchet was on the verge of standing up and calling out to the guard for an explanation, because the waiting was worse than being used, when he heard footsteps approaching. He wasn’t sure who to expect -- Hook, perhaps. He was the likeliest candidate.
Deadlock stepped into view, carrying a cube of energon that looked to be mid-grade. “Recharge well?” He offered the energon through the bars.
Ratchet squinted, but he stood to accept the cube nonetheless. He’d stopped being suspicious and scanning the cube some days -- Months? Years? -- back. Sometimes they were spiked, sometimes they weren’t. It was never something that would kill him. It didn’t matter.
“What do you want?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock looked him up and down, but there was no heat in his optics. “You’re filthy.” He unlocked the door. “Come on.”
The door swung open. Deadlock held out a hand, but made no effort to come into the cell and pull Ratchet from it.
Did he actually want Ratchet to come to him? That was new.
Ratchet sighed. “And who wants my services this time?” He gripped his energon like a lifeline, popped the seal, and took a heavy swig in between questions. Fast enough to finish it without causing his tank to upset.
He’d learned how much the Decepticons liked to taunt him with fuel just for fun.
“No one,” Deadlock said. His hand remained offered.
Ratchet took another gulp and edged out of his cell. Deadlock took his arm in much the same way he did yesterday, though his grip wasn’t unnecessarily firm or bruising. It was matter of fact. He made no attempt to grope Ratchet.
“What are you doing?” Ratchet asked, pointlessly. Deadlock had yet to answer that question.
Deadlock towed him out of the prison and across the hall, an assault on Ratchet’s optics as they moved from the dim prison to the bright corridor. The smell of solvent and polish hit Ratchet’s sensors a few seconds before Deadlock pushed open a door to reveal a public washrack with several, unoccupied stalls.
“Clean up.” Deadlock released his arm and gestured to the racks. “Take all the time you need.”
Ah.
Deadlock was one of the fastidious ones.
Ratchet finished his energon, handed the empty back to his current jailer, and went to the furthest stall. It would, technically, put him out of sight from Deadlock, but the Decepticon didn’t protest. He didn’t try to join Ratchet in the stall or ogle him either -- which was usually the payment extracted for letting Ratchet clean himself.
For several long, long minutes, Ratchet had a semblance of peace. Maybe even privacy. He couldn’t see any cameras, which didn’t mean there weren’t any, only that he couldn’t see them. He peeked out and saw Deadlock standing in the doorway, looking into the hall, one hand on his blaster as though ensuring Ratchet would have privacy.
Fastidious and possessive. Well, he wouldn’t be the first.
Ratchet scrubbed himself raw, taking advantage of the universal supplies. He scrubbed out his seams, his joints, he rinsed out his mouth and even though it was painful, he sprayed out his valve as well, grimacing as old transfluid sloughed out of him.
“They told me you brought him here.”
“And?”
“And I want my turn with the shareware!”
The raised voices echoed a little too well in the washrack. Ratchet edged to the end of the wall and peered around it. Deadlock stood toe to toe with a Decepticon who was half-again his height. Ratchet’s internals went icy-cold.
Black Shadow was rarely aboard the Nemesis, but when he was, he delighted in exploring a variety of creative tortures on Ratchet. Blackshadow cared less about the fragging, and more about the sadism, delighting in seeing how quickly or loudly he could make Ratchet scream.
Worse, Blackshadow tended to have plenty of uninterrupted time with Ratchet because few mechs were willing to go against him for a turn. Only Megatron or one of the other commanders had the authority.
“No,” Deadlock said.
Black Shadow loomed over him, optics dark like coal-fire, large and imposing, but everything in Deadlock’s posture was lazy and unconcerned. He went so far as to effect a yawn and pick at his talons.
“No!?” Black Shadow’s outrage was a loud, tangible thing. “Who are you to fragging tell me what I can and can’t do?” He pointed in Ratchet’s direction, and Ratchet hurriedly ducked back into the stall. “I want it.”
“We don’t always get what we want,” Deadlock said, his tone completely mild. “Go away, Black Shadow. It would be embarrassing if I had to kill you right here.”
Black Shadow made an inarticulate noise of anger. His engine growled loud enough to echo into the washrack. Ratchet had no idea what Deadlock did, but the next sound was Black Shadow stomping away, because no one came into the washrack to drag Ratchet out of it.
He finished cleaning up as quickly as possible, and toweled off with the same speed. The washracks were filled with steam, and he kept his audials cocked for the slightest sound. He heard no further altercations, and every time the glanced toward Deadlock, the Decepticon was peering lazily into the hallway, a hand on one of his blasters.
