For the eighth time in three cycles, the yellow transformer found himself gravitating to his leader's office, even though it was completely out of the way of the makeshift med bay wherewith he normally ensconced himself. This time, Ratchet tucked his chin guard and determinedly kept going instead of turning back as he had the previous seven times. He'd seen and faced horrors that no other Autobot could comprehend and yet this interrogation had him on tenterhooks…it just didn't make sense…was he afraid of Starscream? Ha. Hardly. If he were honest with himself—and who else could he be honest to?—he was afraid of himself.
Ever since his electrocution at the Witwicky's residence, he'd been remembering things. Things he'd thought long since filed away in a quarantined module. Like how nice the tingle of electrocution could be…
Passing a low table, he lightly kicked it aside. Why did it have to be the MEDIC that always interrogated the captive? True, he'd built a reputation with his reticulating buzzsaw and generally gruff demeanor, but didn't they understand? Didn't Optimus understand? It was like…
It was like giving a bot his arch enemy to escort to jail, the temptation to do more than his duty was just too great. It was an opportunity to…explore…
Yeah. Explore. That's all it was.
Right…
Hatchet.
That old name cleaved through his consciousness like a harbinger of permanent disassembly. He'd changed everything…his colors, his alt form, his approach to life (and disassembly)…all to follow Optimus when the Prime had offered an alternative path…
He scrubbed his left palm over his facial plating in a human gesture of stressed nerves.
Did Optimus remember? Would he allow Ratchet to proceed as he was about to request? As things stood, it was all the yellow Autobot could do to simply irritate and nag Starscream for information, something in which he would normally take great pleasure. Too much pleasure, as a matter of fact.
Hatchet.
Pacing back and forth in front of his leader's office at the Air Force base they'd been using since shortly after Mission City, Ratchet fought between asking Optimus to pass the duty on to Ironhide, or asking for permission to advance in his methods.
The Decepticon Air Commander, now possibly the Decepticon leader (although what a joke THAT would be), had not been in the least helpful with any information on other landings or on Omega Six's location. All Ratchet had been able to get out of Starscream so far was a bogus frequency code and random Earth-songs blared at irritating levels. He had to give it to the flier, he could hold up under light torture. Not that anything he'd done so far could really be called torture. Oh no, the medic thought as he gazed out the open hangar bay towards the distant mountains, purple with the sunrise behind them.
No, there were many…MANY more things he could be doing to make the Decepticon divulge information. He just couldn't let himself go that far without permission. He'd promised Optimus so many vorns ago… He turned back to ponder the steel door separating him from the answer to his burning request. Primus, how could Optimus not have linked the memories yet? When the Autobot leader had still been a new Prime, Ratchet was slated for a different…faction. He didn't want to access the memory file for the exact circumstances, but there had been…a reason Optimus wanted his recollection of recruiting Ratchet…Hatchet…deleted.
The problem with that was, one could never fully delete a memory file from a Prime. For that matter, it was difficult to remove files from any bot, but Primes were impossible. It would have only been a matter of time before his benevolent leader would regain the file path to that memory. And from the looks of things, from the looks Ratchet had been receiving from Optimus…especially now that part of Megatron's core had merged with the Prime drive? If Optimus hadn't put two and two together yet, he soon would.
Ratchet had known from day-one after the file-path redirection that it was only a matter of time. The proverbial clock was ticking…
Which was the conundrum right now. Should he go ahead and ask for permission to advance, knowing that the results might "out" him to his leader, possibly destroying the delicate relationship he had with his team members? Or should he relegate the position to a less…tempted candidate? The problem was that he REALLY wanted that temptation. Not only the chance to…explore…but also the chance to make sure he absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt could come back from that void again. It had been so long since he was known as Hatchet, he wasn't quite sure if he could do it. Was that still a part of his functionality, or had it been overwritten by vorns and vorns of medical code?
Monitoring Optimus' stability over the past few orns following the merge with Megatron's core had made Ratchet curious about his own personality changes. He'd gone so long without…exploring…that he wondered if it was still in him to do it.
And Starscream was the perfect opportunity to find out.