Ratchet avoided the mirror. He was clean, but still bare, and aware of how ready-to-use he now presented.
He wasn’t clean at all.
Ratchet tossed the damp towel toward the bin in the corner and dragged his feet to rejoin Deadlock. What would it be, he wondered. Would he spend the evening on his knees? On his face? On his back?
Did it matter?
Deadlock straightened as Ratchet stepped within arm’s reach. He looked Ratchet up and down without a word before he nodded and took Ratchet by the arm. He pulled Ratchet across the hallway, right back to the prison.
“You got me clean so you could frag me in my cell?”
“I have no interest in fragging you,” Deadlock said.
Ratchet’s optics narrowed. He let himself be led, past the leering Decepticon at the guardstation, and back to his cell. The closest thing he had to home these days.
“Why?” Ratchet demanded.
He hated not knowing. He’d rather get the fragging over with so he wouldn’t have to worry about when it would come. It was worse when he was clean and rested and a bit repaired.
Maybe that was the point.
Deadlock didn’t answer him. He kept his silence until Ratchet was safely ensconced in his cell once more. The door was locked, and Deadlock stood on the other side of the bars, peering through them at Ratchet. He stood there for several ventilations, staring, until his lips curved into a little smile.
“It’s such a shame,” he said. “I thought you’d recognize me by now.”
“You’re Deadlock.” Ratchet sat on his cot and stared back at Deadlock. He didn’t know what game the Decepticon was playing, but he wasn’t amused. “I know who you are.”
“You know who I was, too.” Deadlock’s smile broadened at the edges. “Once upon a time you told me I had the potential to be something special, but I guess you told all the half-dead leakers that.”
Ratchet stared at Deadlock, running the words through his memory banks, until the echoes of them pinged back a memory. It was from before the war when he’d worked at Dead End’s clinic, donating his time in a vain effort to save the dregs of Cybertronian society. He started out encouraging all the mechs he saved, until reality caught up to him, and eventually, he stopped bothering.
“Turns out, Drift made something of himself after all,” Deadlock said once the silence grew too heavy between them. He tipped forward in an elaborate bow. “Nice to see you again, doc.”
Drift.
Ratchet paged through his databanks until the designation brought up a moment in time, a handsome leaker who had potential like all the others, but nowhere to direct his passion. The image was grainy in his memory banks, but he recalled the half-starved frame, the filth caking the seams, the daze of a mech who’d half-fried his processor on stims, desperately searching for something to give him meaning.
Apparently, he’d found it in Megatron and the Decepticons.
“Drift,” Ratchet echoed, this time with recognition in his vocals. “In better circumstances, I’d be glad to see you again, too.”
“Better circumstances.” Deadlock looked all around the confines of Ratchet’s cell, eyeing the thickness of the bars, the distance between them. “It’s a role reversal, isn’t it?”
Was it revenge? Did that explain Deadlock’s behavior? Was he waiting to build Ratchet up so he could tear him down all over again?
“So it would seem,” Ratchet said. He pressed his knees together, acutely aware that his interface array was bare and visible. It suddenly felt unseemly despite the fact Deadlock had seen him pinned beneath the Constructicons the day before.
Deadlock smiled at him, and there was something soft in it, something that almost reminded him of Drift. “It’s my turn to help you,” he said, and then he rapped his knuckles on the bars. “Get some recharge, Ratchet. You look like you could use more.”
“Help me?” Ratchet echoed, stammering on the words, but Deadlock had no answer for him.
He turned and walked away while Ratchet’s processor stuttered on the revelation and the implications therein. He’d saved a mech who turned out to be one of the most violent Decepticons, who’d left so many guttering sparks on Ratchet’s operating table. And now that mech was… protecting him?
“Black Shadow made threats.” Deadlock’s voice floated back down the hall. “Do I need to remind you of the circumstances of Ratchet’s confinement?”
“No, sir.” The guard’s voice was softer, and it wavered. Clearly, he feared Deadlock. “Ratchet’s under your protection. I remember.”
“He’s mine,” Deadlock said, the growl echoing back to Ratchet. “No one touches him. And if I find out someone has, I’m blaming you.”
Deadlock’s footsteps departed the prison, the echoes of his threat lingering. Ratchet sat on his berth, processor whirling.
One good deed from centuries ago might be what saves him now. It was almost too good to be true, too much to be believed.
But Ratchet was clean. He was fueled. And clearly, Deadlock had staked some kind of claim.
Whether or not it would be respected was another matter entirely.
Deadlock went back to his habsuite and relaxed for the first time since boarding the Nemesis. Ensuring Lord Megatron’s plans were on the right course had taken every moment of the last couple of days, but now that all the pieces were in place, he could cycle a ventilation.
He powered on his workstation, logged into the system, and brought up the surveillance feed from Ratchet’s cell. The medic had curled up on the berth once more, back to the bars, facing the wall. He appeared to be attempting to recharge.
Good.
One or two more cycles of uninterrupted recharge would make Ratchet think he was safe. It would be proof of Deadlock’s protection. Of course, he’d need a few more demonstrations, but this was a mission of patience and subtlety, not speed and chaos.
Every little step was as important as the larger picture.
Maybe, when it was all said and done, Deadlock would still get to frag Ratchet. He just wouldn’t have to hold the medic down to do it.
Mmm. Now there was a thought. Ratchet riding his spike willingly? Ratchet dropping to his knees and eagerly sucking down Deadlock’s spill? He’d look good on his knees, where he belonged. He’d look even better painted in Deadlock’s transfluid.
Deadlock’s engine revved.
He kept the feed pulled up. While he’d publicly staked his claim, there were still mechs who’d push their luck. Deadlock couldn’t inform the crew of Lord Megatron’s plan or it wouldn’t work. Their behavior had to be genuine in order for Ratchet to believe it. Which meant Deadlock had to actually keep an optic out, and be prepared to intervene for the inevitable moment someone decided to push their luck.
Ratchet recharged.
Deadlock watched. He put a motion sensor trigger on the feed so that if Ratchet moved, or someone approached the cell, he’d get a notification, and then Deadlock let himself recharge, too.
He’d give Ratchet a handful of shift cycles without being disturbed, and then he’d move into the next phase of the plan.
It was all a matter of patience.
Several cycles passed.
Ratchet was left in peace. He recharged without being disturbed. No one came for him. No one dragged him to the medbay. No one visited his cell for a little one on one action. He wasn’t summoned by Megatron.
Perhaps Deadlock’s protection was sincere. Maybe it actually meant something.
His frame healed, little by little, repair nanites working feverishly now that they were able to focus on their tasks without having to redirect to some new damage. The daily ache in his entire frame shifted to being localized, and then it eased to an occasional throb when he moved.
He recharged.
Sometimes, when he onlined, there was a cube of energon or a decanter of coolant waiting just inside the doorway to his cell. Whoever brought them had made every effort not to disturb Ratchet, hadn’t ventured any further inside save to leave the fluids before locking the door once more.
For several cycles, Ratchet’s worst issue was boredom. And suspicion. How long would this reprieve last? It wasn’t the first time he’d been left alone, only for Megatron to summon him when he was at his most optimistic. Those were the times Megatron had something particularly nasty planned.
Ratchet started to pace.
Rested and refueled, he had an abundance of energy and nowhere to place it. The confines of his cell wrapped around him, reminding him of his predicament. It was easier to tolerate when he was in pain, exhausted, and half out of his mind with delirium. Now, almost one-hundred percent recovered, it was a renewed torture.
Deadlock showed up sometime around Ratchet’s two-hundredth route around his cell. He stood on the other side of the bars, his face assembled into something that resembled apology.
“You look better,” he said.
“Uninterrupted recharge helps.” Ratchet approached the bars, close enough he could reach between them if he wanted. Not that he did.
Deadlock nodded slowly. “What else?”
“Going home,” Ratchet supplied because why not. It didn’t hurt to ask for an impossibility.
“That’s not something I can do yet.” Deadlock’s gaze traced the perimeters of the cell. “Try again.”
Ratchet crossed his arms, chuffing a ventilation. “Fine. I’m bored.”
“Now that I can help fix.” Deadlock smiled at him, slow and careful, almost shyly if Ratchet had to describe the curve of his lips. As if he was trying to conceal the sharp fangs Drift hadn’t bore. “Let me see what I can do.”
He turned to go, and Ratchet swallowed down the urge to ask him to stay, if only because he was company who did not immediately demand Ratchet get on his knees or spread his legs.
Ratchet sighed and went back to his bunk, slumping down onto it. The boredom came back with a vengeance, so he fiddled with his fingers, trying to scrape out the accumulated gunk that the rinse in the washracks had missed. He didn’t have access to his manipulators, but it was a decent distraction at the least.
He heard footsteps as Deadlock returned, and Ratchet’s spark performed a completely unnecessary flip-flop of relief. He looked up and stood, ready to see what Deadlock had brought him for entertainment, only for ice to dredge though his lines.