He turned another pace, wincing as his pede screeched against the concrete floor. His signal picked up an external scan, forcing a ventilation exhaust—humans called it a sigh. Optimus knew he was here, now, so he might as well go in.
/Chief Medic Autobot Ratchet requesting permission to enter/
Surprise, concern and a sense of immediacy stumbled over the private comm frequency as the door slid sideways on rubber casters. He met his leader's blue optics for the first time in joors as the forty-foot Prime stood up and stepped around the scaled desk they'd built from a C-47 wing. Ratchet remembered lasing the wing off the fuselage and showing off to Maggie just to irritate Ironhide.
Optimus interrupted his temporary sidetrack of thought. "What is it, old friend? Why the formality?"
Ratchet blinked his apertures, ground his vocal keys in a fidgety motion and finally said, "Sir, I…permission to speak freely?"
Optimus' optic ridges furrowed. Mercedes' myriad expressions grew on them all, daily, it seemed. "Is something wrong?"
Doggedly, he awaited permission, which Optimus realized and gave with a small amount of irritation, laced with a growing sense of wariness. Primus, but he almost wished he didn't have the deeper cognizance that allowed him to sense more than met the optic. Sometimes it just made things more frustrating than facile.
"Starscream is not producing results from his current level of interrogation. I'd like to request an advanced procedure involving more…" here it was, now or never… how to put it? "Decepticon-like techniques."
The wariness turned to a dead stillness. That was something interesting about Optimus' merge with Megatron's core remnant. They'd come to realize that whenever there was an internal discussion between the two leaders…brothers…Ratchet could not sense anything from the Prime. What were they discussing? What did the core remnant impart to Optimus about Ratchet's past? This not-knowing made him nervous. "Sir, I know it's not in Autobot interrogation SOP, but we need to know what he knows. If Omega IS coming, as Mercedes predicted, we need to know when in order to make the necessary preparations."
His leader's features were once again doused in surprise. "I was about to agree with you for the same reason, but you've never felt the need to justify your requests before, Ratchet. Why now? You know we're under pressure from the human governments to provide information. This is paramount to our residence on Earth."
Fluid levels fluctuated internally. THAT was what unnerved him about the stillnesses that indicated an internal conversation. Optimus had never approved torture for any reason before the merge, even though it was more often than not requested in a joking manner and by their Weapons Specialist. Ever since the merge, however, Optimus was more…balanced. It was strange to see after thousands of vorns.
"I…" Honesty usually worked rather well with Prime. "Your silences unnerve me. I'm used to you thinking aloud." Ratchet held his exhaust, waiting to see if the partial truth would fly.
Optimus nodded reluctantly and the medic slowly relaxed. "Bear in mind I don't want him dismantled in any way, shape, or form. He is still under our protection, so don't do anything you can't easily repair in this facility." Ageless blue optics, much older than they should be, pierced Ratchet's own to gain understanding. Was his calibration off, or were his optics a bit more…violet? Interesting. Something else to log in Optimus' maintenance file.
"Of course, Prime." His mind immediately mapped out any parts he would need from the F-15 retired in the next hangar. There would need to be some serious machine work to upgrade the old human flight mechanisms to the newer F-22 alt that Starscream had adopted, but humans had nothing like his tools.
It started to dawn on him that he had permission to go ahead with his…explorations…and there didn't seem to be any repercussions concerning his past. Could it have been that easy? Or was Prime playing it close? Ratchet would do nearly anything to keep his camaraderie active amongst his team… And most especially Optimus, the one bot that had given him the gift of productivity to balance out his naturally destructive programming. He silently awaited his leader's dismissal, standing at attention, waiting for nothing and everything…
Optimus observed Ratchet's stance and sighed through his vent stacks in humored irritation. "That's ridiculous and you know it." He gestured out of the office. "Go on. Get that information."
He didn't have to be told twice. This just might work out. He could have a taste of his old personality after thousands of vorns and still keep the precarious balance he'd built amongst his teammates. "Yes, Sir." With renewed enthusiasm, Ratchet eagerly turned away and headed back the way he came. Now…where had he seen that pair of jumper cables?