Cutthroat stared back at him through the bars, grinning, his talons clicking across the metal as he worked the key into the lock. “Hello, Ratchet,” he purred as Ratchet unconsciously took a step back, though there was nowhere to go. “Miss me?”
No.
Absolutely not.
Ratchet bared his denta, hands forming his fists. There were few Decepticons he actively attempted to dissuade, and Cutthroat was one of them. Rape wasn’t good enough for Cutthroat, no. He liked to hurt. To rip and tear. He’d rendered Ratchet unconscious on more than one occasion, sending him to Hook’s merciless care every time.
“Frag off!” Ratchet snarled as the door swung open with a metallic creak, and Cutthroat wedged himself inside, nearly too large to fit into the cell.
He wasn’t one to care about dragging Ratchet elsewhere.
Cutthroat chuckled. “That’s exactly what I plan to do,” he said before he lunged, and there was nowhere for Ratchet to go.
He ineffectually threw a punch, but Cutthroat snatched his wrist, squeezing tight enough to make several struts bend and one snap. Pain lanced through Ratchet’s right arm as Cutthroat yanked him forward. Ratchet tried to claw at his intake with his other hand and stars danced in his optics as Cutthroat backhanded him.
He staggered, processor reeling, only to jerk to sharp awareness as Cutthroat spun him toward the berth and twisted his arm behind his back. Ratchet’s shattered wrist sent pulses of agony through his arm, and his shoulder echoed the pain as it was wrenched to the limits of his flexibility.
Ratchet slapped his free hand on the berth, all that saved him from smacking his face into the rough surface of it. Cutthroat kicked his legs apart, wedging his massive frame between Ratchet’s thighs.
“Get off me!” Ratchet snarled, his vocals reaching a panicked pitch. He struggled in Cutthroat's grip, but the Decepticon shoved his wrist up higher, and Ratchet’s shoulder shrieked at him.
“Be still,” Cutthroat said, his ventilations already hot and unsteady as he vented down at Ratchet. He smacked Ratchet again, the heavy weight of his hand addling Ratchet’s processor. “You know it’s easier if you’re still.”
Ratchet tried to push himself away from the berth with his free hand, but Cutthroat grabbed it and pinned it against his back with the other. He only needed one hand to hold both of Ratchet’s wrists, which left the other free to pin Ratchet’s head down to the berth. He used the weight of his frame against Ratchet’s head, and it was a terrifying pressure, the thinner plates creaking as they struggled to bear the mass.
The blunt pressure of a spike nudged against Ratchet’s bared valve, and damn Deadlock. Damn him for letting Ratchet heal up enough to make this particularly brutal, for his valve to cycle back to fully functional just in time for Cutthroat of all mechs to use him.
“That’s better,” Cutthroat purred as he rocked against Ratchet’s valve, smearing pre-fluid all over his folds and aft.
The head of his spike poked at Ratchet’s valve, grinding against the opening, and Ratchet ground his denta, loosing a ragged ventilation. His fans whined, try as he might not to show his fear, but he reeked of it. There was no bracing, but Ratchet squeezed his optics shut anyway.
“Get off him!”
The weight abruptly vanished from Ratchet’s back, and he gasped as Cutthroat’s hands lost their grip on his wrists, but not before tugging his arms nearly from their sockets. Ratchet collapsed forward, shoulders in agony, but forcing motion into his knees and feet, away from where Cutthroat should have been behind him, but wasn’t anymore.
He pressed himself into the corner, cradling his fractured wrist, optics wide as Deadlock slammed Cutthroat into the bars -- twice -- and then punched him solidly in the face. While he was yet reeling, Deadlock shoved him out of the open door. Cutthroat stumbled and fell, Deadlock descending on him again, talons out, raking heavy furrows into the thinnest parts of Cutthroat’s armor.
Energon splattered out, the stench of it thick in the air.
“Ratchet is mine!” Deadlock snarled as he attacked, each blow meant to hurt, but not kill, as he sliced through cables and sensitive junctions, while Cutthroat tried and failed to defend himself. “Don’t touch him again!”
Cutthroat howled with pain, the distinct whine of a cannon cycling up rising through the noisy violence, but before Cutthroat could fumble for his weapon, Deadlock had a blaster aimed at his face, the ready-lights gleaming brightly.
“This is your only warning,” Deadlock said, perched over him, blaster ready to fire and talons dripping energon. “Next time, I’ll take your spike.”
“Let me up!” Cutthroat snapped, though his field leaked a fear as acrid as Ratchet’s own. He had twice the mass on Deadlock, but it was hard to ignore a blaster pressed to your forehead, ready to splatter your processor across the floor.
The blaster whined as if desperate to release its charge. “Say it,” Deadlock growled.
“Frag you!” Cutthroat snarled, but the energon had drained from his facial derma, and there was no hiding the reek of fear in his field. “You want that piece of shareware, you can have it.”
The smack of metal on metal made Ratchet flinch, while Cutthroat howled, the grip of Deadlock’s blaster leaving a thick furrow over Cutthroat’s cheek. He narrowly escaped losing an optic.
“Go.” Deadlock’s tone was ice-cold, finger still on the trigger, gesturing with it. “Now.”
Cutthroat scrambled to his feet and scurried down the hall. If he’d been a predacon, his tail would’ve been tucked between his legs. He cast a murderous glare over his shoulder, but Deadlock seemed unperturbed.
He thumbed off his blaster and holstered it.
Ratchet felt no relief in watching Cutthroat flee. “He’ll be back,” he said as Deadlock eased into the cell, though he hovered in the doorway, his face an unreadable mask.
“Then next time, I’ll kill him,” Deadlock said. He cocked his head, optics scanning a quick flick over Ratchet’s frame. “How injured are you?”
“Does it matter?” Ratchet snapped. He sagged into the corner, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll heal. I always heal.”
Deadlock inched closer, but when Ratchet flinched, he stopped and dropped into a crouch instead. He braced his elbows on his knees, head cocked.
“That should not have happened. I apologize,” he said. “I think it would be better if I moved you to a more secure location.”
Ah, there it was.
“And where would that be?” Ratchet asked.
Deadlock twisted one wrist, his shoulders rolling in a shrug. “My quarters. No one has that access code but myself. Soundwave. Lord Megatron, of course.” He vented a quiet sigh. “My influence does not extend to Lord Megatron, I’m afraid.”
Ratchet wished he were surprised.
Still.
He gnawed on the offer. He stared at Deadlock, who stared back at him unflinching.
Ratchet had been shareware for whomever in the crew wanted him once they’d left the base and Megatron took up position on the Nemesis. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to only have to submit to one mech? Deadlock seemed keen on treating him as a pet rather than a toy.
And Ratchet had a better chance of surviving under Deadlock’s ownership. Deadlock might slip up, give him access to a console or a workstation. He could find a way to broadcast something to the Autobots, if not for a rescue, at least to inform them where the Decepticon warship liked to make its berth.
“It’ll be easier to keep you safe,” Deadlock said as he looked around the room, nasal ridge wrinkling. “More comfortable, too.”
“Megatron won’t approve,” Ratchet said.
Deadlock shook his head and gave Ratchet a fanged grin. “Lord Megatron’s the one who gave you to me.” He paused and then ducked his head, rubbing the back of it. “I mean, not that you’re a thing to be owned.”
Except for the fact Ratchet clearly was.
He left that comment alone.
Ratchet cycled a ventilation. He didn’t think he had a choice either way. He could stay in this cell, and hope Deadlock’s offer of protection was genuine for the next time Cutthroat decided to venture down here, or one of the Constructicons decided they missed him in the medbay. Or he could willingly take his chances with Deadlock.
“Fine,” Ratchet said.
Deadlock’s grin was almost puppy-like for it’s joy. He stood and offered a hand down to Ratchet. “No time like the present.”
A better time would’ve been ten minutes earlier, before Cutthroat almost raped him again, and most certainly fractured his ulnar strut.
Ratchet took the hand and let Deadlock pull him to his feet, where he swayed at the sudden surge of motion. His shoulders ached. His face throbbed, derma sure to swell after both of Cutthroat’s open palm slaps.
Primus, he was exhausted.
“Do you want me to get one of the medics, or would you rather take care of yourself?” Deadlock asked.
“No one’s fragging touching me,” Ratchet growled. His knees, however, betrayed him, and he wobbled, leaning heavily on Deadlock’s side.
Damn if the mech wasn’t warm, his engine idling at a gentle enough vibration to soothe the anxiety rattling around Ratchet’s lines.
“Fair,” Deadlock said. “Come on, doc. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
Ratchet bit his glossa on the snide reply. That so long as he was aboard the Nemesis, no place was safe, no matter what Deadlock tried to convince him of.
He didn’t trust Deadlock at all, but belonging to the vicious killer was better than the alternative, so Ratchet let Deadlock pull him out of the cell. He limped along with the Decepticon as they exited the prison and headed toward what Ratchet could only assume were Deadlock’s private quarters.
It might be better; it might be worse, but enough was enough. It might also be Ratchet’s only opportunity to escape.
Or die trying.
